Hannah Middleton
He didn’t know it then, but clearly the most transformative event in the formative years of Jeff Garnett was a move to Glen Rose as a teenager.
Having spent the first 12 years near Houston, the move to the whiskey woods capital of the state was “kind of a culture shock.”
“My dad was really wanting to get us out of the city and into a small town,” Garnett says through a Zoom meeting, “and he just happened to be driving toward Stephenville and saw the view kind of, you know, by Chalk Mountain, and he said, ‘I think we should move here.’
“So, it was a big, bold move, but I'm glad he did it. It fully changed my life.”
In the grand architecture of this game called life, Glen Rose was the solid platform that served as the essential foundation upon Garnet built a future.
Jeff Garnett
A licensed architect with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UT Arlington, Garnett’s first job in the Hill Country focused on a “little bit of everything,” commercial, residential, healthcare, “literally every product type.”
A job in Austin followed but given the chance, he moved back to Glen Rose with his wife, whom he met there in high school, and children.
Today, he has a thriving architectural firm — a two-man shop — on the town square. From there, he is reimagining plots in the West with award-winning designs primarily in the residential genre.
Five times his designs have been recognized by professional peer organizations, including three by the Fort Worth division of The American Institute of Architects.
Garnett, 39, went the entrepreneurial route in his industry because it allowed him to get more interesting projects.
“My drive and ambition is just to do exciting work,” he says. "The ambition to design, that's my true passion. That really is what fuels all of this.”
He also has the license to be more selective on what he takes on.
Costa Christ
“I've always wanted to have an office in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “I also wanted to also have an office on the town square. I didn't know which was going to hit first, but I saw an empty lot here on the Glen Rose square."
Garnett’s practice has evolved into one that spans ranch houses, lake homes, and remote retreats, as well as urban properties and other installations.
The Frazier Conservatory was a 2022 AIA Fort Worth Studio Award winner. It’s a private retreat in Erath County built into the natural environment unique to that part of Texas.
A minimalist architect who focuses on creating designs that emphasize simplicity, functionality, and the elimination of unnecessary elements, Garnett always tries to incorporate natural, native materials into his designs.
His designs prioritize the integration of outdoor and indoor space, emphasizing the importance of retreat and serenity. Of his current projects, one is a ranch home in Montana.
Garnett's architectural journey began as a child and his fascination with old barns, stone ruins, and the Texas landscape.
“As early as I can remember, I wanted to be an architect,” he says. “I have very clear memories of being in the back of our family car. I was the youngest of three boys, so, I was always in the back seat. That was my happy place as a kid on road trips and even just going to the local grocery store. I just loved to look out the window. I always remember really paying attention to the buildings around me.
“Living in the suburbs back in the day, I remember criticizing some of the redundancy and repetition. I've always wondered what would have happened if I would have never left the city as a teenager. I think I would have absolutely still been an architect, but I feel like I would have probably gone a little bit different route.”
He’s influenced by West Texas, even though “I’m not intentionally trying to do that.”
“I've been told that a lot, that, ‘Hey, your designs have a West Texas vibe.”
His father is from the Marfa-Alpine region, so, the family spent a lot of time out there.
“I guess it just kind of comes out a little bit,” he says. “But a lot of it, too, is just growing up even just around Somerville County and Glen Rose. There’s so many old stone buildings and cedar clad buildings. I really appreciated that because it felt timeless to me.”
Another of his award-winning projects is his office building, which sits on a small plat on the Somervell County Courthouse square. The courthouse was erected in 1893, two years before the Tarrant County Courthouse.
The design as recently published in Texas Architect Magazine.
“I've always wanted to have an office in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “I also wanted to also have an office on the town square. I didn't know which was going to hit first, but I saw an empty lot here on the Glen Rose square. There are not many empty lots on Texas squares. There was a small, narrow lot here. I jumped on it. I bought it and about a year later started construction on it. It was a fun, fun project.”
The studio building carefully slips between the existing adjacent buildings and is intentionally minimal in both size and proportions out of respect for the surrounding historical context. The front façade is slightly recessed — by approximately 8 inches — in relation to the adjacent historic buildings, allowing the historic masonry of each neighboring structure to turn their respective inside corners 1 full brick course, providing a subtle distinction between old and new.
The front facade facing the street consists of native limestone, board formed concrete elements, and custom steel windows and doors. The building signage is intentionally secondary, allowing the materials to be the primary focus.
An approximately 35-foot-tall existing rubble stone wall sits directly adjacent to the studio. This historic side wall was the driving force behind the entire design scheme — natural lighting, historic appreciation, and strategic design restraint.
“This studio was such a small project — smaller than I usually do — but it really captures what I'm about in my design philosophy,” says Garnett. “As architects we can let our egos get in the way and go over the top in our designs. But sometimes restraint, and an emphasis on the space outside and not just the space inside makes for a greater ‘wow’ factor. By offsetting the building, I made it smaller, but with that outside space, it gained something magnificent.”
