Go Inside Hotelier Liz Lambert’s Private Marfa Retreat
‘The Queen of Cool’ turned an old ranch bunkhouse into a West Texas getaway, complete with a dreamy desert bathhouse. No Wi-Fi, no problem.
Black and white photos of Lambert’s grandparents, cousins, mother, and brothers adorn the wall in the kitchen, whose floor is lined with tile that she found at an overstock shop in Houston. “My favorite photograph is one of my grandmom. She’s on horseback. She’s in her twenties or thirties, in a mesquite corral with the cowboys who are branding the cattle. There’s a wood fire with irons in it, and she’s just roped the calf while the horse is holding it taut.” Photograph by Casey Dunn
Black and white photos of Lambert’s grandparents, cousins, mother, and brothers adorn the wall in the kitchen, whose floor is lined with tile that she found at an overstock shop in Houston. “My favorite photograph is one of my grandmom. She’s on horseback. She’s in her twenties or thirties, in a mesquite corral with the cowboys who are branding the cattle. There’s a wood fire with irons in it, and she’s just roped the calf while the horse is holding it taut.” Photograph by Casey Dunn
It’s fitting that the hideaway of one of Texas’s greatest creative minds is found in a one-story, olive-colored stucco home on a dirt road about twelve miles outside of Marfa. After all, “Queen of Cool” Liz Lambert has built her hospitality empire (including the San José and Saint Cecilia hotels in Austin, the Hotel Havana in San Antonio, and Marfa’s El Cosmico) on an aesthetic that’s grounded in minimalism and layered with interesting, authentic details. The structure, built in the sixties, sits on Lambert’s family ranch and once served as a bunkhouse for the foreman—Lambert not only calls the retreat the Bunkhouse, but her hospitality company is called Bunkhouse Group. It was unoccupied when Lambert took it over and transformed it into a stylish retreat, filled with unique finds (a discarded road sign, old oil barrels) and marked by her signature design style. Lambert shares the space with her wife, makeup artist Erin Lee Smith. It’s where they toasted their wedding in 2016—after returning from a ceremony in Tulum—under a big tent beneath the West Texas sky. It’s where they will celebrate the Fourth of July and where they will host one of their long and lingering dinner parties with friends around candlelit farm tables during El Cosmico’s annual Trans-Pecos Festival of Music and Love Festival, which is September 20-23 this year. “It’s almost always where we celebrate Thanksgiving with our large, extended family,” Lambert says. “Even though there are other spots that would be more accommodating, everyone likes to be outside together here—hiking, shooting skeet, or just gathering around the campfire at night.” Take a tour through her welcoming and effortlessly cool rooms (and the ultimate outdoor bathhouse).
The porch of the aptly named Bunkhouse, where Lambert and Smith often gather with family and friends, looks out to Mitre Peak as well as the Davis Mountains. It's one of the couple's vacation homes outside of Austin, where they are based.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
Even though there is no Wi-Fi at the Bunkhouse, Lambert still gets a lot of work done, reading and gathering inspiration for future projects. "It's actually nice that we can't get online when we are here," she says.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
Framed Thomas Müller prints lean on a shelf above her writing desk, which houses other special knick-knacks and found items from the West Texas desert.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
Depending on the mood, Lambert is usually spinning something from Bob Dylan, including his instrumental song, “Bunkhouse Theme.” The Bunkhouse’s longleaf pine floors found throughout each inviting room are original to the house.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
Lambert found this part of a "Marfa, Texas" billboard on the side of the road and salvaged it for the master bedroom.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
“It’s always beautiful here. Late summer and early fall are lovely because summer is the rainy season,” Lambert says. “By September, the whole place gets insanely green, green like Ireland.”
Photograph by Casey Dunn
In the dining room, a Japanese flag and another salvaged sign that once read “Holiday Capri Inn” provide the backdrop for a reclaimed wood dining table with perfectly mix-matched chairs and a light fixture made by Lambert’s friend and collaborator, Jack Sanders of Design Build Adventure in Austin. “We used to have a hanging chandelier that was candlelit, but we needed something more reliable that would still give low light and would cast a long way—so Jack made it happen.”
Photograph by Casey Dunn
Lambert’s friend and collaborator Jamey Garza built the white stucco bath house for her. “It’s the best place ever to take a bath, especially when the cholla is in bloom,” she says.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
The table on the screened porch is held up by oil barrels that Lambert found in an alley in Marfa.
Photograph by Casey Dunn
Lambert's pool (which recently adorned the cover of a West Elm catalog) was put in long ago as a cistern to supply water to the house and stock tanks in the pens down the hill. Once the family got an electric pump and dismantled the windmill, the cistern became a pool. “You can swim for much of the year,” Lambert says. “Just not in the dead of winter.”
