In 2024, when Specht Novak Architects unveiled Stealth House in Austin, Texas, critics were quick to note the building’s fortress-like quality. A low-slung private residence without any outward-facing windows in its corrugated steel façade, it derives all of its natural light from two internal courtyards. This martial aesthetic marks a sharp break from the floor-to-ceiling windows that have defined high-end residential architecture for decades. Specht Novak touts Stealth House – which has received several prizes, including a National American Institute of Architects Small Project Award – as “a prototype for future urban living”. Is high-end residential architecture in the West about to shift towards the kind of a privacy-oriented “compound architecture” that is more commonly associated with the Gulf?

There is an obvious clash between the compound look and Western democratic sensibilities: after all, it seems to reject the idea of community and signal that wealthy homeowners no longer feel the need to even feign a connection with the rest of society. When Monocle puts these concerns to Scott Specht – a founding partner of Specht Novak, who owns and lives in Stealth House – he points out that people have been modifying their homes to maximise privacy for decades.

Typical suburban and urban neighbourhoods in the US have long been taking “traditional-looking buildings based on the loose template of a ranch house with acres of land around it and jamming them together”, he says. “You put in windows to make it look like a conventional house but always have the shades down because otherwise you wouldn’t be looking at anything except the nextdoor neighbour. You have a big open backyard but then you build a giant fence around it so the neighbours can’t look in.” For Specht, Stealth House merely streamlines and integrates the privacy features that US homeowners tend to clumsily bolt on to their conventionally “open” homes.

The house has caught the attention of private clients seeking similar features for their own residences. Specht isn’t naive about the fact that the design appeals to people’s desire for security as well as privacy. “We’re seeing a lot more electronic security systems going into the houses that we design,” he says. But he contests the allegation that the style’s opacity spoils neighbourly connections. “In New York, you live in a residential building with doormen or you have a locked door with a vestibule. Then you go up through another locked door to your apartment and your view of the street is a distant one through a window. But people there still feel like a part of their neighbourhood. You don’t need to have windows that people can look into to achieve that.”

Reflecting on his own experience living in Stealth House, Specht says that he has a better connection to his neighbours now than when he lived in a more conventional suburban setting. The architect makes a convincing case that concerns over the antisocial nature of compound architecture are misplaced. But it’s undeniable that a handful of Stealth Houses in an otherwise conventional quarter of a city would feel different to an entire neighbourhood of compound-style residences. It’s difficult to truly guess at what point a change in an area’s architectural vernacular would tip into a shift in social substance.

Illustrator: Nathan Hackett