styling by Tyler Cobb, flowers by Christopher Whanger
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At turns, it could be the grounds of an estate in the Cotswolds, a mosaic wall in Morocco, a Victorian music room, a reading nook atop a castle tower, an ancient fountain in Italy. All of these images come together, improbably, inside this Henderson Avenue area Tudor, built in 1926. It’s a place that feels as far from Dallas as any of its international design influences.
Before we depart on a world tour through their home, owners Alan Rister and Greg Armstrong politely offer coffee. As Rister poured a delicious roast from a hand-painted Tiffany private stock china teapot into three teacups of different but complementary patterns, he waxed nostalgic that people don’t use their formal dining rooms anymore. Nor do they use their china.
Perhaps it is a residual sentiment from his days as supervisor of the gift salon at Tiffany & Co. and a buyer at Neiman Marcus, but you get the idea that Rister, who speaks French and Italian, is skilled in the kitchen, and certified as a master gardener, has always appreciated the finer things. “It’s a quality of life,” he explains. “If you have nice things, use them.” A few years ago, at Thanksgiving, guests were encouraged to choose a pattern from more than 40 in the couple’s collection—the only caveat being no two guests could sit down to the same plate. “We thought people might think, ‘Oh, this is so lame,’” Rister says. Hardly. Guests relished the treasure hunt, as they scurried around eager to select “their” patterns.
“You aren’t going to match your shirt?”
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| ABOVE LEFT: In the library, Islamic and Christian Gothic elements include eight Florentine plaques of saints above the window, sconces that were once holy water fonts, and a wooden tracery from an altar screen, discovered at Milton Kent Antiques. The walls are covered in hand-painted, fleur-de-lis wallpaper, while the ceiling is paper of an Islamic design. Both are by Bradbury & Bradbury. Above the Indian chandelier, the pattern is mitered to make a geometric medallion. ABOVE RIGHT: A Biedermeier-style dining room continues the house’s earthy tones, though with more terra cotta and less blue. A Baker dining table is set with Spode Sheffield china. The gilt bronze chandelier is Barbedienne. | |
Armstrong queries, refusing the hot pink teacup and gesturing to Rister’s fuchsia polo shirt. “Oh, of course,” Rister assents. These are the sorts of details, the ones that are often hurried past, that they savor. Details here take the form of a carved wood, triple column for the master suite fireplace mantel, which they designed to match a column on a grandfather clock; spending 25 hours a week pruning and planting in the garden; waiting two years for Baltica hardware to arrive from Lithuania; reproducing a motif from reclaimed stained glass windows in the exterior architectural details; painstakingly assuring a sensitive renovation and addition to their 80-plus-year-old home. A love of beauty is what shapes their lives and living spaces.
Their occupations could not have been more different. Armstrong, who has a doctorate in physics from Colorado State University, worked for more than 20 years at Texas Instruments, held several positions in the research and development of semiconductor memory, and finished his career at Micron Technology. They are both now retired and have turned their creativity and diligence to traveling and to their home. “The house is a hobby in a way,” Rister says. “More than in a way,” Armstrong follows up.
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| The master suite, which was added to the house, has access to the garden. Stained glass, purchased at a salvage yard, has been reconstituted using old and new glass. Woodwork above the windows, on the fireplace mantel, and supporting the Imari charger, is hand carved, and is designed to match the chandelier from the Whimsey Shoppe. |
Light streams into the Wedgwood blue, English Regency-style living room, which establishes the colors—Imari reds, various blues, and neutral gold—of the house. French doors bridge the living room with a Biedermeier-style dining room, which continues the hues, though with more terra cotta and less blue. Each item, from the trio of 18th century trio panels purchased from Nick Brock Antiques just down the street on Henderson Avenue, to the Wedgwood chandelier purchased on Royal Street in New Orleans, or a ceramic bowl found in Hong Kong, has been hand-selected and placed, leaving the small rooms feeling complete but not cramped. Complementary colors, symmetrically placed furniture, natural light, and high, nearly 9-foot ceilings unite all the rooms. The effect: welcoming without pretension, much like the owners.
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| ABOVE LEFT: A Wedgwood blue, English Regency-style living room establishes the house’s colors—Imari reds, various blues, and neutral gold. Molding around the fireplace designed by John Gormley complements a trio of 18th century panels from Nick Brock Antiques, and a single seamless piece of marble was designed to echo the arch of the fireplace. Also from Nick Brock Antiques, a 19th century coromandel screen, turned into a cocktail table, and two small footstools. ABOVE RIGHT: “They are lovers of decoration and ornament,” landscape architect Susi Thompson says of Greg Armstrong and Alan Rister. In the downstairs powder room, John Gormley designed a pattern from an authentic Moroccan motif using French Brown tile. “I just wanted to put tile on every square inch,” Rister says. A Moroccan star chandelier gleams from a brilliant blue background. “I love color on ceilings,” Gormley says. | |
In the powder room and library, international design influences stand out. For the powder room, interior designer John Gormley designed a pattern from an authentic Moroccan motif using tile from French Brown. Rister liked the tile, which is used in four patterns, so much he “just wanted to put tile on every square inch.” “I love color and pattern, as you can tell,” Rister says. Gormley, who worked with them on the house, insisted they use white tiles around the stained glass window to relieve the pattern. He’s been friends with Rister and Armstrong for 20 years and has been working with them on their home for about 16 years. “They are very much involved in all decisions. It’s a synergy,” Gormley says. “We can’t always tell you whose idea something was originally.” Completing the pan-Islamic look in the bath are a Moroccan star chandelier, an Indian window-frame-turned-mirror from Liberty of London, and framed pages from an original copy of Owen Jones’ The Grammar of Ornament.
