Douglas Newby Insights - Page 44
Conversation with an Architect
I love conversations with an architect because it really gives me a chance to link the inspiration for a project with the experience and approach of the architect, the design process, and the collaboration with the client that results in a successful home, or in this case a clubhouse, a home away from home. This conversation with the talented architect, Mark Finlay @MPFArchitects, was particularly exciting because it was the official launch of his book, Country Houses: The Architecture of Mark P. Finlay, which was held at the @Trinity ForestGC clubhouse that he designed. This beautiful and informative book articulates the work of an architect that trained with the firm of modernist Eero Saarinen and has worked extensively with the classic architectural expressions of New England. Beautiful proportions become the starting and ending point for these homes. This conversation and book signing was further enhanced by the participation of Tina Anastasia, interior designer of his firm; Jonas Woods, the lead developer of the Trinity Forest Golf Club; Ron Spears and other participants and members of the club. What seems like bold design moves and nuance decisions are rooted in core beliefs, a specific vision, and ultimate respect for the land, and in this case the land and the link style golf course. The flatness of the land is celebrated by the course designers, Coore and Crenshaw. The endless views to the inner edge of the 6000-acre forest is celebrated by architect Mark Finlay by the broad elevated terraces shaded by the deep overhangs at the clubhouse which serves as a perfect grandstand for PGA tournaments or club play. Mark Finlay designed the clubhouse to focus on the members and views of the course in every room including even the locker rooms.
#architect #architecture #conversation #trinityforestgolfclub #golfclub #booksigning #interiordesign #modern #interior #moderndesign #moderndecor #home #grandstand #bar #golf #dallas #trinityforest #trinityriver #flatland #development #prairiestyle #windows #views
Best Table Best Site
I enjoy looking for the best site in a great neighborhood, and in sort of the same way enjoy determining the best site in a restaurant. Maybe this is just because I am a real estate broker and can’t help myself. I know one will enjoy a good neighborhood wherever the home is. Restaurants are the same. Still some sites are better than others. My favorite table at the Polo Bar is not in the center of the room or the most visible. It is the corner table of a side alcove. Some like the center table of a room just as they like their home to be visible from a prominent street. My preference at this restaurant is the curved corner of an alcove that is discreetly placed providing privacy and a full view of the restaurant. I am able to see the full depth and width of the room, who is coming and going, and even a clear view of guests as they descend the stairs into the entry hall across the room. The table, still at the 50-yard line of the restaurant, places waiters, assistant waiters, staff, and managers never more than few steps away as they traverse the room. While I am almost always able to be seated at this table, I am really not disappointed on the occasion when I am bumped. It means the proprietor of the Polo Bar is having dinner that night. Being moved to another table just validates my keen assessment of the best sites, besides I know Ralph Lauren and his guests will enjoy his meal sitting at “my table” well actually his table. #realestate #site #location #table #besttable #architecture #interiordesign #interior #design #view #polobar #design #restaurant #newyork #newyorkfashion #celebrity #neighborhood #newyorkfood #ralphlauren #diningroom #nightlife #best
Torn Down Vacant Lot – 10 years!
The greatest architectural travesty is when an architecturally significant home gets torn down before the owner is ready to build a new home. This home designed by Fooshee and Cheek, also the architects that designed Highland Park Village, was torn down approximately ten years ago. It has had different owners since and has been on and off the market. The original home was in beautiful shape and fit the Highland Park setback restrictions perfectly. In the subsequent ten years that owners and potential owners have struggled with how to build a large home here, there have been many buyers that this original home would have been perfect for. This is such a good example of a home that would have sold in the last ten years for more than what they are trying to sell the land for if this delightful home was still standing. Houses are always in jeopardy of being torn down, but they should never be torn down before there is an architectural design and building permit in place to construct a new home. Prematurely tearing down a home is economically disadvantageous to the owner and is a great loss to the community. #highlandpark #historic #preservation #historicpreservation #teardown #spanishcolonial #mediteraneanstyle #Home #architecture #architect #architecturallysignificant #architecturephotography #dallas #Dallashome #1920s #dallasarchitecture #beverlydrive #highlandparkvillage #realestate #travesty #lot #neighborhood #history #design #balcony #style
