Ilive in a tin house.

Well, it’s not actually made of tin. It’s made of Galvalume: steel galvanized with an alloy of zinc, aluminum, and silicon and licensed by BIEC International, of Vancouver, Washington. But in Houston, houses like mine—of which there are at least three hundred—still go by that name.

Tin houses became one of Houston’s architectural calling cards between the eighties and late nineties. Local architects including Natalye Appel, Rob Civitello, and Cameron Armstrong (my neighbor) devoted themselves to developing the style. My house, designed and built by the late Bill Anderson, was completed in 2001, meaning it represents one of the final projects of what we might call peak tin house. It’s located dead center in Houston’s West End, a small Inner Loop neighborhood just eas

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