Dallas Architecture Blog discusses Modern architecture and Mid Century Modern
Homes, Dallas Neighborhoods, Dallas Real Estate and the Aesthetics of the City.

Recently, I represented a very stylish and sophisticated young couple who desired a modern home. These buyers recognized the Robert Meckfessel design of this Mediterranean home in Greenway Parks is a link to classic Mediterranean and Texas Modern styles. They knew the influence of Spanish Colonial homes on David Williams who created the Texas Modern style of architecture. They immediately responded to the modernity of this Robert Meckfessel-designed home, which they quickly purchased.

Modern home lovers also usually appreciate Mediterranean homes.

I often find that clients and friends who really enjoy modern homes have a similar affinity to Mediterranean-style homes. The open floor plans, abundance of natural light, and lack of heavy ornamentation are the most apparent similarities. The more subtle similarities are rooted in the concept behind Mediterranean and Texas modern homes.

Symmetrical structure and subordinate wing found in Mediterranean and David Williams Homes

One can see the similarity of the classic Mediterranean homes in Europe, the Spanish Colonial homes in Mexico and the David Williams designed Texas Modern homes in Dallas. All these homes typically had a spare, symmetrical and formal structure with a subordinate wing that added later. Courtyards were often framed with these subordinate wings or low courtyard walls. Covered terraces provided shelter from the summer sun while allowing the low winter sun to infiltrate the home and provide and outdoor space that captured the summer breezes.

You can see these same architectural components at the house designed by David Williams on McFarlin in University Park.

The David Williams designed homes at both McFarlin and St. Johns reflect the formal structure, the more informal wings, continuous walls to outside rooms, and protected porches. These homes, like the early Mediterranean homes and the recent home by Robert Meckfessel share their architectural honesty, lack of excessive ornamentation and a crisp modernity softened by rolled corners on the plaster walls on the Meckfessel design in the Greenway Parks home and the hand-carved woodwork and hand-hammered iron work in this David Williams-designed Texas Modern home in the Park Cities.

Robert Meckfessel Draws From Proven Styles

Robert Meckfessel, known for his modern architecture, was asked to design a Mediterranean home in Greenway Parks. Robert Meckfessel confirmed in a recent conversation that he was inspired by his research in classic Mediterranean homes and his familiarity with Texas Modern homes. “When I researched Mediterranean homes, I realized there were no hard-and-fast rules when it came to design or proportions,” he told me. “But I did find a pattern of symmetrical structures with subordinated wings that were added later. This is how I approached the house on Wenonah in Greenway Parks. It started with a fairly formal structure that becomes more relaxed when a wing is added along with a courtyard wall with a planter top. The feel of the house becomes softer because there are no wood casements around the doors, only rounded plaster openings. I eliminated ornamentation in the interior and around the doors, creating a crisp but rolled edge.”

Meckfessel added that the planter top on the three-foot tall courtyard wall was inspired by one of his favorite residences, Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea outside of Helsinki.

Architect David Williams also Had Hand in Greenway Parks

Not only has David Williams had a great influence on modern architects in Dallas, but he had a great influence on Greenway Parks. Here he laid out a plan of curving boulevards and triangle parks, and shared private greenways. Along with his architecture being influenced by the time he spent in Mexico where he made his small fortune between 1916-1923, Greenway Parks is also influenced by his residential project in Tampico where David Williams sited the homes in Aquila Colony facing public greens and parks.

Greenway Parks Attracts Homeowners Who Appreciate Architectural Style and Significance.

There are a great number of architect-designed homes representing many architectural styles. On the other end of the block is a Fooshee and Cheek Colonial home that I sold and is now completely renovated. Around the corner is a midcentury modern home I sold that was designed by Hidell and Decker. Another midcentury home is the one designed by Howard Meyer on Nakoma

Greenway Parks home owners have retained talented architects and interior designers, including Svend Fruit and Mil Bodron, Allen Kirsch, Jason and Signe Smith, who preserve and burnish these delightful Greenway Parks homes. While original 1930s and 1940s houses are reinterpreted in a modern way, many are not spacious enough for a large family or open enough to fulfill the desire of modernists. This Mediterranean home on Wenonah designed by Robert Meckfessel, FAIA, accomplishes what so many homeowners are now looking for – space and style.

The Scott Lyons-designed home recently purchased in Highland Park is a perfect example of what I expressed in my earlier blog post “Best Architecture, Bad Times”. In a normal economy this would have been purchased and torn down within days of going on the market instead of being purchased for renovation.

