Highland Park, Dallas. Land of the very large house. Typically ostentatious Tudors or French chateaus. But behind a low berm of cactus and native grasses, something else is going on. Something sharper. Quieter. Better dressed.
Created by Alterstudio Architecture, this is a house for people who care about design. Every line, every shadow, every slab of volcanic stone from Guadalajara has been put there on purpose. It is, at first glance, a limestone monolith. Then you notice the 35-foot cantilever. You realise the garage has disappeared. And before you know it you’re walking through curved glass and into what feels less like a suburban home and more like a private museum.
It’s big – over 12,000 square feet – but the scale is handled like sculpture. A floating stone bar, carved out for living. Sliding glass walls. A kitchen placed precisely between front yard and courtyard, the architectural equivalent of splitting a log with one swing. You move around the perimeter of the house, not through its middle, so you’re always in contact with the outside: grasses, sky, concrete, light.
Highland Park Residence: A place of balance
There’s contrast everywhere in the Highland Park Residence. Raw steel against refined walnut. Handmade tile next to stainless steel. Texture offset by sheer volume. Upstairs, the private quarters are connected by a long internal gallery that separates kids from grown-ups. This is a family house, but one with edges.
Out the back, tucked behind the main house, is a single-storey annex wrapped in ivy. Inside is the gallery proper – white walls, concrete floors, three enormous skylights. It’s serene and spartan, designed to show the art and nothing else. A place for thinking.
The whole thing is immaculately detailed. Not in a flashy way – no gold taps or backlit onyx here – but with a kind of monastic calm. There’s generosity in the scale and rigour in the planning. It’s not showy. It’s not loud. It just works. In a neighbourhood that often chooses excess over elegance, this house is the exception.
