For many years, Beverly Jacomini operated a thriving, Houston-based interior design practice, but dreamt of owning a place where she could retreat and furnish her own home. “My husband and I had three children,” she says, “and I wanted a place in the country. I wanted to have a garden, and to be able to can preserves and get back to nature.”

Soon after she and her husband, Tom, began looking, they purchased a large, bare parcel of land adjacent to a lake in the Winedale area near Round Top, Texas. Since then, the town has become known as the site for one of the nation’s best-known antiques shows, as well as a choice destination for Houstonians seeking a second home, without the hours-long drive west into Hill Country. “When we arrived here, the antiques fair was nothing but a little show in one building,” Jacomini recalls. While looking for the second home, she imagined a place where she could go swimming with her family, and a place where her husband had room to establish a landing strip for his airplane. A short time later, they found their house, situated roughly twenty miles away in the town of Industry, Texas, a farming community overlooking Mill Creek Valley.

“It was a farmhouse, built in 1857,” explains Jacomini, “and it had never been wired for electricity, and had no kitchen or bathroom. The last family to live there had long since moved out, and the owner was using it as a hay barn. It was the house nobody wanted.”

But she and her husband wanted it. “When we first stepped inside,” recalls Beverly, “it was hard to tell what was what, because there were hay bales stacked to the ceiling, and Tommy and I could barely see any of the interior details. We had to climb around all that hay to get a sense of the place, but when we started moving the bales, I saw the stenciling—stenciled border patterns and hand-painted roses.”

This story appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of MILIEU. To read the complete story or to see all photos, visit the MILIEU Newsstand to purchase this issue in print or visit Zinio.com to purchase this issue in digital format.

INTERIOR DESIGN BY BEVERLY JACOMINI

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER VITALE

PRODUCED BY KATRIN CARGILL

WRITTEN BY ED MCCANN