1940s Monterrey Style Makeover

Check out the new slideshow at Houses Gardens People featuring Chad Dorsey's 1940s era Monterrey Style house makeover in Lakewood. I'll be refreshing the slide show a couple of times a week, so check my site often. 

You can also read my story about this house in the March issue of Modern Luxury Dallas.

"You can't build a French McMansion out here" -- Cheryl Van Duyne

Interior designer Cheryl Van Duyne has been working on a new development on Cedar Creek Lake called Beacon Hill, which has its grand opening on Friday. It's unusual for a number of reasons, and chief among them is the clean-lined, controlled design. The overall plan was done by award-winning Mesa Design Group.

 "These are architect only houses, and they will be more contemporary and clean," says Van Duyen, known for her own more contemporary and transitional design style. "You can't build a French McMansion out here."  

Unlike some lakefront developments whose slum of boat houses create a cluttered shoreline, Van Duyne says Beacon Hill will put boats underneath houses for a more tidy effect and easy access to the water. 

My Rare Aquilegia Vulgaris is Blooming

Aquilegia Vulgaris, blooming on my balcony this morning

For those who remember my earlier post on the Chocolate Flower Farm, you know that I received some seedlings in pots. One of them contained Aquilegia vulgaris, or Single Black seeds discovered in England by the owners of the Chocolate Flower Farm outside Seattle.

According to the description, there's only supposed to be a single flower. Mine has two. Does this mean it's even more rare?

I've brought it inside today, to enjoy its fleeting fabulousness.

Look at that color. Sometimes it's almost black, then when the light hits it right, it's a spectacular purple. 

Next....I'm waiting to see if my chocolate cosmos blooms. Stay tuned.

To Do on Saturday: White Rock Home Tour

The annual all-modern White Rock Home Tour is this Saturday, April 25. Go here for details.

The Secret Garden

To my delight, I spent most of last Saturday afternoon at the Valley House gallery. I met a few artists who show their work there (more on that later), and I thought it was interesting how they seemed to all be hanging out and chatting with the young, red-headed and affable gallery director Laura Green. I'm not surprised, really. What a wonderful place to hang out. 

Laura had invited me specifically to see the sculpture garden, which is in full bloom for spring. It had just stopped raining, and the air was still cool. Above, you can see the driveway that leads from the gallery to a fantastic private residence built in the early 1950s by the founders of Valley House Gallery, Donald and Peggy Vogel. 

The Vogels purchased the heavily wooded 4.5 acre lot, at the terminus of a dead end, gravel road. That road was Spring Valley, believe it or not. Back then, Spring Valley was a country lane, and today it's a six lane busy thoroughfare. The Vogels designed and built their house, a gallery, and a guest house on the property, all of which still stand.

Led by Donald, who was an artist himself, Valley House became famous for showing regional and contemporary artists as well as for bringing works by such Impressionist painters as Renoir, Monet, and Cezanne.

The Vogels' son Donald and his wife live in the home now, and have recently renovated it. (More on that later.)

Doug Newby talks about this house on his website, which features many of the most architecturally significant homes in Dallas.

In the 1980s, Erika Farkac, a landscape architect and Donald's first wife, redesigned the sculpture gardens which had originally been designed in 1959 by landscape architect Clarence Roy. Another son Kevin and his wife have been running the gallery for many years now.

I brought my camera and snapped these gorgeous shots of the gardens, which are accessed by paths along the sides of the house. This view is of the back of the house. The family operates the gardens like a public space, even though it's really their back yard. 

Normally the gardens aren't open on Sunday, but they'll be open from 12:30 until 3:30 on April 26 for the opening of America Works.  Laura says they'll be grilling hotdogs outside. You should go. I hope to.

There's a joyous quality to many of the sculptures in the gardens, don't you think? The sculptures are by notables Charles Umlauf, Mike Cunningham, Charles Williams, Nat Neujean, David Hayes, and Frederich Sotebier.

If you haven't been clicking on the images to make them bigger, it's worth it to see the details.

In 1969, Henry Moore gave a one-man show in the sculpture gardens. 

Can you see the rust-patinated figure peeking out from behind that tree? (Click on the image to seem it in more detail.)

Kinda makes you want to do a headstand, doesn't it?

Laura tells me that Trammel Crow, Sr., a friend of the Vogels, used to drive to the Vogels' remote homestead, to get away from the city and hide out.

