I often see the same families purchase, renovate or build a succession of increasingly architecturally significant homes. While a person cannot collect homes in the same way that a collector can acquire paintings or sculpture, the instinct is the same. The curiosity, passion and desire to live in and around extraordinary beauty and profound design is the same whether for a collector of art or a patron of architecture. In future blog articles I will discuss some of the great family lineages of owners of significant architect designed homes, both modern and eclectic.

International Style Home

Here we see an International Style home designed for a young couple with five children. The couple hired James Nagle, a graduate of Stanford with an architecture degree from MIT and a co-founder of the Chicago architecture firm Nagle Hartray. Built in 1976, this home in Bent Tree was the finest example of International Style architecture since Stanley Marcus had Roscoe Dewitt design his International Style home in 1937. Set on two acres along a greenbelt, this modern home is sleek, stark and yet comfortable for a family. Some think that clean-lined and hard-edged modern is only appropriate for highrises, urban couples or fastidious style makers. This modern home in Far North Dallas shows that a home can have a compelling design, a pastoral setting, bedrooms for multiple children, expansive yards, gardens, pools and courts to accommodate activities of families and friends. The result is a home dramatic for entertaining, utilitarian for a family and aesthetically attractive through the decades.

The same couple, when the children were grown, again hired architect James Nagle in collaboration with Robert Neylan to design another modern home. This home combined the latest technology, building materials and construction techniques with timeless and more accessible materials and fixtures. Where modern houses are often associated with isolated locations, modern residential parks, or clusters in urban locations, this modern home is right at home in the leafy and traditional suburb of Highland Park.

While the architect was sensitive to the setbacks and scale of the homes designed in a European tradition around them, this home exudes modernity. As you approach the front door you begin to experience a subtle and sublime transformation, a different environment, one that is familiar, but expressed in such a new way. A compilation of stainless steel, teak and granite and Belgian glass continues that aura as you enter. A visitor in the home feels exhilaration and tranquility at the same time. At 10,000 square feet, the size of this Highland Park Translucens House is somewhat larger than the Bent Tree home, but occupies a much smaller parcel of land. As a result, the Highland Park house does not look outward in the same way that the Bent Tree house does, but looks inward into a courtyard. The view of the street is restrained by translucent glass that can be darkened for more privacy Extra bedrooms were eliminated, and additional space was allowed for returning family members in the form of vertically and horizontal open galleries, courtyards, and public spaces bridged by glass and connected by stairs.

Here is an example of two homes created for the same family: same architect, different needs and different settings, but both modern homes that continue to earn appreciation, credibility and applause.

See Bent Tree modern home Future Offering

While cities across the country crumble economically, Dallas will emerge as the nation’s strongest and most exciting city in 2009. In these gloomy times, while the country seems to have so little to cheer about, the nation will notice the great achievements and celebration taking place in Dallas.

Dallas’ growth and success has often surged when times looked bleakest. Since the 1890s, Dallas has surpassed stronger and larger cities. Dallas will be doing this again as the Winspear Opera House and the Wyly Theater open in the Arts District, as Trinity Park emerges and the 50-story, mile-long Santiago Calatrava-designed bridges begin to soar.

Dallas already has the nation’s largest number of corporate headquarters in the U.S. – and this is before the second downtown for Dallas is scheduled to emerge, a mixed-use development with 100-story skyscrapers and single-family, street level housing, located on the 60 acres on the west side of the Trinity.

Dallas Historically Turns Toughest Times to Its Advantage

Historically, Dallas has turned the toughest times to its advantage. In the Depression of 1892, John Armstrong began contemplating Highland Park, which he opened in 1906. In 1900, Main Street was paved with bois d’arc logs and the population was 42,000 people.

In 1910, Dallas was home to less than 100,000 people. By 1930, the city’s population was over a quarter of a million, at 250,000, when the entire country was mired in the Great Depression. In 1936, in the height of the Depression, Dallas became home to the Texas Centennial Exposition because of the lavish Art Deco exhibition buildings, Music Hall and Cotton Bowl that were constructed in Fair Park. By the 1950s, the population was approaching 500,000.

