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I discovered this house, and Howard Meyer, in November 2002 when an
article about this house appeared in the Dallas Morning News. The article
was about a local custom home builder who had purchased the house and
was intending to tear it down to build some kind of "Spanish Revival
Mediterranean Tuscan French Villa English Renaissance Castle" something-or-other
in it's place. Local preservationists found out about it and the builder
delayed demolition to give someone who might want to save the house an
opportunity to buy it. The builder does deserve credit for putting off
the demolition as long as they did. The house was demolished June 10th
2003 and as of mid-2009 the lot is still vacant.
Dallas Architect
Howard Meyer designed this house formerly located at 4400 Rheims Place in
Highland Park, Texas. This home was built in 1949 for Morris Zale.
A balcony runs
the entire length of the front of the house from the chimney to the end
of the west upstairs bedroom. The trees right in front obscure it some but
it can be seen in the larger version of this photo if you click the photo
above.
4400 Rheims
as seen from the southeast. A garden room on this end of the house features
a terrace on the roof. You can see the terrace railing behind the tree at
the east end of the house. A large glass cube-room-thing was later added
to the house just behind the garden room. The glass cube room can be seen
at the right of the photo.
This was taken
from the driveway behind the house. No balcony on the back, just windows
and stone. 3-bay car port and service quarters extend to the left out of
the picture. Click photo to see larger.
More of a plan-view
of the back. You can see the stairs of the entry hall through the large
entry hall windows. West upstairs bedroom is directly over the master bedroom.
Here is the
3-bay carport with service quarters to the left in the photo. Large window
at the right is the kitchen window.
The rear of
the house as seen from the end of the 3-bay carport. The window of the service
quarters is to the immediate left. Notice the huge windows at the rear of
the entryway.
This is the
only shot I have of the northeast side of the house. The glass cube-room
looks to me to have been built right were the back patio was but I'm just
guessing. It didn't look to me like a part of the house had been removed
to build it. It looked like it was just kind of stuck in the corner between
the dining room and garden Room. The first time I saw it I didn't think
that it worked very well with the rest of the house.
Each time I
went by this house before it was torn down I would always be drawn to this
particular corner. I would just stand there and "take it in."
I guess it's the prominent stone chimney with all of the converging lines
that impressed me. Or for a more sophisticated analysis....I guess it was
just too damn cool! |
