Texas’ Best Home Offices — Stunning Spots That Will Be the Envy of Every Social Distancing Home Worker

When the Home Office is a Virtual Palace

BY Shelby Hodge // 04.02.20

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The ultimate in the contemporary home office designed by Sullivan Henry Oggero & Associates. (Photo by TK Images)

The two-story office has a circular stair leading to the cigar room. (Photo by TK Images)

This striking library from the Round House in Dallas plays to a penchant for mid-century modern aesthetic.

This home office celebrates the elegance of a marriage between contemporary and traditional design. (Photo by TK Images)

The size of this home office dictated a spectacular work space, here provided by a Cantoni dining table. (Photo by Jeff Myers Photography)

Round oak table originally designed by Florence Knoll for their Executive Collection in 1961. EC-127 library reading chairs with Fiberglas seat and backs originally designed by Ray and Charles Eames for Herman Miller in 1969 in their original plum-colored wool upholstery. Both came from Reeves Antiques. The Mexican orange-painted sheet-metal agave is from Laredo, Texas. (Photo by Pär Bengtsson)

A sunny first-floor office space enjoys a feminine vibe with its blue butterflies and soft coloring.

This home office is for a professional athlete with a taste for all things contemporary.

Frankel Building Group created this contemporary home with an interesting stair landing that serves as a home office. (Photo by Kerry Kirk)

Designer Nicole Musselman's office inside The Koch House, her retail shop in a 1920s bungalow. Not exactly a home office, but certainly inspirational. (Courtesy photo)

Bradley Agather’s office includes an Eero Saarinen table from Knoll. Milo Baughman dining chairs from Design Within Reach. Sunny Sliger’s "Untitled," 2002. Custom bench by M&J Upholstery. (Photo by Pär Bengtsson)

The traditional home office setting by designer Ginger Barber combines library comforts with working space. (Photo by Michael Hunter)

Theo seating by Kimball, great for the home or office. Very "resi-mercial!" says Jayne Edison, president and CEO of OFI.

Priority and Bloom seating by Kimball make for a great office anywhere. The collection is carried at Office Furniture Innovations, a Kimball Select Dealer.

In this office/sitting room, pink-painted wood doors are crisscrossed with black grosgrain ribbon. Black leather stools with chrome nailheads from Area.

Dallas' Judy Aldridge of Atlantis Home furnished one of her husband's offices with an antique sofa upholstered in vintage embroidered fabric from Guatemala. (Photo by Lisa Petrole)

This office comes with its own wood-burning fireplace.

This surprising home office, actually space, resides in the middle of a second-floor open-plan home.

Austin designer Kristen Nix added an office to the back of the house where she can work as well as keep an eye on the boys in the backyard pool.

This cozy office, designed by Ginger Barber, was carved from a long and narrow space that proved ideal for this use. (Photo by Michael Hunter)

Builder homes tend to have home offices similar to this one, with plenty of built-ins, including the desk.

A familiar take on the all-so-necessary home office with ample storage and built-ins, this design is often located next to the kitchen.

The ultimate in the contemporary home office designed by Sullivan Henry Oggero & Associates. (Photo by TK Images)

Round oak table originally designed by Florence Knoll for their Executive Collection in 1961. EC-127 library reading chairs with Fiberglas seat and backs originally designed by Ray and Charles Eames for Herman Miller in 1969 in their original plum-colored wool upholstery. Both came from Reeves Antiques. The Mexican orange-painted sheet-metal agave is from Laredo, Texas. (Photo by Pär Bengtsson)

Bradley Agather’s office includes an Eero Saarinen table from Knoll. Milo Baughman dining chairs from Design Within Reach. Sunny Sliger’s "Untitled," 2002. Custom bench by M&J Upholstery. (Photo by Pär Bengtsson)

While churning out financial reports, marketing strategies, and the like from our kitchen tables and even our beds during the coronavirus pandemic — i.e., working at home — we take pause to meander through sophisticated, well-planned home offices. Rooms in which desks are desks, lighting is carefully orchestrated, and designers have had a hand in the creativity.

This visual walk through home office focuses primarily on the contemporary but includes more traditional while inspiring options for the pre-planned work space. These do not represent the current dining-room-table makeshift-home-office trend, but rather home offices with serious design elements.

One of the most dramatic and certainly the most expensive is the vast two-story home office in a dwelling designed by Sullivan Henry Oggero & Associates on Sandringham in Houston. Beyond the expected home office, this sophisticated space includes a spiral staircase that leads to a second-floor cigar loft. It’s one of many interestingly planned spaces in the 21,700-square-foot home that is listed with Compass agents Mike Mahlstedt and Katie Forney for $24.5 million.

In the opposite design direction, we take a look at the “home” office of attorney Bryan Aldridge in Trophy Club, Texas, an affluent northern suburb in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. His wife, Atlantis Home blogger Judy Aldridge, decorated it in her expected whimsical style.

Located in a guest house near their home, this home office is a masterful mix of periods and styles. For example, centerpiece of the highly accessorized office is an antique sofa upholstered in vintage embroidered fabric from Guatemala.

Office from Living (Photo by Kerry Kirk) — Frankel Building Group created this contemporary home with an interesting stair landing that serves as a home office. (Photo by Kerry Kirk)

The famed mid-century modern Round House in Dallas features an office that fits perfectly with today’s penchant for that era as well as for contemporary living. Think Mad Men meets The Flintstones. Even 60 years ago, the home office — perhaps at that time called a library — was a reality.

Elizabeth Anthony

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Houston interior designer Ginger Barber has created her share of home offices following a more traditional look.

“The home offices I design are all different,” she says. “Some are dedicated spaces like a library in the home; others are just a desk setup within a bedroom. It’s really all over the map.”

We look at several of her designs in the photos here. Scroll through the gallery of Texas’ best home offices: