In Praise of Smaller Houses

Houses in Dallas seem to be getting bigger and bigger. One high-tech CEO and his wife are proudly constructing a 40.000-square-fooi mansion out north that not only will contain a ballroom, but could, for all 1 know, contain an indoor golf course. That news reminded me of a conversation I had a few years ago with a prominent businessman as we stood on the front porch of his fair-sized but low-key home in Preston Hollow. Across the street was a construction site where a 30,000-square -foot mansion was being erected. “I know I’m worth $2 billion,” he said flatly. “What does that guy think he’s worth?”

I grew up in small houses, first on Southwestern in the Devonshire area and then in the poor man’s section of Highland Park, near the tracks-now the Tollway-on Belfort. It was then called Belfort Avenue. Belfort Place was one block up, where the big houses were. This distinction between Place and Avenue by the Highland Park city fathers apparently caused such social anxieties that it was later abolished. I drove by the other day and noted that the street sign for my old block now says Belfort Place.

We were a small family, perfectly suited to our small houses. In my adulthood I have owned much larger houses than the ones 1 grew up in, and they never quite felt comfortable. Like a baggy suit, they seemed to hang too loose. 1 found myself rambling around in them, and whole rooms-in one case, sets of rooms-went unused for weeks at a time. Those big houses didn’t feel right. They were too empty. A house should be filled.

One person can fill a house, provided it’s the right person and the right house. The right house expands and contracts to fit the mood in a way a big house never can. 1 learned that when my daughters grew to the age where they could invent excuses not to spend the weekend at our fishing cabin. The house, which was full to the brim when there were six of us cavorting about in it, was just as full when there was only me and the fireplace and a book. It was perfectly sized when everyone was there, and it was perfectly sized when there was only one of us there. It was a house that fit.

Kathy Lawrence has such a house in Little Forest Hills near White Rock Lake. The 1,180-square-foot house was built in 1946, also the year Kathy was bom. She likes to say they were both built the same year. Kathy’s niece. Shelly Grimes, works for the magazine, so when I said I wanted to run a small piece celebrating smaller houses, she recommended we show Kathy’s, which was formerly owned by a landscape architect who lovingly graced it with the backyard garden pictured here. “I feel like I’m in my little playhouse in the woods,” Kathy says. “I love the trees and the birds, and there’s lots of light.”

I love Kathy’s house, too. But I’m prejudiced. I love a city full of smaller houses, which is what Dallas really is.