San Antonio Container Guest House

The San Antonio Container Guest House is a project that has seen its purpose and surroundings change over time. Nevertheless, this iconic, tiny container building has proven as flexible as the storage box it is based on, and it continues to serve a new generation of owners well.

To begin with, let’s talk about the original story of this container guest house. The original owner, Stacey Hill, needed some additional room on her lot to serve as a playhouse for her daughters, a guest house for visiting artists, a storage shed for her garden, and a retreat from the main house. She approached a local designer to come up with a structure to handle that diverse set of use cases, and she was interested in using a shipping container as the building block as a result of seeing them on television.

At the time, no one would have guessed that photographs of this backyard building would travel all around the world to millions of people. But, thanks to some clever design ideas incorporated by the designer, people just can’t get enough of this container.

It starts with the color. Funny enough, Stacey found the container for sale in this deep blue color, it wasn’t something that was intentionally painted on. But when she saw it, the artist in her knew it was the bold color needed for the space.

The container actually sits on a handful of used telephone poles, not our ideal foundation from an uplift perspective, but fine for a location like San Antonio with very little risk of flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. As is usually the case, turning the box into a livable space did involve some container modifications.

First, an internal wall was added twelve-ish feet from the existing container doors. This created an externally accessible garden shed separate from the living space that used the balance of the floor area.

Next, the corrugated container walls were cut for glazing. The entire end wall was cut out for a floor-to-ceiling window, and a roughly 12-foot section of the sidewall was cut for huge sliding glass doors. There is also a much smaller cut further down the sidewall for a modest window looking into the garden shed area.

The exterior modifications continued with a cantilevered roof extension and a structural grid above the roof to hold planters (more on that in a minute). There’s also wire mesh paneling covered with vines on the rear of the container used to shade the sun and cover some mechanical equipment.

Inside, polyurethane spray foam was used for insulation, topped with bamboo plywood on the walls and floors. The container was then outfitted with a split-unit HVAC system, a Sun-Mar composting toilet, a shower, and a small sink.

The bathroom floor is actually slightly raised from the rest of the container flooring so a step up is required. Once inside the wet bathroom (or wetroom), you’re surrounded by red sheet metal. However, the stainless steel sink is outside the bathroom and is covered with bamboo plywood to match the walls.

The design is about as simple as you can get, consisting almost entirely of open space save for the tiny bathroom. There’s no cabinetry, no kitchenette, no built-in furniture. It was truly a blank canvas that could be reconfigured with some simple furniture movements.

But blank doesn’t mean boring. In addition to the bold coloring, this container has some very cool features. How about those roof planters, for example? The green roof is completely covered in beautiful wildflowers and other plants, which are watered with greywater from the sink and shower that are stored in a tank behind the container.

The green roof takes the brunt of the sun’s rays and uses it for plant growth instead of turning the container into an oven from the Texas heat. The cooling effect is further amplified by a small gap under the green roof but above the container roof that allows air to circulate.

Or how about that front patio. If you looked at the pictures and thought it was a concrete slab, you are wrong! Instead, the designers used polymer air conditioning condenser pads held in a metal grid. These lightweight pads stay much cooler in the sun than concrete and can be moved later if necessary.

Above the patio is the roof extension which also has a bit of magic. Blue Polygal is used to match the color of the container while letting just a bit of sun through its opaque corrugations. Electric light fixtures made from disc harrow blades are used to light up the patio at night. It’s clear the designer intended to be eco-friendly in the design, materials, and construction of this container guest house.

We hinted earlier about how the usage of the guest house has changed over time, so let’s move on to that. Eventually, Stacey moved on and the property changed hands. The neighborhood began to change as well, with more development and higher prices leading to a changeover in many properties from residential to commercial uses.

Now, what was once Stacey’s industrial warehouse home is the Ivy Hall events venue. And the property just east is home to The Good Kind restaurant, which is connected via the open yard. Both The Good Kind and Ivy Hall (see the Contact Information section below for links) are under the same ownership, and the open space behind and between them is somewhat of a backyard oasis away from the noise and traffic of the street.

It’s in this new retail backyard oasis that what was once the San Antonio Guest House now sits. In the present day, it’s part of the event’s venue, its porch and interior made available mixers and socials of all types.

So the next time you’re in beautiful San Antonio, you can pop into the venue and check out what was once a private residence’s internet-famous guest house! And based on the reviews, it sounds like you’ll have a great meal while you’re there.