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French Style In Dallas

Three inspiring interiors "whimsical country French, formal French Empire, and vintage French garden "and a wealth of French products and services to increase your joie de vivre.
By D Magazine |

Whimsical Elegance
Wendell and Suzie Patterson’s Perry Heights home marries French aestheticism with American practicality”and does so beautifully.

Warm. Elegant. Inviting. These are the adjectives that come to mind when you visit the home that Wendell and Suzie Patterson have created over the past 21 years. The couple, owners of The Whimsey Shoppe, one of the largest purveyors of country French antiques in the United States, have filled their home with a collection of 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century French furniture and decorative items. But, as they are quick to point out, they live with their French pieces in a manner the French would never understand.

France is our passion, Wendell says. We live with French pieces we love. Some have been refurbished; some have never been touched. But even if everything in our home were strictly 18th-century French, this still wouldn’t be a French house because Americans and the French have different expectations in the arena of home dcor.

In America, for example, people regard a chair as something to sit in.

In France, a family will set a beautiful chair out, alone, almost in the middle of the room, where it can be admired and appreciated. They emphasize the aesthetic, Wendell explains. Americans, on the other hand, have a certain expectation of comfort. When we buy a chair, we want a comfortable beautiful chair. And then what do we do? Set a side table right there next to it for drinks or books. Not so in a French home. So Americans and French are the flip sides of the same coin. It’s no wonder we’re each so very interested in the other.

The Pattersons live French American-style in a beautifully maintained 1928 Texas Tudor nestled in Perry Heights, a landmark neighborhood near downtown, on a street that has been called Preacher’s Row, where five churches once owned parsonages for their clerics. (Theirs was once occupied by the Methodist bishop.) Originally built with five bedrooms and a sleeping porch, the house has required very little work over the years. Two of the bedrooms were converted into a den and a sitting room for the master suite, and Wendell and Suzie enclosed the sleeping porch with leaded windows to make a sunroom. This is everyone’s favorite room, Suzie says. Guests walk straight through the living room and dining room and settle in here.

I have to admit that I love it, too, says Wendell. We eat in here regularly. This is an active neighborhood, and we enjoy watching the world pass in front of these windows.

This past year, the Pattersons enclosed the front porch to create a proper entrance. Before we created the entry you just seemed to jump into the house because the front door opened directly into the living room, Wendell says.

Never has so much money and effort been put into so small a space, Suzie says, but the finished entry is just what the house needed.

Color plays an important role in their home. Suzie, an ASID fellow with a degree in interior design from the University of Texas, taught color theory in El Centro’s design program for 20 years. Coupled with her expertise is their shared passion for color. We live with more color than most, Suzie says.

We find it stimulating, Wendell says. (Wendell and Suzie often complete each other’s thoughts. It’s an endearing quality that highlights the fact that they’re business partners as well as husband and wife.)

Their color palette was drawn from the Charles X rug in their dining room and includes rich but muted shades of aqua, rust, tangerine, sage, maroon, and others. The living room’s teal walls are noteworthy, but they become remarkable when Wendell shares that they chose the color years ago, when the world was beige.

We went to Paris knowing we wanted an Aubusson rug from the 1830s, Wendell says. And when you want an old rug, you have to start with the old rug and let it determine the color of your dcor. Given the fact that the Aubusson in question includes 18 colors I got curious one day and actually counted, Wendell says”their choices are nearly limitless. Fashions change “it’s inevitable. When they do, or when our tastes change, we can just pick another color in the Aubusson to emphasize.

The rug might have been the starting point for the color palette, but when Wendell and Suzie name the piece that inspired their love affair with all things French, they point to an armoire in the dining room. Suzie was still working as an interior designer, Wendell says, and she’d actually been shopping for a client. She’d been to Lola Pflaster’s, which was the first great French shop in Dallas. Back then no one in Dallas was thinking French; the city was English through and through. Suzie told me that Lola had an armoire that was just magnificent. And that’s where it all began.

The Pattersons collection of French furniture includes an 18th-century commode in the dining room that has never been altered, a rare state that the French call in its juice. But, Wendell says, Some of our most interesting finds and best buys have been things that need some restoration or repair work. Included in that would have to be their second Charles X Aubusson rug, which they found lying in the dirt at a country fair in southwestern France. The rug needs some work, Suzie says.

But when we found another, larger Charles X rug in the same style and colors as the original, there was no question that we’d buy it, Wendell says.