Home in Estate Offered at Lot Value

The trustee of the estate had the property appraised and discovered all the value was in the .25 acre of land. The trustee had no idea who designed the home and the listing agent originally considered this home just an old 1970s home of no importance, not a Texas Modern home of great importance. As a result, the property was put in MLS with no interior photographs, emphasizing lot dimensions as it was assumed a builder would buy this tired residence as a teardown just for the land.

Fortunately the current economic climate has shut down any purchase activity from builders looking for lots. Only a few people even looked at the home the first few weeks it was on the market.

Douglas Newby Associate, Realtor Connie Harkins Identifies House as Scott Lyons Designed

When Connie Harkins, an associate who works with me, first went through the house she quickly called me and said, “You have to see this house. It is obviously designed by Scott Lyons.” She was right. Scott Lyons-designed fingerprints were found throughout the house. The front door, fascia, the stone floors, woodwork, soft Mexican brick, ceiling treatments, filtered skylights in the hallways and floor-to-ceiling doors were all examples of materials and design elements that Scott Lyons used at 10240 Gaywood and other prominent Highland Park and Preston Hollow homes that he designed. We mentioned to the listing agent that Scott Lyons was certainly the architect that designed the home. To the listing agent’s credit, she asked the trustee to research the files where they discovered correspondence between Scott Lyons and the original homeowner, verifying that Scott Lyons was the architect.

Marketing Adjusted to Include Scott Lyons as Architect

The listing agent again, to her credit, changed the marketing course. She had the interior cleaned up, and more importantly, identified Scott Lyons as the architect in the MLS description of the home. Immediately after that, a great number of potential homebuyers came to see the home. Besides talking with the listing agent, I knew interest had soared in the property as over 200 unique visitors had been directed to my site when they Googled Scott Lyons architect. Many of these potential buyers liked the home enough that they called in their architects, interior designers and contractors to give them ideas for renovation and estimates for cost. Within four weeks of Scott Lyons being identified as the architect, the trustee of the estate had several offers to choose from. The new owner will be restoring this significant Highland Park home, preserving the work of Scott Lyons, one of Dallas’ great architects.

Most Good Homes are Never Torn Down if Potential Buyers have the Opportunity to See the Home and the Time to Understand the Home

Architecturally significant homes on very valuable land are vulnerable, but not because buyers do not desire them, as is the case with the Scott Lyons house, buyers need time to evaluate and understand the home. They need the time for architects, interior designers and contractors to give them ideas on both design and cost. In a normal market a builder knows the lot dimensions and can make a quick offer sight unseen. The real estate agent, as discussed in Freakonomics, has very little economic incentive to tell the seller that they can probably sell the home for an additional $200,000 if they give the buyers who will renovate the home a chance to look at it. The agent might make an additional $5,000 on a higher sale, but will have to spend more than that in time and marketing materials. And often a listing agent will be working directly with a builder so they actually would make a larger fee on a lot sale than if the property sold to an individual working with another agent.

Sellers and the Community Benefit When Time is Taken to Market a Home.

Preservation of the best architecture is successful when the marketplace is not abandoned prematurely. When the market is hot, lot buyers will always be available, but homeowners desiring an architecturally significant home will always pay more.

Austin stone house becomes available in the same 125-home neighborhood of Mayflower Estates

A spectacular home designed by Highland Park and Preston Hollow architect Hal Yoakum just came on the market, only one estate home away from the Bushes. 

While President Bush bought a good home, if only he could have waited.  This Austin stone home has a similar configuration but with more square footage, and is better sited on more land and is offered at a much lower price than where the Bush home traded.

The home has an informal and rugged feel, with stone or wide plank wood floors.  The 750-square foot informal living room with pecked cypress wood walls and a fireplace as tall as a person, expresses warmth and distinction.

Despite its informality, the home’s proportions and quality of finishes are stately. The 27-foot long dining room can seat 50 for a formal dinner. A master bedroom suite boasts a presidential sized office and equally lavish executive bathroom. The master bathroom has been recently renovated. A wall of windows and door look out to a totally private courtyard framed in green.   

On the second floor are two guest bedrooms and an enormous informal living area, a perfect recreation area.  Like the President’s house, this home has a minimally attached two-story guesthouse.  This one, however, looks over the large swimming pool with a diving rock and extensive gardens.  

This Preston Hollow Home is Larger and on More Land Than President Bush’s Home

The home is somewhat larger than the Bush home, and sits on a considerably larger lot – 1.288 acres – with phenomenal views of the ascending 50 acres of treetops of the two adjacent estates. Offered at $2,695,000, it’s remarkably less expensive than the home the President purchased a few months ago.

