James Pratt and Hal Box

9035 Broken Arrow Lane, Dallas, Texas

Broken Arrow

This home was designed by James Pratt and Hal Box in 1959 for Edward and Mary Jane Wilson. Mary Jane Wilson had grown up in a Lang and Witchell designed home on Swiss Avenue. It’s one of many cases where children who grew up in an architect designed home employed an architect for their own home.

This Texas Modern home might be the only one where you must walk into the middle of the house to find the front door. James Pratt designed the home to fit a hillside at the end of a cul-de-sac. He employed an entrance bridge out over a drive descending to covered car spaces and between the kitchen/dining pavilion and to roofs of the car pavilion. The bridge lands on a balcony that wraps the living room/bar/library and leads to the front door. This living room pavilion placed in the trees looks over Bachman Creek. The dining room is four feet lower with its own outdoor space. Under the living room and library are three bedrooms and service elements. The multi-gabled roofs are expressed within the living room, library, dining room and kitchen. The balconies and exterior architectural spaces accommodate up to 60 people for entertainment or dining. There is a combination of rustic and refined materials. The exterior walls are of Granbury fence rock and paneling of western red cedar. The structural columns and beams are mahogany. The interior paneling is riff-grain fir and floors are stained common brick. The brass doorknobs as well as certain light fixtures were designed and cast for the house.