Glen Abbey Modern Home

40 Braewood Place, Dallas, Texas

Contemporary Home in Glen Abbey Neighborhood
Zillow Estimate: $5,326,694 Value
DCAD Value: $4,751,960

Architect Graham Greene of Oglesby•Greene Architects, recipient of the Dallas Chapter AIA 2010 Firm of the Year Award, designed this award-winning home. This home at 40 Braewood Place also received the 2010 AIA Interior Architecture Design Award.

Here is a home that looks traditional as it almost disappears from the street, but then as you walk next to a gurgling stream, down along the stone entrance path, under the canopy of a trellis and approach the front door, the blended nature of this magnificent modern home and dramatic site is revealed.

Still outside the front door, you can look through a glass-walled corridor into a garden, sweeping lawn and mature trees and see the gurgling stream reappear from under the entrance corridor, past a Koi pond, and flowing down a natural rock formation in a waterfall on its way to White Rock Creek below the bluff.

Contemporary Dallas Home Designed by Graham Greene

Endless Views of Forest Beyond the Bluff

From the bluff or the third-floor rooftop terrace you will enjoy the endless views of Glen Abbey’s forested nature across the creek. This natural habitat invites ducks, geese, egrets, cardinals, songbirds and becomes a private bird sanctuary. At night it is quite remarkable to be in the city and not see residential or city lights.

Nature Becomes the Design Element of the Home

Nature so dramatically becomes the central design element that there is very little visual transition between the exterior and interior spaces. The continuous exterior and interior walls of a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired pattern of stacked Oklahoma Lueders stone further blurs the distinction of the interior and exterior spaces. Arizona Buckskin limestone continues from the entrance path through the front corridor to the exterior terraces. The interior and exterior spaces are also given equal importance by the use of Arizona Buckskin limestone continuing from the entrance path to the entrance corridor and on to all the terraces.

Glazed Opening Wrapping Around House Displays Topography and Endless Trees

Tall floor-to-ceiling windows are a central element of the home, almost disappearing as you gaze through them captivated by the extended views of nature so seldom seen in Dallas. Whether it is the 11 ½’ x 4’ stacked windows in the 23 foot tall living room or the corner wall window in the master bedroom, you will either have an intricate view of the garden, an enchanting look over the negative edge pool to White Rock Creek further down, or the vast views of the park, streams, paths, forest, bluff, creek, and nature area surrounding and wrapping around the back of the property.

Besides the tremendous amounts of glazed openings that allow sunlight, there are three-foot high clerestory windows over the openings between the rooms, further distributing even sunlight, made possible by accentuating the main axis of the solar path the home is designed around.

Inspired Entertainment Home

The effortless physical and visual transition from the interior rooms to the terraces, balconies, pool side kitchen, gardens, Koi ponds, and paths to the stone overlook invites guests to fully enjoy nature inside and outside this modern home. The open floor plan and large rooms allow a substantial number of guests to flow throughout the home. The rich cross cut Douglas fir and stacked Lueders stone, and nature showing through the glass walls provides textures that are warm and calm for an intimate gathering of friends or family.

Elaborate Kitchen is for the Gourmet Chef or for Large Parties

The main axis of the home leads you to the open kitchen and living area and beautiful views that overlook the terrace and dramatic negative edge pool with White Rock Creek well in the distance below the bluff. Kitchens are known as rooms where people like to gravitate. Here the pull is not only the activity that surrounds a kitchen, but the panoramic views of the forested topography.

Elegant and Sleek Surfaces in Kitchen Accentuate the Modern Home

Stainless steel is used for the cooking countertops, Vent-A-Hoods, clean up countertops, range top and clean up sink, providing the look of a professional kitchen. The soft luster of the honed onyx tile backsplash adds color and contrast, while the cashmere gold granite on the top of the kitchen island and beverage bar adds elegance.

The kitchen was designed for serious chefs, their family, friends and guests. It has zones for cooking, food storage, equipment storage, clean up areas, beverage bar, and food tasting or casual dining. Each area is tied together with a continuity of materials and design. Even the pantry has a pocket door and is finished with the Douglas fir seen throughout the house. The custom cabinetry has soft-close drawer glides and hinges.

Gaggenau, Miele, SubZero, Monogram Advantium

There are two 36” SubZero refrigerators and the main refrigerator is faced with a custom panel. The entertaining refrigerator has a custom panel glass door. The freezer is also an integrated 27” SubZero with drawers and faced with a custom panel. The SubZero ice maker, also with a custom panel, has a gravity drain, eliminating pump noise.

The kitchen has a 240 volt Monogram Advantium speed cooker and microwave oven. You will also enjoy the Gaggenau 27” combination steam oven, which combines convection heat with five steam levels, plumbed for automatic water supply and drainage. It is paired with a Gaggenau 27” true convection electric oven with a catalytic filter. The cook top is a 36” DCS range with four natural gas burners capable of 17,000 BTU, two burners capable of 12,000 BTU, and all six burners have a separate simmer ring. The 36” oven holds full sheet pans, has rolling racks, an infrared broiler and convection fan. The Gaggenau 15” induction cook top is capable of 33,000 BTU. The Gaggenau Teppan Yaki cook top has dual heat zones for stir fry cooking and grilling. Two integrated Vent-A-Hood units with a 66” hood liner is vented to the exterior.

