Papercity

It’s a rarefied life in the woods, indeed — thanks to an enlightened mid-century architect, a thoroughly modern decorator and a homeowner whose obsession with restoring houses and moving on may have just come to an end. Has she found her Walden?

Tammie Kleinmann and Henry David Thoreau would’ve been the best of friends. “I went to the woods,” wrote the transcendentalist, in his seminal 1854 book, Walden: A Life in the Woods, “because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” Kleinmann can relate. She’s a wife, a mother and the co-founder of a full-service production company that represents directors of films and commercials. In other words, this is one high-energy, hard-working character. There’s something else you should know about Kleinmann, right up front: She is utterly, positively addicted to houses. She has renovated and sold about 15 of them in nigh on 20 years — a do-the-math computation that makes the head spin. But that’s where Thoreau comes in: He sought self-discovery and self-reliance — and some say, self-help — by spiriting into a cabin in the forest, to live among the whippoorwills, owls and cockerels; to grow beans; to slow down. Kleinmann? The same thing may be happening to her, sans the beans and the whippoorwills.

As a shelter from it all, a girl could do worse. Her current house — shared with husband Brian Nadurak (an art director at The Richards Group), their teen daughter, teen son, four dogs, a bird and a fish — is a long, low composition by the late Texas architect O’Neil Ford, he of important buildings for Texas Instruments in Dallas and worldwide; the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville; many light-handed, region-sensitive residences; and, the building that put him on the international modernist map, the Little Chapel in the Woods on the Denton campus of the Texas Woman’s University. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at its dedication in 1939. But by 1958, Ford had penned another masterpiece back in Dallas, on a leafy acre near Forest Lane and Hillcrest Road. The Kleinmann-Nadurak house follows one of the most progressive tenets that sprang from modernist thinking: Present a solid, almost featureless façade to passersby, but gift the occupants with thrilling transparency out back. This house does that in spades. Duck through one of the plain front doors and a whole wooded world is served up, in CinemaScope. Ten-foot ceilings throughout, few interior walls and gobs of glass bring the lot’s towering trees rushing in. Dappled light shimmers wherever you look. Scrutinize the vista closer and you notice a creek coursing by. It’s idyllic, to be sure — architecture and Mother Nature becoming fast friends. (At this, O’Neil Ford excelled.) The house lies lightly on the land, and its materials are quiet, too: brown brick outside and in, wood mullions, terrazzo floors and slatted-wood ceilings, those stained a soft, pale gray. It’s a restrained palette, befitting the restrained architecture.

But how does a 2012 family adapt to such a delicate mid-century shelter in the woods? That was designer Alice Cottrell’s charge. Kleinmann called on the one person she trusted to furnish the house — the Ralph Waldo Emerson to her Henry David Thoreau. Cottrell had worked on a number of Kleinmann’s houses, and the two pals — they even shop and travel together now — had just reinvigorated Kleinmann’s previous residence when this one was purchased. (May we remind you of Kleinmann’s propensity to fall hard and fast for houses? But, she says, “I have never bought a house just to sell it.” Often she succumbs to the proverbial knocks on the doors with offers to buy, or another house will sweep her off her feet. This one, though, she says, “I stalked.”) Cottrell set about reimagining existing pieces and putting beloved pieces into new roles, all while sticking to an overall aesthetic that already captured her client’s vivacious personality. Kleinmann snaps, crackles, pops, sighs and swoons when describing what this house — and all of her houses — mean to her. Cottrell, on the other hand, is a gentle soul, quite dry-witted and seemingly unable to be flustered — the perfect foil for Kleimann’s nuclear-powered enthusiasm for dwellings and decorating. The translation went splendidly, and in the end, Cottrell seemingly channeled the chicest of the glassy, woodland lairs on our pop-culture consciousness: the villain’s swank lodge in North by Northwest, the professor’s house in Tom Ford’s A Single Man. But as a real, family house, it’s a success. “We live all over this house,” Kleinmann says, with a husband who works on his own paintings in a sunlit corner and teen kids who host sleepovers on an epic, 19-foot sofa in the den. Will this be it? Has Kleinmann found her Walden? We present the numbers: Thoreau lived in his house in the woods for two years. Kleinmann and brood are at two-and-a-half years in theirs — “the longest that I’ve ever lived somewhere,” she says.

