A French Eclectic

Several years ago, we were hired to design and remodel a 1940s clapboard, New England style house.  The house sits on the corner of a street in Fort Worth that has many period revival homes that face the oldest country club in town.  The front of the house faced the other street.  My original design was to basically keep the style, but completely gut, remodel and do a small addition.  But I knew that our client loved French styled houses.  In the middle of the night one night before we began work, I came up with the idea to forget the original design, face the front of the house on the more prominent street and build a large new addition that would become the formal part of the house and entry.  Unfortunately I don't have any before pictures.  But this is what the new house looks like.

All of the new addition is brick and we left some of the original redwood siding in the back.  The portico is salvaged from an estate in River Oaks in Houston.  The iron gates, iron front door and lanterns are antiques as well.  The limestone balustrade and columns are new but we ordered very early in the project and left them in the dirt, sprayed buttermilk on them and threw dirt on them on a weekly basis to give it an automatic aged look to match the antique portico.  The roof is also a reclaimed clay tile that is a mixture of Ludowici and Mineral Wells.

The above pictures are from DHome magazine when they did their cover story on the house.  The dining room is spectacular with bordeaux pattern parquet floors, a antique limestone french mantel, Gracie handpainted wallpaper and beautiful crystal sconces and chandelier.

This is the formal living room that faces the front yard.  I apologize for the quality of the picture (I took it with my IPhone).   I wish I had more images to share with you.  Our clients have sold the house so I am sure it doesn't look anything like it did with their beautiful furnishings.

However, the design of the house is perfect for it's location and setting.  Most people today think that the house is one of the street's original period revival houses from the 1920s.

Homes We've Built In Fort Worth

Since starting my blog last month, I have had several emails asking for pictures of some of the houses we've built in Fort Worth.  My company does both remodeling of Period Revival style homes and we build new homes based on historical designs.  Here are some pictures of a few of the projects we've done over the years.  I apologize that some of these photos were taken recently so the landscape isn't as pretty as it will be in a few months.  Once the good weather returns and everything is more colorful I'll replace the pictures with the new ones.  Hope you enjoy.

This house you've probably already seen in earlier posts.  This house was originally built as a one story and previous owners found plans hidden in the walls dated 1929 before the stock market crash.  Today's owners hired us to carry out the plans very similar to what was to be done 75 years earlier.
The above French eclectic house started out as a 1940s vernacular.  My client desired a French style home, so I designed it to face what was previously the side street but one of Fort Worth's most prominent streets.  We added the entire front side and almost doubled the size of the original  house.  Using many antique building products like the clay tile roof, the front door surround and the antique french iron doors that the owner found, the house now fits in with the rest of the neighborhood of homes built in the 1920's and 30's.  Most people think that this is one of the street's original houses.

This limestone-clad French style house is in a small new development tucked in the middle of old Fort Worth.

This Spanish colonial house was one of the first new homes we built and is based on a Santa Barbara design.

Another complete remodel and facade alteration, this home was originally a 1940's ranch style home that we doubled in size and turned into a Spanish Colonial hacienda style.

This historic eclectic English tudor is set in a beautiful setting in one of Fort Worth's oldest neighborhoods.  The entire left side of the house is an addition that we did several years ago.  At the time, the city would not allow additions on the front of any of the "Historically Significant Homes" of Fort Worth, but after working with the city and showing them the quality of the addition and attention to details they allowed it.

Another complete remodel and addition to match the original 1920's design, this home sits prominently looking over Rivercrest Country Club golf course.

This English Cotswold designed house also sits right across from the country club.  Clad in a stone to mimic the Cotswold stone and a door surround taken from the great English designs of the Philadelphia area, this home is admired by many for the close attention to English details.

I'll continue to add more pictures of homes we've done and their interiors as well in future posts.