In the 1970s, when the national economy was both stalled and was suffering from inflation, Dallas had the foresight to build the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

The first commercial flight landed at the new DFW on January 13, 1974. The number of flights from DFW has increased ever since. In 2000 DFW was the world’s fifth busiest airport and remains a source of economic growth and employment in the area.

Population in Dallas Will Continue 100 Years of Rapid Growth

Now, while the nation is in a nosedive, Dallas is initiating and completing its biggest projects ever. The exhilaration created by the Arts District, Trinity River Park and surrounding development, and the Calatrava bridges will focus the national spotlight on Dallas and make the city a magnet for great people and growing companies. Dallas will not only emerge as one of the five largest cities in the next 15 years, but as a city inhabited by the most interesting, entrepreneurial and culturally savvy residents.

Turtle Creek Park Now Even Better

Turtle Creek Park, My Favorite Neighborhood

When the late Glenn Mitchell asked me in an interview on KERA Public Radio which neighborhood I would show an out-of-town client first, I replied without hesitation Turtle Creek Park, explaining that to reach this small neighborhood of 37 houses, a person crosses a stone bridge and proceeds up the hill on a winding tree-lined street to explore the architect designed homes framed by the Katy Trail, Rock Creek and Turtle Creek.

Neighborhood of Topography, Trees and Water

Topography, trees and water are the natural attractions of this hidden neighborhood that is walking distance to everyone’s favorite restaurants, parks and cultural attractions.  Now the neighborhood is even better.  The City of Dallas Parks Department participated with the homeowners along Turtle Creek to dredge this wide and now free flowing creek.  Some of the homes are perched high off the creek, others have lawns tapering down to the creek.

Rock Creek descends into Turtle Creek framing home site

One of my favorite homes is sited on two creeks, Rock Creek  as it descends into Turtle Creek.  This English style home with a façade of oversized brick has a strong rustic presence softened by its refined lines and abundance of windows and panoramic views of water, trees, and meandering creeks. 

When Dallas is sometimes confused with endless new homes of the suburbs, it is nice when people new to the city, like the AT&T executives being transferred to Dallas as part of the AT&T corporate headquarters relocation, can see a beautiful example of Dallas a city of distinct neighborhoods, rather than the just viewing the city as an endless, mind numbing tour of houses based on square footage prices.

Landscape architect Dave Rolston and his wife Julie Cohn, an artist and textile designer, recently renovated their modern home on Tokalon Drive located in Lakewood.  This Texas modern home is on a street of Tudor, Georgian and Spanish Colonial homes.  It is always interesting when a single modern home such as this does not stick out on a street of 1920s and 1930s eclectic homes.  Here, the similar and respectful scale and setback of the home contributes to the streetscape.  The landscaping created by Dave Rolston does not hide the home, it accentuates the home while maintaining the visual rhythm of the street. 

Modern homes often are able to create views of verdant gardens or emphasize features of the natural site by the ample employment of windows and by the configuration of the structure to take advantage of the site.  With two artists orchestrating the design and landscape who have resources like architect Max Levy and other pals like architects Frank Welch, Dan Shipley and Ron Wommack, one would expect something special.  I did and it was a real treat when I visited the home Saturday morning.

Landscape Design

Just as Frank Lloyd Wright consistently fiddled with his Oak Park home, using his own residence as a laboratory, Dave Rolston will rework areas of his garden, a small creek will become a pond, sight lines will be improved.  Dave Rolston has created a garden of paths, ponds, quiet sitting areas, terraces and broad lawns for entertaining.  From every approach, new spaces become evident.  There is no single landscape feature that jumps out at you, but a series of pleasing surprises that leave the visitor exhilarated.

 
I might also note architects often find the best sites.  Who would ever know walking down Tokalon that behind this home is a several acre greenbelt separating this rear garden from White Rock Lake Park.