English Cotswold Home in Dallas, Texas
Architect’s design captures historic broadway design
For a Cotswold home in University Park, Dallas, Texas architect Steve Chambers incorporated a range of elements, including English antiques as well as classic architectural detailing. Many of these details can be found in the stonework, which was employed in a range of traditional formats.
“One of the controlling factors in the design of this house was that the couple collects English antiques,” says Steve. “They get a container full and bring them back. They brought back old English doors, and they have one room with paneling from the 1600s. The idea was to make the house look as authentic as possible, and to do that, we used elements such as cut stone around the windows and entry door.”
The residence is sited on a narrow urban lot within University Park. In addition to incorporating the antiques collected by the couple — who travels extensively in the Cotswold countryside of England — the home needed to provide light, openness, convenience and other amenities of modern design.
Chambers Architects’ approach was to use authentic English details and architectural antiques, and one of the most noteworthy details was the use of limestone at the windows. “We designed an authentic 16th century detail of fixed leaded glass windows that were set directly into the structural stone,” Steve explains. “It was a challenge to convey this to the contractor. We actually spent time looking at old historic gothic details to figure out how to do it. It was something I had never done before, and neither had the stone or the glass contractors. We did some research on how it would be done, and we do have some very old books with old English details in them.”
Once the windows were installed, they quickly contributed to the overall goal of creating a home that looked centuries old. “These are single-glazed windows in a metal frame, so they ‘sweat,’ and when the condensation runs onto the stone, it looks like what you would see on a building that is 200 or 300 years old,” Chambers said. “That is part of the natural effect of what happens with the stone. Some might consider it an imperfection, but we liked the natural effect. The homeowner loves the idea that the house looks like it was built in an earlier period of time. She didn’t want something that looked as though it was built today.” This home was recently published in Stone World magazine for its use of authentic stone detailing and craftsmanship. For more photos of this home, go to the portfolio.
