Wade and Melinda Kilpatrick knew when they bought the Wild River Ranch that they did not want just a beautiful home nestled along the high banks of the Guadalupe River. They were looking to build a sanctuary made from reclaimed wood and stone that would include contemporary touches while creating a vintage, rustic tone that connects their love of the past to their vision for the future.
The collaboration they found with homebuilder Rode Walker was, well, a match made in Texas. The home includes reclaimed lumber from the Northeast, but is otherwise a total Texas creation of rock, stone and other natural materials. Walker is owner of Timber and Stone Builders, a Fredericksburg-based company that specializes in using reclaimed 18th-century lumber, logs and beams along with Texas stone to create unique and beautiful homes.
“We salvage the wood from barns, houses and buildings from as far away as Pennsylvania, Ohio and the Virginias,” he says. “That area of the country was settled first and that happens to be where the old timber and logs are. We used different types of stone in this house, but all of it is from Texas.”
The builder says his craftsmen and artisans use time-honored, age-old techniques of homebuilding, like notching and mortise/tenon joinery. The results at Wild River Ranch are nothing short of spectacular.
The building process wasn’t without its trials and tribulations. A discussion of the beautiful timber staircase brings a quick exchange of glances between Melinda and Walker. She laughs and asks, “Remember the staircase?” He grimaces and says he does, along with the complications of trying to build it, although both agree that the results were well worth any logistical difficulties.

Treasured Discoveries Accent Home
When they met Walker, the Kilpatricks already had some great finds they wanted to use in the home and a good idea of what they wanted to create. Melinda says her husband found the pecan that now adorns the floors of the home while he was browsing in a warehouse. The wood was dust-covered and laying against a back wall. “He said he wanted it, and we stored it for a year before we began to build,” she says. “We had it milled in Center Point.”
Her husband also picked all the stone that Walker used in the home, including a wide variety from across the state. Massive indoor and outdoor fireplaces show off some of that stone to create a casual but elegant ambiance inside and outside the house. Flagstone floors use stone that came from Salado. Part of the ceiling decking is made of longleaf pine reclaimed from a pre-1900 warehouse in Galveston. Pecky Cypress and pecan adorn the walls in various parts of the home. The overall effect is a homey, gracefully rustic elegance that exudes a welcoming sense of natural luxury.
The furnishings are a blend of wood and distressed wood pieces, leather, animal hides and natural woven fibers. An unusual feature in the home is the lack of built-in cabinetry except for a cabinet/sink area in the kitchen that had to be attached to the floor. The sinks, cabinets and kitchen work areas all are pieces of furniture that Melinda chose for the house.

“I wanted it this way,” she says. “I didn’t want a home that tried to feel vintage, but actually had a lot of modern built-ins.”
Like her husband, she has traveled the back roads of Texas and beyond, looking and sometimes finding prize furnishings or pieces that have made themselves at home in the Wild River house. A long bar area that is topped by granite is unusually lovely, and Melinda explains why it seems so different and unique. “It was an altar in a church in Mexico,” she explains. “I found it in Wilson Clements (Antiques) in Comfort. It seemed perfect for this.”
A Rumford cooking fireplace in the kitchen adds to the vintage feel in the house. Around the corner, Wade has a desk and small office area that is cozy and masculine. A painting behind the desk is of someone fishing the Guadalupe River in one of the spots that runs through the ranch. The fireplace in his office is accented by a mantle that the Kilpatricks had made from a cedar log pulled from the Guadalupe. Nearby windows in the kitchen and office offer a view of the river, with flagstone pathways and porticos and a fire pit just waiting for a chilly night. Upstairs, a balcony running the length of the house offers comfortable chairs and a great view of the river, woods and pastures of tall, flowing coastal grass.
Walker worked to include details in the home that would enhance the couple’s treasures, incorporating furniture finds into the home in unique ways, such as when he helped build the bar and wine cellar using reclaimed doors that had to be adjusted, reworked and fine-tuned to best suit the purpose.
The air-conditioning system works wonderfully, but no grates or metal openings are evident. Walker installed a Unico System, a small duct, high-velocity air conditioning system. High in the stone walls, long rectangular “chinks” less than an inch wide are the avenues for the system to pump air into the rooms. Other spots have smaller “chinks” that appear as natural as the stones and stucco around them.

Entertaining in Style
Before the home was completed, Walker points out, there was “The Saloon”—the builder’s name for a nearby building that was made to entertain a crowd. The inside has an atmosphere that is part old-time Texas icehouse, part dancehall. A rusty, time-worn Frigidaire still works and holds cold drinks, while signs advertise “Pearl—Texas Own” and “Lone Star—Brewed in Texas.” There is a stage for a band, and a remote-controlled, 90-inch retractable projector television screen. The projector is cleverly hidden in a wooden crate that appears to be held from the ceiling by an antique hemp rope.
In addition to the bedrooms in the main house, there is a guest bedroom off the entertainment area. A stone fireplace rises 25 feet high in the bedroom, past a loft area that can serve as yet another sleeping space. This room is decorated with hides and other mementos from an African safari Wade went on several years ago.
From the materials and furnishings the Kilpatricks found for Wild River Ranch to the unique and distinctive craftsmanship and design created by Walker and his craftsmen, the home on the Guadalupe is a place set apart from the mainstream of newly built houses.
“Natural stone and reclaimed timber are what we do at Timber and Stone Builders,” Walker says. “When that expertise and experience match up with the vision and ideas of someone like Wade and Melinda, it really works.”