Some stories are a long time in the making, which makes seeing them in print all the more rewarding. Case in point, my latest feature with @gardenandgun on architect Ted Flato’s family ranch in west Texas. It’s been well over a year now since I first started talking with @elizabethkubany and the team @lakeflato about its co-founder’s beloved property, Kickapoo Ranch, where the young architect spent his youth snorkeling with whiskered catfish and cooking outside over an open fire. “It was like Little House on the Prairie, and a lovely way to grow up,” he told me during my visit. Nestled along four miles of the Nueces River, the land has been in Flato’s family since the 1930s, and continues to shape both his personal and professional life. In fact, over his firm’s forty-year history, the ranch has become a laboratory of sorts, and a place to test design concepts such as their signature outdoor showers and sleeping porches. “I often think of my childhood when I walk along the open fields, with the wind on the grass or changing the texture of the river’s surface,” Flato shared. “That exposure really defined my early thoughts on architecture, and those memories drive our decision process when it comes to making shelter at Lake|Flato.” There was so much about this story that I loved, though I particularly enjoyed learning of the ways Kickapoo Ranch became ingrained in the Lake|Flato DNA. Every summer, the team of ~150 employees and their families assemble there for the cheekily named “Flake Lato” retreat, a weekend of brainstorming, river camping, and reveling. “We’re selling this idea of living with the land, yet a lot of us didn’t grow up with that,” said Grace Boudewyns, a Lake|Flato architect who visits each summer. “Coming here was my first experience of how that could work.” Her colleague, the architect Evan Morris, agrees. “Even though this is Ted’s family ranch, there’s a familial quality to the way people in the firm relate to this place,” he shared. “It has a dramatic impact on the way we think as architects.” Pick up a copy of the June / July issue or read online! Big thanks to everyone who made this one possible. ✍🏼 📸: @caseycdunn