Bridge to Roof Front Door
Some of the best modern architecture submits to the site. Some of the best homes are designed when there is a three-way conversation between the architect, the client, and the site. This home is a good example. It was hidden from view at the end of a short cul-de-sac in Bluffview, a small downtown neighborhood just five miles from the Arts District. Pictured is a footbridge that took one from the street to a series of porches and balconies that ascended to the formal rooftop entrance. From there one would enter the front door and descend into the living room. Whether it was Turtle Creek Boulevard that linked Highland Park to downtown or Haskell Boulevard with just a few blocks completed at City Place which was intended to link Highland Park with Fair Park, one can see the vision of James Pratt to provide mobility to the city in a beautiful way. James Pratt successfully negotiated with Baylor Hospital, Criswell College, and McDonald’s Corporation to realign their property and plans to allow this majestic boulevard to link the established and older neighborhoods to Fair Park. Unfortunately, this plan was derailed by the then Executive Director of Fair Park and a few elected officials who owned property along Haskell. Nevertheless, James Pratt’s vision and sensitivity to Dallas, its architecture, and its future was profound. You will enjoy hearing from architects James Pratt and Philip Henderson at the upcoming conversation about shaping Dallas.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shaping-dallas-architecture-the-legacy-of-pratt-box-and-henderson-tickets-45570714233 #architecture #architect #modern #modernarchitecture #landscape #midcenturymodern #texasmodern #architecturallysignificant #homesthatmakeushappy #site #aiadallas #aia #jamespratt #dallas #preservation #neighborhood #bluffview #footbridge #bridge #entrance #design #midcenturyhome #midcenturyarchitecture #history #creativity #rooftop @aiadallasyp
Texas Porch in a City
The upcoming Thursday conversation about architects Pratt, Box and Henderson, Shaping Dallas Architecture, has me thinking about James Pratt and his contribution to architecture. The home pictured in the Bluffview neighborhood of Dallas is an architecturally significant home that I enthusiastically described in my TEDx talk, Homes That Make Us Happy, advocating the importance of architects. This mid-century Texas modern home was built behind a ravine which led James Pratt to design a footbridge over the ravine to long porches wrapping around the house and ascending to the roof where one would enter the front door and descend into the living room. James Pratt and his firm approached the City in the same way he approached a residential site, cognizant of protecting and accentuating the environment and bringing joy to the inhabitants for decades. Think what it would be like if we had a highway instead of Turtle Creek Boulevard linking Highland Park to downtown Dallas and dozens of other contributions long-forgotten or unrecognized. This will be a fascinating and important conversation.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shaping-dallas-architecture-the-legacy-of-pratt-box-and-henderson-tickets-45570714233
#architect #architecturallysignificant #architecture #texas #modern #midcenturymodern #texasmodern #historic #preservation #design #porch #dallas #photography #city #neighborhood #bluffview #cityplanning #design #aiadallas #dallasarchitects #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #landscape #Greenspace #texas #trees #docomomo
Estate Home Overlooking White Rock Lake
White Rock Lake offers very few estate properties, but the sites here are some of the best in the City. These lots have accentuated the architectural design of homes by Frank Welch and the recent architecturally significant modern homes designed at the lake by Cliff Welch @welch_architecture and around the point by Jason and Signe Smith @Smitharc Architects. These architect-designed homes have interior and exterior spaces overlooking the lake. The property in this video on a hill at the top of a finger peninsula has the most dramatic views at the lake. This site allows a home to look out over four acres of the terraced landscape designed by landscape architect David Hocker @HockerDesignGroup and further enhanced by the design of landscape architect David Rolston @DallasGardens and with a 270º view of White Rock Lake. One enjoys watching the sailboats, kayaks, rowers, and cyclists riding by. White Rock Lake in Lakewood, five miles from downtown, is the best known place in Dallas and the best kept secret.
