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

O’Neil Ford Influenced the Timeless Architecture of Scott Lyons and Frank Welch

Why are some modern architectural designs (such as the work of O’Neil Ford, FAIA, Scott Lyons, FAIA, and Frank Welch, FAIA) new, progressive and influential while other modern designs seem trendy and tired at the same time?

The Best Architecture for a Site Creates Timeless Design

Timeless modern architecture is inspired by the site, crafted by the finest artisans, and built using the best technology and materials of the time — those that are familiar as well as technologies and materials that have recently become available. Every era has its achievements from which we build, reinterpret and admire. Great design of any period remains great design.

The Haggerty/Hanley House Designed by O’Neil Ford Draws From Past and Influences Future

The Haggerty/Hanley house that architect O’Neil Ford designed in 1957 is a great example of timeless design. This midcentury Texas modern home draws from Ford’s earlier 1930s Texas modern work as well as that of David Williams, FAIA, which combined elements of European modernism and pioneer houses. This home is artfully situated to emphasize the site and orientation of the home in relationship to the sun much like the first Texas modern home David Williams designed in 1933 on McFarlin Boulevard with views of Turtle Creek. The Haggerty/Hanley home is also considered the best combination of Texas modern architecture and Texas modern art.

O’Neil Ford Designed the Haggerty/Hanley Home Almost As If It Were a Village

Architect O’Neil Ford designed the Haggerty/Hanley home in a much larger scale, one that is common today but rare in Dallas at the time. Taking advantage of the beautiful acreage bordered by a creek, O’Neil Ford designed the home almost as if it were a village, much like the early homes of Texas. It is set down from the street, wrapping around the topography with walls of windows in the living areas closest to the creek.

Even when designing in this larger scale, O’Neil Ford drew from his memory of sketching earlier pioneer homes. O’Neil Ford also still relied on the same artisans like his brother Lynn Ford (who did the metal work and wood carvings on O’Neil Ford’s first modern home) for the architectural details on the Haggerty/Hanley home.

O’Neil Ford’s Haggerty/Hanley 1957 Home Directly Influences Architect Scott Lyons’ 1983 Designed Home and Architect Frank Welch’s 2004 Designed Home

O’Neill Ford

Scott Lyons

Frank Welch

The Haggerty/Hanley home reiterates detail and handcrafted artisanship while creating new volumes and uses of materials that influenced great architects like Scott Lyons and Frank Welch who worked with O’Neil Ford and whose later work reflected Ford’s influence.

These three Texas modern homes by O’Neil Ford, Scott Lyons, and Frank Welch were built over a span of 50 years and yet all remain architecturally current and influential. The beautiful estate area acreage and topography drove the design of each of these homes. All three are approximately 10,000 sf, built with steel frame construction, and designed as a series of attached structures with a significant secondary structure.

The O’Neil Ford Designed Haggerty/Hanley Living Room Has Influenced Architects for Over 50 Years

Architects locally and around the country come to see this midcentury modern Texas home and the living room O’Neil Ford designed. Architects admire and absorb the hand carved open wood screen, the continuous walls of soft Mexican brick, the walls of windows overlooking the lawn and sculpture garden as it descends to the creek, the pitched ceiling that gives balance to the spacious dimensions of the space, and the stick ceiling that acoustically softens the room and brings warmth. The floating wall gives separation without impeding the immense openness of the room.

Architect Scott Lyons Reinterprets and Further Modernizes Design Inspired by O’Neil Ford

In 1983 Scott Lyons was selected to design a home on possibly the most beautiful land in Preston Hollow. Like O’Neil Ford, he submitted the design of this modern home to the landscape. Scott Lyons set the house down from the street with the main living room closest to the deep ravine and spring fed creek. The home expands and cleans up the horizontal axis while still retaining the indigenous qualities of the materials and details. An open wood screen shields and announces the living room from the front door. A stick ceiling is not used as a finish, but an exposed ceiling joint on the pitched ceiling dramatizes the precision in which the house was built. The oversized soft Mexican brick complements the warmth of the cross-cut white oak. The wall of floor-to-ceiling windows wraps around the room, providing views of the creek and small lake beyond the garden. While the house almost disappears when viewed from the street, from inside it affords a spectacular view of the beautiful land on which it is set.