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| In the garden room, Greg Armstrong and Alan Rister like to sit down with the newspaper in the morning. “I don’t like houses that look like you couldn’t just sit down and read a book in any room,” John Gormley says. The 200-year-old ceiling beams, which are also used in the kitchen, are reclaimed wood from a Pennsylvania barn. |
The library, which is also the music room and the “Crusades Room,” as Armstrong calls it, is decorated with Islamic and Christian Gothic elements. Eight Florentine plaques of saints and wooden tracery from an altar screen arch above a window. The room has a Victorian look, as Armstrong and Rister explained, “a throw-it-all-in-the-room approach,” which means inlaid Indian tables, Japanese dolls from Tokyo, and kachina dolls from Santa Fe share a room without reproach. The walls are covered in hand-printed Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper, which reproduces designs from late 19th century and early 20th century. Here they chose a Victorian fleur-de-lis pattern. A paper of Islamic design borders the ceiling, making a rug-like motif, and is mitered above a Moroccan chandelier, creating a geometric medallion.
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| ABOVE LEFT: The breakfast room contains a built-in banquette designed by Gormley. The curtains are made from fabric purchased on a trip to Quimper in the Brittany region of France. The hand-painted plates and rooster are part of an array of ceramics the couple collected on their travels. ABOVE RIGHT: Along a garden path, which was formerly a driveway, an arbor drips with evergreen clematis and porcelain vine. Ahead, four lions spit water into an octagonal basin. | |
Elsewhere, the nods to international design, relics from trips, and esoteric bits of history could be ostentatious, but instead they form a special place that is happily original. “They are lovers of decoration and ornament,” landscape architect Susi Thompson says. “Alan defies that principle that not everything can be a focal point. He takes it just to the limit. Somehow he doesn’t cross it. Part of that is because everything is so beautiful, so lovely, and so well put together.”
Along the southeast side of the house, a path leads to one of the many small outdoor rooms within the garden. “Any great garden is a design that creates a sequence of events, from one space to another,” Thompson says. Through an arbor dripping with evergreen clematis and porcelain vine, across a sunken lawn, to your left, coruscations of multicolored glass gleam from the garden pavilion. Ahead four carved lions spit water into an octagonal basin, and, to your right, a castle tower. Have you forgotten, as many guests have when wandering these paths, that we’re still in Dallas? Benches and outdoor rooms provide apt spots for repose, and the lush, well-tended garden might be the grounds of a quaint English bed and breakfast. Rister admits it’s easy to while away a whole day here. The house is their personal tour d’ivoire, without the pejorative connotations, the sort of place where they are free to have the poetic manner of Alfred de Vigny described in a poem by French literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, who first used the term “ivory tower.”
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| Under the pergola, one of the shadiest spots in the garden, plants grow between stones. |
This magical house recalls the words of Duncan from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses.” This English-Scottish suggestion is hardly out of place. The garden’s inspiration is English. And in the stair tower, five stained glass windows, which peer out above the overflowing pale yellow Mermaid roses, contain symbols of the couple’s ancestry: Armstrong’s include St. Andrew’s and Rampant Lion of Scotland and St. George’s and Lions of England. Climbing the stairs, you pass three tapestries from The Lady and the Unicorn series, found on a trip to the Cotswolds. As you near the top, two bronze dragons extend from a 180-pound chandelier. On the landing, tucked inside a small bookcase, is a collection of Armstrong’s favorite books, including Le Morte d’Arthur and all of the Harry Potter and J.R.R. Tolkien series. Why does this not surprise me? Of their home and garden, designer Gormley says, “They’ve found their particular spot on earth.”
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| Added when the couple purchased the neighboring lot, the garden pavilion, designed by Dallas architect Clinton Strong, was labeled “tool shed” on the original plans. Now it is used for entertaining and contains a powder room, refrigerator, dishwasher, and small library for decorative arts and gardening books. Strong referred to Edwardian architecture when designing the carriage house and garden pavilion. |
Camelot: Who’s responsible
Architect for Carriage House and Garden Pavilion
Clinton R. Strong
Strong Architects
214-941-1319
Contractor
Walter Hendrickson
972-727-1286
Designer for House Remodel and Addition
Trey Bartosh
Heritage Design and Construction
214-415-2301
Interior Designer
John Gormley, ASID
John Gormley Interior Design
214-824-3406
Landscape Architect
Susi Thompson, ASLA Thompson Landscape Architects
214-948-9256
Local Antiques Stores:
Milton Kent Antiques
The Whimsey Shoppe
Nick Brock Antiques
Inessa Stewart’s Antiques & Interiors
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| In the foreground, an obelisk emerges from a fountain base containing native Texas water lilies and goldfish. “Wherever you are in the garden, it’s a pivot point,” Susi Thompson says. The sunken lawn and garden will be the site of Alan Rister’s niece’s wedding later this fall. The carriage house, also designed by architect Clinton Strong, is rife with Tudor cottage details, such as exposed beams and a shingled roof. “I love the quatrefoil, especially in a half-timbered application, as it is here,” Strong says. |