The kitchen clean up is efficient. There are two Miele Excella integrated dishwashers. Also, there is a 36” single basin Julien integrated stainless steel clean up sink with drain grids. The 15” stainless steel Kohler prep sink on the island has a five-sided drain rack. Both of these sinks have stainless steel single-lever pull out KWC faucets and batch feed disposals.

The under counter lighting and electrical socket strips under all the cabinets add to the ease of preparation.

As You Explore This Modern Home You Will Find Extraordinary Places to Dine

Whether you are having a formal sit down dinner for eighty people in the dining room and living room or having a rustic dinner on the overlook cantilevered over the creek or eating informally in the kitchen, you’ll have extraordinary opportunities to enjoy large or intimate settings for entertaining or family meals.

You might decide to dine on the living room terrace overlooking the koi pond and waterfall, or on the terrace overlooking the infinity edge pool and the views of the dramatic topography, creeks, and forest. For an intimate meal, you might decide on the walled terrace off the family room, or to submerge yourself in nature with a picnic by falling water. While the architecture of the home explores its setting in nature, you’ll be able to explore the many ways to enjoy the home.

Fireplaces Create Warmth and Atmosphere For the Interior and Exterior Spaces

Interior and exterior fireplaces accentuate the dramatic spaces of this modern home. There are wood burning fireplaces in the living room, dining room, and master bedroom. There is a gas fireplace in the media room/library.

You’ll enjoy the exterior spa and adjoining saucer of gas-generated flames off the master bathroom while enjoying the views of the garden and the backdrop of the nature preserve. You will also enjoy the swimming pool fireplace adjacent to the cabana bar. The firepit on the cantilevered terrace overlooking the nature preserve area provides a wood burning fire removed from any sense of civilization.

Streams, Pond and Creek

Water flows down intersecting streams from the front of the house under the entrance way and at the Koi pond takes a path through the natural rock croppings to the creek or below the swimming pool, following the natural carved rock to the creek. A pump circulates the water to first fill the Koi pond and then re-circulates the water throughout the property.

Acreage in Glen Abbey

There is a reason this property seems like the largest one-acre lot ever. This is a one-acre lot that also has an adjoining .3 acre parkway easement that feels like part of the property. In addition, there is a great deal of land beyond the rear property line and the creek below it. The primary reason is the visual extension the nature area on the opposite side of the creek provides. Gated communities are often thought of as small lots and large houses. This is a large house that does not dominate its site, but blends into nature that seems endless.

High Performance House

The skillful use of technology, design and materials creates a high performance house. Graham Greene always explores new materials and reinterprets the familiar. Graham Greene also emphasizes the design of the home as a critical component of the experience one has in the home and the performance of the home. This is expressed when one arrives at the front door and looks through the door into the rear garden. It is the experience created when descending to the wine cellar to select a wine and ascending by the winding stairs to the rooftop terrace to drink it. It is expressed at the touch of a button the library turning into a media room. The use of glass doors and frosted accordion doors transfer an outdoor space to an indoor space.

Winding Stair Tower

Another important design initiative that contributes to the performance of the house is the wide open horizontal spaces that are vertically penetrated by the oval winding stair tower. The four-story winding staircase transports one through the design strata of the home: the openings of the first floor, the intimacy of the wine cellar, all the privacy of the rooftop terrace with views of the creek and any neighboring homes hidden by the oval stair tower and roof gables. The full core of the home is always visible from the winding stairs. It is a beautiful and dramatic way to travel vertically through the home.

Orientation of the Home on the Lot

The best architects put thought into how to site a home. Graham Greene, in the tradition of Bud Oglesby, begins with the architecture of the house as the starting point of the design. In Glen Abbey, Graham Greene pushes the structure to one exterior boundary of the side setback, allowing the rest of the lot to unfold – the trees, ponds, and preserve on the other side of the creek.

The main axis is oriented along the solar path, allowing for maximum and even sunlight throughout the day. Garages, closets and storage spaces are grouped along the façade closest to the boundary line, shielding the home from neighbors and allowing three facades of windows.

Technology Contributes to High Performance of This Modern Home

Technology becomes a greater part of every home. Here the architect and homeowner were so focused on making technology enhance the enjoyment and performance of the home, the homeowner took the necessary course work to become a licensed Lutron technician to ensure the systems were easy to operate and functioned in a way that enhanced everyday life in the home.

Security

The right technology and design makes elaborate security intense and subtle. Thermal imaging, remote monitoring and controls to the home’s hidden escape path provide comfort, safety and convenience.

40 Braewood Is a Great Architectural Triumph

Architect Graham Greene has the advantage of having worked on projects like international award-winning corporate headquarters as a partner in the architectural firm founded by the grandson of Mies van der Rohe. This experience gives him the ability to think on a large scale and to creatively use the most current technology, materials and design. At the same time, he creates a home that is honest, clean and with materials that reflect the area and are combined with technology to create a brilliant modern home.