Most areas are manicured, but the property is home to snakes, some of them poisonous, and to wild animals. Laura says she's seen a bobcat on the gravel drive.

At the end of this path, I saw a coyote, who came loping towards me after the rain had stopped. He was as much startled to see me as I was him. He was beautiful, with a ruddy coat. I didn't have time to get his picture before he took off sideways into a thicket of bamboo and bramble. I bet he just loves it out here.

Laura tells me people often come at noon during the week and bring their lunches. She asks that you check in at the gallery before wandering around alone in the garden. I didn't see a soul on Saturday in the gardens (except for that coyote), and it reminded me of the small sculpture gardens in France, where you might be the only person that day to have taken the train into the outskirts of Paris to visit. 

3415 Beverly Drive

Publicist Marie Dean showed me this newly finished house last week at 3415 Beverly. 

This astonishing 11,274 square ft. Mediterranean spec house was a collaboration between Ventura Custom Homes and architect Will Snyder of Boerder-Snyder, which has also just announced a partnership with Harwood International to form Harwood Luxury Homes. 

Interior courtyard pool.  You can see some additional exterior shots of the house on the listing, but for the most part the photos there are not very good. So I took my own shots with my portable camera. 

What's up with real estate photography always looking so bad anyway? Almost every real estate company does, it, too -- they put those fish eye lenses on their cameras and you get some pretty crazy angles. And the harsh lighting! Don't get me started.

Anyway, the house is going for $7,595.00, recently reduced from a much higher number which escapes me at the moment. I have to say, after touring the house, I felt it was worth every penny. And that's my two cents.

This house is one of the most solidly built and finely crafted new contstructions I've been inside in a long time. Even if this Italian Rococo style onyx fireplace is not your taste, you've got to admit it's beautifully crafted. I think it's rather ethereal.

Much of the hand carving and stone work was done by local craftspeople. Can you believe that?

Look at this carved, coffered ceiling with gold leafing. As good as it gets.

In the entry, a groin vaulted gallery with solid limestone columns and limestone floors, imported from Italy.

Moorish-influenced windows....

There are seven fireplaces inside the house. This one is in the kitchen. I love how it's been staged with a sitting area next to the center island.

Okay, pretend these bar stools weren't there. 

When was the last time you saw a Viking oven surrounded by Moorish inspired architecture? That's what I thought.

Marie says this is supposed to be the largest Sub Zero custom refrigerator ever made. They all look big to me.

This arabesque-ish pattern on the ceiling is definitely Moorish and makes me think of the Alhambra.

Black Venetian plaster on the ceiling and walls of the man's dressing area and closet

Such drama.

And gorgeous dark wood.

The powder bath on the first floor also has black Venetian plaster. Stunning.

Sitting area in the master bedroom.

A lady's bath...


Look at the silver leafing on these walls (click on the photos to see detail)

This house has a lot of hidden rooms and closets. The linen closets are hidden in the hallway behind this silver leaf paper....

The floor of the lady's bath area is hand stenciled...

The lady's closet has three-way mirrors hidden behind these doors. The mirrors also hide a secret passage to a back hallway, and you can gain access if you know where the secret, invisible latch is. We weren't privy. 

Marie in hidden hallway.

The door inside the hidden hallway that takes you into the lady's closet. Now, I suppose this clandestine exit could be used for trysts, but likely the real purpose is for the lady's maid to be able to enter and exit the closet directly with her mistress's clean and pressed clothes without ever having to traipse through the bedroom.

I figured that out because there is a room adjacent to the secret hallway door that is the maid's workroom, and it's part of a suite of rooms that belong to the housekeepers (If you wish. It could also be guest quarters, but that's no fun). 

The maid's workroom has some wonderful amenities, including a sink with tiny jets to wash delicate lingerie.....

See the tiny jet holes?

This shower is at waist height, for washing madame's small dogs....

....the secret back hallway takes you downstairs to a whole other world, one that includes a spa and massage room....

and a man's club room.....

Finally a wine cellar that doesn't look like Walt Disney designed it.....

This courtyard can be seen from the basement floor window....it's one of four small interior courtyards that pop up unexpectedly here and there. That's the end of the tour, folks. I had to scurry out because the house was being shown imminently to a Really Big Name You Know. I think he'll love it.