One of Original Grand Preston Hollow Houses Designed by Highland Park Architect Hal Yoakum

This Austin stone home designed by Highland Park architect Hal Yoakum is one of the one of the early grand houses built in the Preston Hollow estate area, located right in the heart of Mayflower Estates.  The home’s style and elegance complements the country lane feel of this neighborhood. 

Home Surrounded by Neighboring Lakes, Greenbelts, and Estate Properties

Estate Property buffers view of nearby homes.  Only over a rear garden wall will you see a glimpse of a roof top of a nearby home nested down on a lower perch above the creek and a three acre private greenbelt accessed by a foot bridge. 

Across Hollow Way, there’s a stunning view of a small private lake, with swans and ducks, surrounded by expansive lawns and extensive acreage filled with private gardens.  On the other side of the home is one of architect Cole Smith’s favorite homes that he designed. Within this small neighborhood, you have some of the most prominent Dallas families in both large and very subtle homes.

Mayflower Estates Home Exudes Value

This home represents such an excellent example of Mayflower Estates. The place is large, graceful and subtle, with glass windows and doors looking out over what seems like endless pathways, courtyards and small gardens.  For more information on this early estate home with real value go to Featured Listings.

O’Neil Ford, along with Arch Swank, designed O’Neil Ford’s first modern home in 1936. In Turtle Creek Park, O’Neil Ford’s expression of modernism became the architectural link between his mentor, David Williams, who originated the Texas Modern style, and the current, nationally-recognized architects Lake/Flato and Frank Welch.

Texas Modern Is Early Green Architecture

One of the essential elements of the Texas Modern style was the orientation and design of the home to protect it from the environment and take advantage of the environment. At 3514 Rock Creek, O’Neil Ford created three levels of verandahs, balconies, and screened-in porches oriented to capture the cooling breezes over Rock Creek and provide views of several acres of forests that descend toward Turtle Creek. The home has been recently renovated, preserving the original style and accentuating its modernity.

Architectural Details of Texas Modernism

Ford introduced his pyramidal capped newel post and thin rabbit joints to embellish the modern woodwork, doors and stairs. You can see architectural details introduced in this home that were used two years later in the Bromberg home on Wendover and in Frank Welch designed homes built 60 years later.

O’Neil Ford Had Uncanny Ability to Select Best Sites For Homes

Whether the site was perched on top of a hill at Stonebridge overlooking Turtle Creek, or placed down and hidden along White Rock Creek in Preston Hollow, or deep in the woods of Lakewood, O’Neil Ford had a penchant for finding the greatest places for the homes he designed. The location of 3514 Rock Creek is my favorite. It is at the top of the hill in the middle of Turtle Creek Park, the secluded neighborhood framed by the Katy Trail, Rock Creek and Turtle Creek. Virtually every room has an expansive set of windows and glass doors on three sides of the room overlooking several acres of forest as Rock Creek plunges towards Turtle Creek.

O’Neil Ford Home in Pristine Condition

For 40 years this architecturally distinguished home had been kept in pristine condition by the most prominent engineer in Texas. Hidden, private and sublime this recently renovated significant and historic home welcomes modern furniture and Texas grace. It is one of the true great Texas homes. Making some home buyer very lucky, this O’Neil Ford designed home will be coming on the market and offered for sale.

Turtle Creek Park is a secluded, 39-house neighborhood across the stone bridge from Turtle Creek. It is framed by Turtle Creek and the Katy Trail, with Rock Creek plunging down the center of this topographically delightful neighborhood of winding streets.

James and Patricia Shinn introduced me to this neighborhood’s incredible charms when they invited me to dinner at 3500 Rock Creek, located at the bowed corner of Rock Creek and Stone Bridge.

The Shinns are an extraordinary couple and as diplomats have lived all over the world. They came to Dallas when Jim had taken the position of the city of Dallas’ director of international affairs when Ambassador Rubottom retired as the director.

James Shinn – a downtown visionary, who Advocated a Park Over Woodall Rogers Fifteen years ago, James Shinn was advocating that Woodall Rogers Freeway be decked with a park with residential-retail development intersecting the park, creating the vibrant street life he considered essential if Dallas were to become an international city.

His family home was one of the first built in Martha’s Vineyard, and his family was also one of the original landowners that helped found Oakland, California. Of course, I was more impressed that Patricia’s grandfather and my grandfather were contemporaries in Hastings, Neb., in the early 20th century, with my grandfather owning the bank and her grandfather owning the title company.