We’ve collected French furniture and accessories for all of our married life, Suzie says.

And I guess we always will, Wendell says.

French Empire
The formal French interior of Kevin Peavy’s Turtle Creek high-rise is a regal study in elegance and symmetry.

A 1950s modern Turtle Creek high-rise might be the last place you’d expect to find a formal French interior, but the dcor of Kevin Peavy’s home of six years seems a natural fit. Older apartments have larger rooms with better flow and more wall space, Kevin says. Newer apartments have warrens of little rooms, which are not conducive to entertaining. And wall space is certainly important to me as a collector.

Kevin, who is a partner in Joseph Minton Antiques and president of the Slocum Street Antique Dealers Association, says he’s more of an addict than a collector.

I’m addicted to furniture and objects, he says. I’ve always felt that inanimate objects have their own soul, and I’m fascinated by who made it, who owned it, and what was going on in the world at the time. Furniture has attitude, and that intrigues me. I’m lucky enough to have been exposed to art and antiques as a child and to have had three great friends and mentors Sigmund Mandell, George Pelletier, and Joe Minton who trained my eye and gave me the opportunity to work in an area I love.

Kevin’s particular passion is French antiques, especially Napoleonic pieces and the furniture of Louis XIV and his successors. But he’s quick to point out that these are not period rooms: The majority of the pieces are French Empire, he says, but mixing in other styles and time periods makes the rooms more interesting. For instance, I love pairing Empire pieces with the masculine lines of English Regency furniture. Kevin adds interest to his home by peppering the dcor with Asian, Italian, Russian, and English pieces everything from small accessories, such as Chinese porcelains, to large, dramatic pieces of furniture, such as the English collector’s cabinet in the living room.

Balance and symmetry are the hallmarks of Kevin’s dcor. French classicism lends itself to symmetry, he says. Pairing things makes them seem more important and gives you more opportunities to note their lines and design. It also creates a more formal atmosphere. Kevin’s color and fabric choices lend an air of formal elegance, as well. Silk and linen velvets grace many pieces of his fine furniture, and the walls are painted in deep jewel tones, such as the living room’s Imperial aubergine and the bedroom’s custom mix of cranapple and vintage claret. Inspiration for the paint colors came during a tour of historic European homes in the late 80s. The walls were all ivory until that trip to Europe, Kevin remembers. People generally think adding such deep colors to the wall will close in the space, but the apartment actually seemed smaller with ivory walls. Now it’s warm and intimate. The colors are attractive during the day, but they are especially rich at night, and, of course, that’s really when people spend the most time in their homes. An added bonus of the deep and dramatic wall colors is the way they highlight the art on display throughout the home: Gold frames against deep wall colors will make your art pop, Kevin says.

Though one might be tempted to think his home is perfect and complete, Kevin still has a few projects on his to do list “and who else would he turn to but his business partner and friend, distinguished local designer Joseph Minton. Joe and I have a few plans, he says. We’ve talked about laying a limestone floor on the terrace and adding a banquette for enjoying the view. We’re investigating the possibility of raising the ceilings by borrowing from the crawl space above the apartment. We want to add architectural details paneling and molding. And we’ve found a beautiful marble mantle to mount on the mirrored wall in the living room.

The mantle it’s French, of course.

The Salvage Queen
Tucked away in a North Dallas wood-frame house is Theresa Helms world of pastels and faded toile.

Down a long wooded drive off of Hillcrest Road, a single-story wooden house sits surrounded by the work of a clearly passionate gardener. The brick walkway to the house is flanked by unfettered shade plants. Walk up to the double French doors. Peer in.

This is the residence of John and Theresa Helms, a dramatic, original interior filled with French antiques and accessories, mostly deriving from a French garden aesthetic. I bring in things that might be outside and use them inside in a more formal way, says Theresa, a designer at Malley & Co., a Dallas-based manufacturer of high-end children’s clothes. Theresa has been collecting antiques, linens, and architectural pieces all of her life.

My mother would be tearing down the road with her three children in her Olds station wagon, and she’d see a house being torn down. She’d point and holler, Would it be okay if we took that? And they’d answer, Yes, lady, whatever. I guess that’s how I got started, Theresa says, gesturing to her enchanting collection of salvaged French antiques.

Theresa is only interested in the genuine article. A piece that has the original patina and paint makes it more valuable to a collector, she says. For me, it’s about a sense of history and elegance. If you refinished it, you’d never have that.

