06/09/2026
✨ Stacy's POV
In 2015, the Blanco River rose 44 feet in one night.
It was a devastating tragedy. Destroyed 350+ homes. And it knocked down ancient cypress trees that had been growing along those banks since before anyone alive can remember.
The slabs in these photos came from that flood. Local ranchers pulled the logs out of the river. Air-dried them. Kiln-dried them slowly so they wouldn't crack. Then let them sit in a barn for 10 years before anyone touched them with a saw.
What came out of that process is called sinker cypress. Old-growth wood preserved by decades underwater, protected by a natural oil called cypressene that resists rot and pests. The submersion tightens the growth rings, making it harder and more durable than almost anything you can buy new. The color in a single slab runs from honey amber to deep olive green depending on where it rested in the riverbed.
It's one of the most prized materials in fine furniture. And the Wimberley flood created a modern supply of it, in wood that is hundreds of years old.
I think about what I put in people's homes. Not just how it looks, but where it came from, what it's made of, how long it's going to last. That table didn't come from a lumber yard. It came from a specific place, a specific night, and a group of people who decided that something valuable could come out of something devastating.
That's the kind of material I want in my projects. And it's the kind of thinking I bring to every single one.
Swipe through to see it from the barn to the studio.
If you were in the Hill Country during the 2015 flood, drop a comment. And if you want this kind of thinking behind your home, email [email protected].
