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| THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM: To accommodate Harold Bell’s burgeoning modern art collection, architect Lionel Morrison created a gallery-like space that also serves as an entryway. The custom cocktail table is by Jerry McClafferty, the bench is Coach from Baker Knapp & Tubbs, and the four leather Le Corbusier chairs are from Scott + Cooner. |
Changing Spaces
Noted local architect Lionel Morrison reshapes the interior spaces of a North Dallas ranch to create a new family home.
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| BEFORE REMODEL: The Bell house has undergone three transformations since the couple moved in almost 30 years ago. An initial remodel rid them of the 1960s-era wallpapers and color schemes. A second redo added a breakfast room off the kitchen (left) and extended the den into the yard. That was our Santa Fe period, Leslie says. |
Sometimes it’s the little things about a house that kick off the most radical remodels –a powder room, for instance, or, in this case, the lack thereof.
Five years ago, Harold and Leslie Bell thought their North Dallas home was perfect, except that they had no powder room. The 4-bedroom, 2-bath, 1950s ranch is beautifully situated on a leafy cul-de-sac in the neighborhood where Harold grew up so there was no question that they would stay there forever. Moreover, they had already been through two extensive remodels so the idea of a third had little appeal.
But the missing powder room nagged at them. That, coupled with space issues arising from Harold’s significant (and growing) collection of modern art, led them to seek the help of architect (and Leslie’s high school classmate) Lionel Morrison of Morrison Seifert Murphy. “Honestly, I didn’t think Lionel would take on our modest home as a project,” Leslie says. “But we wanted him because, thankfully, he doesn’t do little French chateaux.”
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| NEW WORLD ORDER: Leslie Bell’s new space is clean, unfettered with anything that is not beautiful or necessary. Lucy, the Bells’ Golden Doodle (golden retriever plus poodle), scampers across the polished wood floors amidst the Baker sofa and chairs by Barbara Barry; the square wooden cocktail table is from the Baker Architype Collection. The white vases are from ISDA & Company in San Francisco. This Fritz Holder piece was purchased at the Windsor-Betts Gallery in Santa Fe. |
Before their first meeting with Morrison, Leslie, a sales associate with Baker Knapp & Tubbs, told her husband, “You’ll either love him or not. Because with Lionel, it’s his way or the highway.” Fortunately, not only was everyone in agreement when it came to concept, but Harold, who owns Mr. Tuxedo in Snider Plaza, and Morrison also had an amazing melding of the minds. The two got along so well, in fact, that at one point during discussions, Harold went so far as to tell the architect, “If you were a woman, I’d marry you!”
The point of the remodel, they decided from the beginning, was to reshape, not enlarge, the house. Morrison replaced the composition roof with a standing-seam metal roof and raised some ceilings to 16 feet, and by changing the flow within the existing footprint. The original entry, as in most traditional North Dallas houses, was in the middle of the structure. He designed an enclosed Zen garden off the front west wing to act as the new entryway and brought in Native Texas limestone to complement the now white-painted brick. The new entry leads into the art gallery, ending at a floating powder room in the middle of the space. (It was the point of the remodel, after all.) “Its translucent glass wall is a great transition and focal point,” Harold says.
Morrison traded the old foyer and living and dining rooms for the space now occupied by the powder room and art gallery, but the only extra square footage he added to the house was stolen from a front bay window. Otherwise, he never strayed outside the structure’s original 2,950-square-foot footprint. Though he did significantly reallocate living space: improving and expanding a family room at the back of the house, the kitchen, and the breakfast room, which now serves double duty as a breakfast-slash-dining room. “He said we didn’t need a formal dining room or an entry hall,” says Leslie. “And he was absolutely right. If we have more than six or eight for dinner, we set up tables in the gallery.”
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| INSIDE STORY: In the master bedroom: a Baker Architype bed, Robert Kuo lamps from McGuire, a custom nightstand by Jerry McClafferty, Anichini linens, and an antique chair. |
In the eastern wing of the house, the Bells exchanged four bedrooms for an enlarged master suite, a study, and a single guest room, since son Stanley had already graduated from college. Morrison achieved a clean look throughout the house by separating rooms with substantial but simple walls, sans molding, and refinishing the original oak floors. He also added larger windows to take advantage of the Bells beautiful lot, including an enviable stand of crape myrtle in the backyard.
While the Bells friends doubtless are trying to figure out how to downsize from their McMansions, Harold and Leslie decided to stay put and enjoy their reimagined home -powder room and all.
Asked if he’s happy with the remodel, Harold simply says, “I love this house.”
While formulating her own answer to the question, Leslie surveys the newest incarnation of the home she’s lived in and loved for the last 29 years. Finally, she says, “Using an architect is an insurance policy on an excellent end result.”
Their home is certainly proof of that.
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Expert Advice from Architect Lionel Morrison
Don’t remodel. Structurally speaking, Lionel Morrison is not a fan of remodeling. In fact, the Bell home is the only extensive residential remodel Morrison has undertaken in 10 years. “There are so many compromises with remodeling,” he says, “and homeowners must be cognizant of the fact that on a square-footage basis, remodeling can be more expensive than building new.”
Investigate your team members. The Bells were not nearly as enthralled with their contractor as they were their architect, and Morrison spent time acting as a buffer. “You can have the greatest architect in the world, but without a good contractor you will not have a good result,” says Morrison. He advises taking time to thoroughly investigate and research all members of your team before hiring.
Get real. People also need to have realistic expectations. “Too often,” he says, “homeowners expectations are not on a par with reality: they want Bentley trimmings for the cost of a Hyundai. Budgets are not a problem to most architects,” he says, “as long as the homeowners truly understand what they are getting.” Remodeling also invokes surprises, the costly kind.
Move out. Morrison advised the Bells to move out of their home during the renovation, and they followed his advice. “Don’t live in a home when it’s being significantly remodeled,” he says: you actually slow the job down.