Though her friend, designer Laura Towery, has purchased special pieces for Theresa in France, most of her home is furnished with salvaged pieces she has found in Dallas. In the 1970s, friends started to worry about me because I always said I was going to the Wrecking Bar, Theresa says. These days she goes to Rue No. 1 and Lisa Luby Ryan in Snider Plaza, as well as Sticks & Stones, for her collectibles. She also tries to make it to the flea market at Roundtop every year.

My favorite thing in the world is to collect French sheets with hand-done embroidery and any kind of old fabric, Theresa says. She uses embroidered sheets as slipcovers and antique linens on her beds.

Theresa’s design philosophy provides for the mixing of anything “antique or modern” so long as it has simple lines. That means a Philippe Starck chair sits next to an antique French sofa with aplomb. She is a minimalist: I don’t like to cover my furniture with a lot of stuff, she says. I leave end tables free simply to be pretty objects.

The house is filled with books on France and French garden furniture and art, and as pure as her collection is, it is a wonder that Theresa hasn’t been to France since she was young. But we do have, Olivia, our spaniel, who’s a Brittany, she says. Does that count?

French Food
If you don’t know pommes frites from frozen crinkle cuts, you’re in luck. The City of Light might have the finest restaurants in the world, but Dallas is blessed with numerous French flavors, from the lowly crepe to savory sweetbreads. Bon apptit.

THE FRENCH ROOM. The finest French fare in Dallas served in the city’s loveliest dining room. Simply spectacular. Hotel Adolphus, 1321 Commerce St. 214-742-8200.

JEROBOAM. This swank, urban brasserie jump-started the downtown renaissance. 1501 Main St. 214-748-7226.

THE FRENCH CORNER. All they do are savory crepes, and they do them wonderfully. 2221 Greenville Ave. 214-828-8783.

PARIS VENDOME. Beautiful people. Beautiful food. It’s so Parisian they even serve customers dogs complimentary Evian on the esplanade. The West Village, 3699 McKinney Ave. 469-533-5663.

WATEL’S. Serving French comfort food such as classic cassoulet, this restaurant is a cozy treasure. 2719 McKinney Ave. 214-720-0323.

LAVENDOU. Sip French high tea with the ladies who lunch Monday-Friday 3-5 p.m. 19009 Preston Rd. 972-248-1911.

French Getaway
Can’t catch a flight to France? Then visit Hotel St. Germain for a quick French fix. The hotel, originally a home built in 1906, is outfitted in turn-of-the-century French antiques, including an enormous Baccarat chandelier and a 17th-century Aubusson tapestry in the dining room and canopied beds in the suites. Sip bubbly from antique crystal glasses in the Parisian-style champagne bar, or dine by candlelight in the dining room, where meals are served on antique Limoges china. Hotel St. Germain, 2516 Maple Ave. 214-871-2516. www.hotelstgermain.com.

French Tips
Josette Collins is co-owner of Scott + Cooner and of French descent. She grew up spending summers in the Normandy countryside on her family’s 300-year-old farm. We asked her where she found the simple, fresh food of France here in Dallas.

The food I ate growing up was always bought from outdoor fresh markets; the milk and butter were from my family’s dairy. Here I shop at Whole Foods, where I can find sea salts and an array of fresh lettuces, breads, and fish. I also like the breads at Empire Bakery. Any other fresh ingredients I must have I find at the Farmers Market.

Dallas has several restaurants where I can find the simple French food I like. Sometimes I crave roast chicken or mussels in wine sauce. My favorite place in Dallas would be Paris Bistro on McKinney. I love their sauces and sitting out on the patio during spring and fall. Jean Michel, the owner, is always gracious, and the staff treats us so nicely. I also love L’Ancestral; it is very French, and the food is good. And I love La Madeleine’s wonderful pastries!

Join the Cru
If you crave the company of other Francophiles, you belong in Dallas-based Alliance Francaise du Nord du Texas. (The late Stanley Marcus was a founding board member when the group formed in 1972.) Each month members share a meal and celebrate a mutual appreciation for all things French. The group produces two annual events: a Bastille Day celebration and a Christmas party benefiting Bryan’s House. In addition, Martine Burlinson directs the Alliance’s French school, where French is taught by native speakers in small classes, at seven different levels of fluency. Visit www.afnorthtexas.org or www.myfrenchclass.com for more information.

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