As part of the diplomatic corps, the couple had lived in glamorous residences and locations including France and Switzerland. When they departed Dallas for California, they mentioned that of all the places they’d lived, Turtle Creek Park was their favorite. That was enough for me. If this was their favorite neighborhood, it was my favorite neighborhood.

Turtle Creek Park’s eclectic architecture

When I was discussing architecture with the late Glenn Mitchell on 90.1 he asked me: Where was the first place I’d take a clients who had just come to town for the first time? I said, without hesitation, “Turtle Creek Park. It is a hidden neighborhood with hills, creeks, water and an eclectic collection of houses of all styles ranging in value from $800,000 to over $10 million. And these houses all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to make a clear and congruent picture.”

Here is this bucolic, protected neighborhood, seemingly removed from the city, just a few hundred yards away from Salum, a chic, chef-owned restaurant, and just a few blocks from Knox and Travis and the West Village, just two miles from the Arts District and downtown — all of which is linked by the Katy Trail or the strand of parks along Turtle Creek.

An Enticing Topography of Turtle Creek Neighborhood

Turtle Creek Park is the perfect neighborhood because it is small and well-defined. Even with the small number of homes, there’s a sense of place, and a person knows they are in a neighborhood. There’s a great range of values and styles. There’s an aesthetic continuity that makes you think of the neighborhood as a whole, not as a collection of competing houses.

Trees, wildlife, seclusion, protection, water, streets curving across an enticing topography – all desired but in short supply in any city. As you might imagine, every year there’s an annual multi-course traveling dinner from house to house, exuding friendly relations between neighbors, the real definition of a neighborhood.

Turtle Creek Park defies all expectations. It has all of these lovely assets virtually in the center of Dallas.

While it has always been counterintuitive, when the economy is down, the best residential real estate projects get better. Homeowners and homebuyers turn from quick, speculative investments to properties with solid, long-term aesthetic and architectural value. Historically the finest architect-designed homes are often built or renovated when the real estate market is depressed. The finest architects, designers, builders, artisans, and materials are available.  Bids are now coming in as much as 20 percent less than last year on architect designed homes. Also, as the demand from speculative builders evaporates, land becomes more available for architect designed homes, and architecturally significant period homes become attractive to renovate, not tear down.

Great houses coming out of the last downturn

We saw this in the mid 1990s.  Nationally recognized residences were built including the Antoine Predock designed home in Highland Park on Willowood, the Steven Holl designed home in Preston Hollow on Rockbrook Drive, and the Richard Meier designed home on Preston Road.  Architecturally Significant homes of national importance were also renovated during this period: the former Owsley estate, now the Marcus estate, on Turtle Creek Boulevard in Volk Estates, originally designed by architect John Scudder Adkins, with Bill Booziotis and Peter Marino as the renovation architects; and the former Crespi estate, now the Hicks estate, on Hollow Way in Mayflower Estates, designed by architect Maurice Fatio and with Peter Marino serving as the renovation architect.

Great houses available now

Now, many architecturally significant homes are available at the price of the land. Currently, the best example of this is one of Dallas’ most important modern homes, on Gaywood Road in Mayflower Estates, designed by Scott Lyons on 2.63 acres. Exquisitely built, incorporating the finest materials and craftsmanship, it reflects a Texas modern style with many walls of glass and balconies overlooking the garden, small lake and the private park land of the 15 acre estate property seen across the creek. Reflecting the market, this 9,900 square foot home and 3,800 square foot guesthouse is being offered for sale at approximately the value of the land in this Preston Hollow neighborhood.

Preston Hollow Midcentury Modern

The best and last remaining original owner midcentury modern home on Colhurst in Preston Hollow is another example of a home that can easily be renovated and is being offered at the price of the lot.  This house has an extraordinary pedigree, with Louise Kahn as the interior designer, Richard Benson as the architect and Richard Myrick as the landscape designer.

University Park Midcentury Modern Home

On Wentwood in University Park, we find the home that midcentury modern architect Max Sandfield designed for his own family and will be available at lot value. 

The finest period homes have always been in the greatest jeopardy because of the demands from speculative homebuilders.  Homeowners, in the past, often never had a chance to purchase these architecturally significant homes they loved because homebuilders only needed to know the lot size to quickly buy a home to tear down.

Architecturally Significant Homes Coming on Markets

Housing prices have plummeted – as much as 40% in some U.S. cities – but low tax rates in Texas and strong employment rates are keeping Dallas’ property values surprising strong.  While the Dallas real estate market was shut down for a few months this fall, much like it was for a few months after September 11, 2001, the real estate market started to come back in December with several good properties selling and many exceptional properties coming on the market.