Realtor: Philip Johnson-Designed Masterpiece Back on the Market in Dallas for $23M

Friday, February 9, 2018

Philip Johnson-Designed Masterpiece Back on the Market in Dallas for $23M

realtor.com

A rare piece of architectural history is back on the market in Dallas: a home commissioned in 1964 for the Beck family and designed by architect Philip Johnson, who also designed the famed Glass House.

Listed for $23 million, it’s the only Johnson home in Dallas, and is unusual in its repeated use of a flattened arch.

“To have that many arched modules in the design—it’s quite extraordinary,” says Hilary Lewis, chief curator and creative director of the Glass House.

The 11,387-square-foot, six-bedroom, seven-bathroom home features a facade dominated by two stories of repeated concrete arches, a look the New York Times called “almost campy” in a piece about the home’s restoration, completed in 2008.

According to Lewis, though, that design element was “somewhat in the air” during the early ’60s, and would have seemed contemporary at the time. She points to Oscar Niemeyer‘s Itamaraty Palace, which was being built around the same time. Of course, Johnson’s main inspiration for the Beck house is the lake pavilion in the Glass House.

Grand staircase in the foyer

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Signature arches

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“You normally wouldn’t do the same arched form in a facade,” says Lewis. “The intent would’ve been to create something extremely monumental, but having playful qualities.”

Johnson, throughout his career, was known for “merging utter elegance with a sense of wit and play,” she explains.

The Beck family lived in the house until it was sold to the current owners in 2002. The home and grounds were in need of repair, and slated to be demolished. The homeowners hired Dallas architecture firm Bodron+Fruit and landscape architects Reed-Hildebrand to do an extensive, period-sensitive restoration and renovation.

The house, set on 6.45 acres, was “conceived as a theatrical viewing platform for the surrounding landscape,” reads the project statement of Reed-Hildebrand.

Though Bodron+Fruit significantly changed the layout of the north end of the house—updating the kitchen and creating more usable, family-friendly space—the home’s character was kept intact. The property includes a new pool, media house, tennis court, and modernist cabana.

The home went on the market in 2014 for $27.5 million, but failed to find a buyer. Will the Beck house find the right buyer at its new reduced price?

Paging all modern preservationists—this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity.