I’ve spent enough time at 997 Big Sandy Road lately that I’ve started to think the most interesting thing about the property might be the thing that isn’t there.
The main house.
There are 60 acres outside Johnson City. There’s a big silver barn with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a wood stove and enormous sliding doors that make the whole place feel halfway between a house and a really good place to spend a Saturday.
There’s another building nearby with more living space, another kitchen and bath, and a big conditioned room that can become whatever somebody needs it to become.
Then somebody went and built a wood-fired sauna.
And a hot tub.
At which point you start to realize these people had their priorities pretty well sorted out.
There’s a deck overlooking the property. A well. Solar. A gated entrance. Big oak trees. Long views. Wildlife wandering around.
And toward the end of the day, the kind of western light that makes you forget whatever you were supposed to be doing.
What there isn’t is the big finished Hill Country house sitting in the middle of all of it.
At first, that can seem like the missing piece.
I’ve started to think it may be the opportunity.
Most acreage properties come with somebody else’s answer already sitting on them.
Somebody decided where the house should go. How big it should be. Which direction the living room should face. Where the porch belongs. Whether the kitchen needed three ovens and a refrigerator roughly the size of a Suburban.
You inherit all those decisions along with the land.
Big Sandy is different.
A surprising amount of the expensive, complicated and frankly more entertaining stuff is already here.
You could come out for a weekend tomorrow. Or stay considerably longer than a weekend. Friends could come with you. There are places to cook, sleep, gather, work out, sit around and generally disappear from regular life for a while.
You can even sit in a wood-fired sauna, walk outside and watch the sun disappear behind the hills.
Which is not a terrible way to wait on an architect.
Because through all of that, the most important decision is still yours.
Where would you put the house?
That question gets more interesting once you spend some time walking the property.
There are gently rolling sections, mature oaks, open areas and long views in several directions. Spend enough time out there and you start doing what everybody does on a good piece of land.
You begin mentally building things.
Maybe here.
No, wait. Over there.
Actually, turn it this direction.
And pretty soon you’ve spent $2 million in imaginary construction without ever leaving the truck.
That might be the fun of Big Sandy.
The property doesn’t require somebody to finish another person’s vision. It gives them enough of a head start to enjoy the place while they figure out their own.
And if a main house eventually gets built, the buildings already there don’t suddenly become obsolete.
The silver barn can become guest quarters. The other building can keep evolving—fitness space, overflow sleeping, studio, office, whatever life happens to require by then.
The retreat simply grows up around the house.
I went out there recently with a drone because I wanted to see whether I could tell that story from the air.
Turns out, 60 acres makes for a pretty good subject.
But the thing I kept noticing while editing the film wasn’t really the buildings.
It was how much land was still around them.
That may be the best way to understand Big Sandy.
The useful pieces are already there.
The big decision isn’t.
And for the right person, that might be exactly the point.