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| Like her approach to framing, Debra Stevens has designed her home to showcase the art she loves. |
Sleek, welcoming, confident, open. These words describe respected framer Debra Stevens—with slicked-back hair, a cyclist’s toned physique, and all-black attire on the day we meet—but they also apply to her North Dallas home. Just like her, there’s nothing erroneous here. The place is pure architectural muscle lined with softness—in this case, the engaging art and lush landscape that she and her husband, real-estate attorney Scott Jackson, relish.
The 30-year-old suburban ranch house once sported a more rustic look, “but in the past several years, I’ve been able to redo it in the way I’ve really wanted to live my life,” Stevens says. Working primarily with architect Kurt David Goll, interior designer Murray Woodall, and landscape designer Robert Bellamy, Stevens approached her home’s redesign and master-suite addition much in the way she designs frames for local and international clients from her downtown warehouse. Stevens says: “I never want you to see the framing first. I want you to see the art and nothing but the art.”
She fell in love with framing 19 years ago, and now much of her work can be found in places ranging from large luxury hotels to small art galleries.
Showcasing the art that most inspires her (all works by native Texans) was top of mind as she led the transformation of her 4,000-square-foot home into a serene and comfortable gallery of her favorite things. Everything is streamlined in varying shades of white, gray, taupe, and black, so that the colorful art, richly cultivated landscape, and engaging people within the house take center stage.
“I have very little furniture, and I like it that way,” says Stevens, a Grand Prairie native who grew up in a cozy home “where we’d measure the walls to see how we could fit in one more piece of furniture.” Accordingly, she says with a broad smile, “My mother always asks me when I’m going to finish decorating.”
It helps that her husband is on her wavelength. “Scott’s so creative, and he adds so much to this house because he’s collected art his whole life,” says Stevens, who owned the home prior to their marriage. “It’s wonderful to not have to talk him out of a brown Barcalounger.”
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| The dining room table and chairs are custom designs in keeping with the rift-cut white oak used throughout the rest of the house. They function well while also keeping the attention on the surrounding artwork, including a Barbara Bell watercolor-and-ink depiction of pottery shards, along with five tall stacks of porcelain bowls created by Marla Ziegler. |
That Barcalounger would have fit in perfectly in the house of yore—one originally built by Talmadge Tinsley as a spec house. “It had rough cedar lining the walls and orange shag on the stairs,” Stevens says. “It even had the faux doors leading to nowhere up above the second level,” she adds, noting it was very much in step with the Dallas suburbs three decades ago.
Because the home’s lines are in keeping with modern design, “we had a minimal intervention with the house,” says Goll, who was easily able to re-skin the original structure’s darker facades and dated flooring. His main goal was to make the place a proper reflection of Stevens. “Her framing work is so meticulous and fine,” he says. “I wanted it to be as precise as she is.”
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| LEFT: The living room’s main focal point, a large-scale black and white photograph by Dallas-born artist Nic Nicosia, can be seen in the background. RIGHT: Furnishings are mostly custom designs or from B&B Italia—some of which were purchased as floor samples to save on costs. White leather club chairs wear a gray cast for a much cooler, softer effect in the light space. The white oak coffee table was custom-designed to appear to float. The custom-made sofa of durable linen also seems to float atop a black wood base. | |
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| Smooth and light concrete tile replaced the home’s original Mexican tile flooring to create a softer, cleaner look. The fireplace that once wore a jacket of dark brick now sports sleeker white stucco and a white granite cantilevered hearth. The art above the fireplace is a collection of six black sculptural panels by Jeff Wilson. |
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| The bedroom’s sleeping area in the new addition had to be raised for site-elevation reasons but “its effect is very dramatic,” Stevens says. The B&B Italia bed and custom end tables offer a quiet look in the serene space. With a wealth of windows framing the verdant landscape, “it really is like a tree house,” Stevens says. As for the room’s simplicity, it serves its purpose—here and in general. “People are always trying to add things to a room when really, they ought to take things away,” Steven surmises. |
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| His-and-her black leather sectional chaises face the segmented white oak divider wall cabinet that separates the master bedroom’s sleeping area from its reading nook. Designed by Goll, the cabinetry features storage on one end (with a swivel platform for rotating the television to be viewed from either side) and blanket storage on the other. Goll added a lighted niche for displaying art and connecting the spaces visually. | |