#WhiteRockLake #PathtoTrinityGroves #SantaFeTrail #Luxury #LuxuryHomes #Estate #Home #ArchitecturallySignificant #Architecture #Architect #CorinthianSailingClub #Dallashome #DallasArboretum #Rowing #Cycling #City #Lake #LakeHome #Fishing #Lawn #Landscape #Sailing #Sailboats #Lakewood #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #Neighborhood #realestate @davidhalloran
Mayor and Morning News Massage Dallas
The rooftop terrace of the new Dallas Morning News headquarters originally designed by George Dahl, brought into focus the old City Hall building pictured behind Dallas Morning News publisher Jim Moroney. The clear view of this ornate building flooded me with memories. My most vivid memory from the time I was a recent graduate of SMU was often roaming the floors of old City Hall visiting mayor Robert Folsom, City Council members, or City Hall beat reporters, Hank Tatum and Kit Bauman. Then, on the same trip downtown, proceeding to the Dallas Morning News Building on Young Street to roam those floors to speak with editors and reporters of different departments on the single family rezoning and revitalization progress of Munger Place and Old East Dallas. Oh, the advantage of an era with virtually unlimited and unsecured access along with the naiveté of one being in their early 20s when the idea of protocol for waiting for an invitation to visit was not yet comprehendible. The Dallas Morning News reporting and their editorial positions, along with the support from Mayor Folsom, were the two overriding reasons the largest rezoning in Dallas history was successful. Rezoning 2000 properties, mostly apartments to single family zoning, laid the foundation for a billion dollars of renovation and new construction in this 100-block neighborhood of Dallas. This restoration area is now comprised of three historic districts: Munger Place, Jefferson Peak, and Junius Heights. Jim Moroney and the extended family retain controlling interest of the Dallas Morning News. The talented editors and reporters and directors continue to have the greatest positive influence on the future of Dallas. #dmn #dallasmorningnews #city #cityhall #dallas #architect #architecture #architecturephotography #zoning #cityplanning #downtown #rooftop #newspaper #publisher #breakfastgroup #oldcityhall #city #cityscape #citizen #historic #historicpreservation #landmark #revitalize #historicalbuilding #historical #mungerplace #juniusheights #jeffersonpeak
Club House Hidden in Trinity Forest
Most golf courses have stands of trees and are surrounded by unsightly freeways. Not this one. Defying the most ambitious imagination, Jonas Woods, Ron Spears with Mayor Mike Rawlins, the Dallas City Council, AT&T, SMU, Dallas golfers, patrons, and the PGA, collaborated to create a link style golf course not just out of thin air but on a field of an environmental war zone in the middle of a 6000-acre forest. Here there are no trees on the course allowing one to see an inner perimeter of the forest in every direction. Mark Finley, the celebrated architect and recent author of Country Houses: The Architecture of Mark P. Finlay, designed an inspired clubhouse nestled into the trees of the forest with first floor, second floor and rooftop terraces serving as a grandstand for PGA tournaments or watching friends finish their round of golf. From these terraces, one’s first impression is the picture of the golf course. An even more compelling picture is looking at the golf course as foreground and seeing a 360º picture of the Trinity Forest. It is hard to imagine a 6000-acre forest; however, being able to look across the rolling meadows of this golf course, seeing a forest in every direction, can give an exhilarating hint of the natural majesty of the Trinity Forest. Mark Finlay is an award-winning architect who trained with celebrated modernist Eero Saarinen, who continued his work refining the classic proportions of New England and explored warm modern design. Here in the Trinity Forest, he responded to the flatness of the site and the surround of trees with open and glassed walls that allow club members to move gracefully from the inside to outside spaces, which visually relate to the golf course and environment. The trees pictured above are looking back at the forest from the interior spaces and terrace. From these same spaces, the forward uninterrupted view of the entire golf course and inner perimeter of the Trinity Forest is captured. Here the clubhouse hidden in the forest is on a very tight three-acre site, but once inside the clubhouse there is a feeling that it is on a 6000-acre site.
#TrinityForest #golfclub #trees #dallas #architecture
Another Dallas Emerges
A flag is planted in the Trinity Forest on the eve of the Byron Nelson. In the undiscovered or long forgotten southeast quadrant of Dallas, in the middle of an enormous 6000-acre forest, along the Trinity River, abused land has been reclaimed for an undulating meadow and groomed lawn for a link style golf course designed by #cooreandcrenshaw Hundreds of thousands of people will arrive this week for the Salesmanship Club supported AT&T Byron Nelson golf tournament and millions more will see on television this discovered destination only six miles from downtown Dallas. This event is more than a ribbon-cutting at the first tee. It opens up a whole new territory of Dallas with its greatest natural assets, a great hardwood forest and the Trinity River. Without annexing any additional land, the City and the Trinity Forest Golf Club is expanding the boundary of Dallas. View of course and forest is from club house designed by @mpfarchitects
#SalesmanshipClub #TrinityForest #TrinityRiver #BenCrenshaw #attbyronnelson #DallasCityCouncil #pgatour #landfill #reclaim #LinkStyle #Golf #GolfCourse Tournament #ByronNelson #Grandstand #Terrace #Twilight #Dallas #DowntownDallas #Park #City #Forest #Greenspace #MPFArchitects
Geometric building blocks
Much of Dallas is built block by block, one block at a time. However, we think of downtown Dallas as a collection of Pritzker prize-winning architect-designed buildings proliferating in the Arts District, international architects that designed buildings in the 1980s, progressive modern buildings in the 1950s, like where the new AIA Dallas headquarters will be located, and ornate modern buildings in the early 1900s. The geometric shaped blocks of buildings create value. They are the architectural landscape that allows us to visually relax as we wait for the next dynamic design to stimulate and excite us. #architecture #aiadallas #pathtotrinitygroves #architecturephotography #architect #modern #city #cityscape #cityphotography #dallas #buildings #downtown #block #parking #urban #downtown #development #pattern