Frank Welch Identifies O’Neil Ford Designed Living Room as Room That Inspires Him

Approximately 50 years after O’Neil Ford designed the living room in the Haggerty/Hanley home, Frank Welch designed the living room for this home in the estate area of Bluffview. A wall of windows looking over the garden, a pitched ceiling with a tight pattern of parallel sticks, a floating wall, and cross-cut white oak finishes add depth and polished texture to the room.

Frank Welch does not mimic the past. Frank Welch designs homes that reflect ideas of the past that he advances with new technology, greater precision, proportions that are perfect, and a design that is fresh, exciting, and will influence generations in the future.

Great architects like O’Neil Ford, Scott Lyons, and Frank Welch have designed modern homes that are perfect for the site, beautifully crafted and articulated, and offering a new vision for future generations.

See more information and photographs on this Scott Lyons architect designed home offered for sale.

There is something about walking across a footbridge to the front door of an architect designed home that provokes excitement, glamour and mystery. Even my favorite architectural exhibition that I saw at the Royal Academy in London was models and drawings of several centuries of houses incorporated into bridges – houses actually on and part of the bridges.

While in Dallas, we do not have houses on top of bridges. Nevertheless, we do have extraordinary homes in Dallas where the approach is a walking bridge.

Walking Across a Bridge to a Home is Both Primitive and Sublime.

This pedestrian passage subliminally evokes traversing a medieval moat for ultimate protection, or sashaying down a red carpet, or gliding along a fashion catwalk to thunderous applause. One’s environment changes by this transition in a way that is subtle and savory. A footbridge slows down the transition from the outside environment to the inside environment. For a few moments one is suspended between these two realities.

Robert Johnson Perry Architect Designed Bridge House in Preston Hollow

Architect Robert Johnson Perry designed a home accessed by a footbridge in Mayflower Estates, part of the Preston Hollow estate neighborhood.

Here Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Schepps took the corner ledge of a several acre lot and retained Robert Johnson Perry to design a home for just the two of them. Robert Johnson Perry was an accomplished modernist who designed many modern homes that have since been renovated by important architects and designers, including designer Emily Summer’s own home.

Just as modernist architect Howard Meyer could take his classical modern proportions to the Colonial home he designed on Cochran Chapel, Robert Johnson Perry was able to bring his modern sensibility to this house with a French influence. You can visit our Architecturally Significant section and see more photographs and information on this Mayflower Estates home.

George Woo Built Bridge House on Highest Point in Dallas

Another architecturally significant home that has received international attention, articles in Architectural Digest and Luxe – Interiors and Design is a home designed by architect George Woo at the highest point in Dallas County.

Here the footbridge extends the axis that runs through the symmetrically perfect preliminary structures and provides the elevated passage to the front door of the primary house. This bridge begins to give you views of the valley and endless forest and also gives you a visual momentum to anticipate the views in the house and the elevated terrace at the end of the axis where the distant lake and one hundred mile views fill the horizon. Crossing the footbridge, one is transported from a city just 17 miles away to a frame of mind that takes you totally out of a dense metropolitan area.

Antoine Predock Creates Bridge and Similar Effect in Highland Park Home

Architect Antoine Predock, in the park setting of Exall Lake and Highland Park, conveys this same sensation by extending the elevated footbridge from the rear of the house into treetops overlooking several acres of private and public park land. This footbridge creates a great counterpoint to the front door, which is just a few feet from a mundane suburban street and is encased in a well-planted bunker. Here the mystery starts at the front door, the interior of the house excites and the footbridge calms and provokes the imagination.

Jim Wiley and Bud Oglesby Design Bridge Home in Highland Park

The best-known bridge house in Dallas was designed by architect Jim Wiley and architect Bud Oglesby in the 1950s.

