Highland Park may be the most beautiful residential neighborhood between St. Louis and the west coast. Its blocks are laid out among continuous open gardens, and its eighty year old landscape is distinguished in all seasons. Dallas is infamous for its expansive new north suburbs, but Highland Park is just three miles from the downtown, and is adjacent to University Park, the home of Southern Methodist University.

Lot sizes vary from block to block. As in George Merrick’s Coral Gables, residents have felt at liberty to draw from many twentieth century suburban traditions, placing them side by side without their seeming ridiculous. This particular house shares a block with colonial revival houses, Tudor houses, Shingle houses, and Georgian houses. Alleys serve all the houses from mid-block, so the curbs, sidewalks, street trees, and building setbacks lend a subtle, offsetting continuity to the varied languages of the houses.

This is a mid-block house facing north to the street and south to

the alley. There is a guest house and garage at the rear property line. The form of the main house derives from a contrast between the north and south orientations. The roof comes low at the north street facade, and is high at the south in order to admit more light. The roof at the street is irregular, and mitigates the volume of the house that stretches between side setbacks. Low roofs at either end present a diminished profile to either neighbor.

The principal rooms in the south tier of the main house open continuously to one another, while those rooms facing the street are separately enclosed. A large recessed porch in the middle connects the main rooms and the back yard gardens.

The guest house strives to hide a three car garage. It is accessed prominently by stairs that rise from the garden in a recess at the south end of the pool. The pool is an integral part of the composition of the guest house, even as it serves to connect the main house with the guest house.