 | MODERN MASTER: The Frank Welch-designed homes at 3612 Euclid Avenue (left) and 3535 West Lawther Drive(below) demonstrate the ideals of Texas regionalist design: they are unpretentious, spacious, and well-proportioned. |
Frank Welch
Behind this Texas regionalist architect’s simple facades exist wide-open, light-filled interiors.
A Frank Welch Home Tour Take a Sunday afternoon to familiarize yourself with this Texas regionalist architect’s designs. 3535 W. Lawther Dr. |
As a child, Frank Welch remembers entering mansion houses and being depressed by their dark and uninviting interiors. Several decades and 52 major awards later, he has never forgotten the lessons learned on those childhood visits. The acknowledged Texas master designs homes that have extraordinary interiors; they are bold, clear spaces filled with natural light and handsome details. When speaking of their deceptively simple facades, Frank compares them to a person who is attractive, but you find that their true beauty is what is inside.
Trained as a modernist at Texas A&M, Frank credits his mentor, Dallas architect O’Neil Ford, with teaching him that modern houses don’t have to have flat roofs and imbuing him with many of the principles of the Texas regionalist movement.
I don’t like houses that are puzzling, he says. Great Texas homes are unpretentious, commodious, spacious, well-proportioned, easy to understand, and delightful to be in. His designs are all these things and more “many have become classics of the Texas regionalist movement. If you drive by the addresses listed to the right, you’ll see the work that has earned him awards from the American Institute of Architects and Texas Society of Architects.
The Euro-retro homes that are being built so often today don’t advance architecture, only social pretension, he says. In the great regional houses of Texas, California, Louisiana, and the Carolinas, the person wears the house. But in the case of these Euro-retro styles, the house wears the person.