Jim Wiley and Bud Oglesby chose a location along the Turtle Creek to build a small glass cube with bedrooms that could also serve as balconies for musical performances. Here the Highland Park environment is so gorgeous, you want to traverse the bridge to get closer to the home nestled behind the curving creek and go inside to intensify the feeling. You can also more photographs of this home at Kelley Residence.

James Pratt Designed Bridge to Top of Home

Architect James Pratt designed this architecturally significant home in Bluffview in the 1950s. Steeply descending topography provided a perfect site, set back and lower than the hidden street. Here James Pratt designed a footbridge that leads to the middle of the upper level of the home where you enter. The bridge connects to a covered balcony creating an outdoor living space that wraps around the home, immersing one into the lush environment.

Footbridges Provide Solution to Some Impossible Sites and Accentuate Drama of Site in Others

Often the most difficult topographically complicated residential sites beget the most interesting and successful homes. The houses mentioned in this blog article are the result of dramatic but difficult sites. Some of these houses were designed on sites where most people assumed a home could never be built. A footbridge often becomes the link from the impossible to the successful.

Incorporated as an integral part of the architectural design, footbridges are romantic and practical, used for centuries and are still very modern.

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.

Small and Efficient is Interpreted as Voluminous and Open

Midcentury Modern Home in Dallas

Midcentury Modern Homes are often hidden and never seen in remote neighborhoods or obscured by the landscape of the site. Here is a 2,000 square foot midcentury modern home found in Dallas on a very prominent neighborhood street.

Dallas Architect and Home Owner Designs His Own Modern Home and Studio

Architect and artist Glenn Allen Galaway designed this modern home as his own residence and studio. Remarkably, it is architecturally demure and respectful, at the same time it is architecturally bold and dramatic. This modern home is demure – set back on the site and fully integrated in the rich landscape of the setting. It is bold – a simple structure, with a dynamic design so tightly organized that it seems to “explode off the page,” exuding energy and becoming a visual magnet just as a sculpture would in a park.

Dallas Architect Glenn Allen Galaway Protege of Architect Philip Johnson

Glenn Allen Galaway’s friendship with Philip Johnson and the recipient of his architectural influence is apparent from the large public room with a wall of glass doors and glazed openings to the rear garden. The scale of the home and the transparent wall are reminiscent of Philip Johnson’s Glass House. It was a space where the cultural leaders of Dallas, artists, museum directors, professors, art historians, and designers convened socially.

Midcentury Home Emphases View into Gardens

Successful midcentury homes, often small, have efficient space. Glenn Allen Galaway designed a home with no extraneous space, but increased the volume of the rooms with tall ceilings and visually expanded the rooms with full length windows looking into view gardens.

Glass Walls Extenuates Modern Home In University Park

The surprisingly commodious feel of the home is also accomplished by rooms with glass looking across the terrace into rooms with glass walls.

The detail is spare and elegant. The built-in desk and drawers are sleek and inviting.

The 105 foot width of the lot allows for an additional 2,000 foot structure to be built on a hidden corner of the rear garden, minimally connected to the original house, which will also enjoy full views of the garden.

Architecture Awards

The American Institute of Architects Dallas Chapter identified this midcentury modern home as the finest midcentury modern home in University Park, and it is one of the finest midcentury modern homes in the U.S. This Glenn Allen Galaway home was first recognized by a committee comprised of the city’s most knowledgeable patrons, professions, and civic leaders in art, architecture and design, including the presidents of the organizations and museums dedicated to art, architecture and design. This committee surveyed the city and identified 50 significant homes to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Dallas AIA Chapter. During the last year, the AIA Dallas Chapter awarded this home its rarely bestowed 25 Year Award for a home that is at least 25 years old and continues to inspire.

Midcentury Modern Home Sold by Douglas Newby

This midcentury modern home, was sold by Douglas Newby. For information on current mid century modern homes for sale  contact Douglas Newby on 214-522-1000.