Welcome to La Barrett’s lair, a proper double-door penthouse atop One Arts Plaza, the mixed-use development by architect Lionel Morrison, with cinematic views of the city that would make even Spielberg weep. Over here, all of downtown. Over there, Uptown. Directly below? Rem Koolhaas, I.M. Pei, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and Edward Larrabee Barnes, all looking up — by way of their museums and arts centers — to the woman who seemingly rules the world. If Angie Barrett ever develops an Evita complex because of her balcony, we can’t say we’d blame her.

 

Her ascension here from a Tudor manse in University Park began when she realized she had too much. (Yes, even she, who collects couture, furniture and books like most people might collect stamps.) “It was really frivolous,” she says, “to have a 9,000-square-foot house.” So a hunt began, heavy on the high-rises. La Barrett saw them all, but something kept drawing her to One Arts Plaza, even though it had barely broken ground. She waited. And waited. And waited. At last came the day when she could don a hardhat and go halfway up the building’s 23 stories. She saw the view from the 11th floor — “and went downstairs and signed.” Twice. She didn’t buy one penthouse: She bought two. (Hey, a girl can’t be expected to scale down cold turkey.)

 

So now that she owned 3,000 contemporary square feet inside Morrison’s pristine concrete box, she needed contemporary architects to go with it. A few whispered referrals later, she found herself in the offices of Droese Raney Architecture, helmed by two gents who specialize in subtle retail and residential interiors with flashes of wit and warmth. (They are the duo behind stores for Billy Reid and Elaine Turner, plus the woodsy renovation of Forty Five Ten.) Barrett says it was “love at first sight” with Lance Raney and David Droese, so the three set off on an adventure that produced a highly open floor plan, incredibly executed details, custom-made everything and the world’s only full-height, all-lacquer Bulthaup kitchen. (Three Bulthaup technicians who only spoke German came to Dallas for two weeks to install it.) Behind the museum-white walls, Raney says, the penthouse is as “complex as a pocket watch,” with Droese affirming that there are “miles of cables and bundles of control wires.” Barrett says that because her audiovisual man was in the apartment a full nine months perfecting her highly complex system, she plans to claim him as a tax deduction.

All the while, Barrett gathered new furnishings for her sky-high new life, since planning the penthouse took almost two years and construction took another. Precious few pieces came over from the Tudor, and only prized works of art. Barrett packed her bags for myriad trips to New York and Paris, hitting shop after shop, gallery after gallery. When she wasn’t traveling, she was online and on the phone, studying and buying — trust us, the woman knows her stuff. In the wee small hours of one morning, though, Barrett was on the line to Germany, angling for a pair of rare Gio Ponti lounge chairs up for auction. It was only after she’d won them that she realized the price was in Euros, not dollars. (Maybe a little more shuteye next time, La Barrett?) Stories like that abound, even down to the move-in, something Barrett calls “Friday the 13th, part one, Friday the 13th, part two…” But in the end, Angie got what she wanted, a highly personal dwelling with a heady mix of contemporary art and cerebral furniture. It’s a place where, at the punch of one button, the music cues up, the TVs begin to glow with Cary Grant movies, the curtains draw back and all of Dallas is at Barrett’s Louboutin-shod feet. Even when she opens the penthouse’s front doors, a stream of air whirls in from somewhere — a draft, perhaps? — and begins to blow her blonde tresses back just so. “Do you have a button for that, too? we ask. She grins her knowing Angie grin, then volleys right back. “See? You’re catching on.”

 

To go on the penthouse tour, click "launch slideshow," above.

 

Angie Barrett, sky high: How did we get the portrait? Click here.

 

Image at top of page: Angie Barrett photographed on the roof 
of her building, One Arts Plaza, on November 24, 2009, in her own Nina Ricci gown. Special rooftop access courtesy of One Arts Plaza; helicopter courtesy 
of SW Aviation.