IMAGES:

“The minute” owner Tammie Kleinmann saw this end of the capacious living room, she knew it would be the dining space. “Eating here and watching nature,” she says, “is like watching TV.” The B&B Italia chairs are covered in faux red fox from Dorian Bahr. The ottomans, at left, were designed by Alice Cottrell, built and upholstered (in faux grizzly-bear fur from Bergamo Fabrics, through I.D. Collection) at Kisabeth Furniture. Above them, a work by Berlin artist Cornelia Schleime. The window sheers are from Jack Lenor Larsen, silky and diaphanous. “We didn’t want drapes, in philosophy,” Kleinmann says, but Cottrell suggested them for some key windows. “It was the best thing we did.” Now, by drawing them, the vistas can be made even more dreamlike. The console table, far right, is from Napa Home & Garden; atop it, a fossilized crab (“about a trillion years old, says Cottrell”), made into a lamp by Jim Penix of Mineral Hunters in Dallas. Above it, a work by German artist Peter Schunter.

Off the kitchen, a den-like space that links O’Neil Ford’s original 1958 house with its 1961 expansion by Ford protégé Scott Lyons. Much attention and budget has been devoted to making the glassy house eco-friendly, by passionate contractor Marc Kleinmann (in fact, Tammie Kleinmann’s ex-husband) of EGC Custom Homes in Dallas. “I have a fetish for the mechanics of a house,” Tammie says. “I should’ve been in heating and air conditioning.” The greening of this house has included an efficient chimney insert and painstaking securing of all the walls and glass with modern sealants, making the house as airtight as possible — and dropping the energy bill by 50 percent. All doors and window mullions were carefully refinished, too. “Everything’s been scraped and sealed and painted,” Tammie says. “I want this house to be here a long time.” In the den, a custom sofa by Alice Cottrell, in Rodolph plush, through Culp Associates. The rabbit-fur Smiley Cushion is from Calypso St. Barth; the rabbit-fur throw is by Adrienne Landau, through the David Sutherland Showroom. The ottoman is Minotti, in Edelman leather. Overhead, a zoomy light fixture by David Weeks Studio, through Ralph Pucci. Underfoot, tactile carpet by Missoni Home.

The living room, just the place for winter tête-à-têtes. The B&B Italia club chairs are “the therapy chairs,” says Kleinmann, where she and husband Brian Nadurak sit with glasses of wine. The floor lamp between them is Holly Hunt. Cottrell designed the sofa, built by Kisabeth Furniture; the arm pillows are custom, too, in David Hicks fabric from Lee Jofa. The cocktail table was sliced from a teak tree that had encapsulated two other trees; Cottrell estimates that it weighs 1,000 pounds. (It took six men to move it into the house; Kleinmann couldn’t bear to watch.)  

The rear of the O’Neil Ford house, looking toward the living-room wing. (Scott Lyons’ 1961 expansion is at far right.) The original grounds were designed by husband-wife team Arthur and Marie Berger, who landscaped the DeGolyer Gardens in 1940, now part of the Dallas Arboretum. Kleinmann and family are mindful to “preserve the yard as carefully as we preserve the house.” An unwanted swimming pool was demolished and removed — bit by bit — in wheelbarrows, so as not to disturb the trees on the park-like acre. “Trees first, house second,” says Kleinmann, of her priorities, always.

Alice Cottrell, of Alice Cottrell Interior Design, with her dog Charlie.

A dinette of delicious leanings. The kitchen’s banquette is covered in real cork fabric, by Kravet. (A scientist friend of Cottrell’s tested it in a lab; it defied every chemical drizzled on it.) So confident has Kleinmann become in all of Cottrell’s fabric selections that “Alice only brings me one fabric now — and I always go for it.” The restaurant-grade table is called Knobhill, from West Coast Industries. Above the banquette, two mixed-media works by Argentine artist Pancho Luna, through Craighead-Green Gallery

The master, modernist bedroom — a study in velvety textures contrasted with architect O’Neil Ford’s brick and glass. (The sumptuousness of it all makes Tammie Kleinmann feel like she’s “waking up in a hotel.”) Alice Cottrell designed the headboard, in faux white fur by Kravet; at the foot of the bed, a faux red-fox throw by Adrienne Landau, through the David Sutherland Showroom. At the tall windows, faux cashmere curtains by Robert Allen. Underscoring it all, an Edward Fields carpet from Kleinmann’s previous residence; Cottrell had it re-cut for this house. The vintage Koch + Lowy lamp at bedside is from Vinya Design & Consign.

This cat doesn’t scratch — she shoots. California artist Harry Siter’s gun-wielding Mother Nature, of bronze, aluminum and redwood, protects her trees,

The sleekest, chicest powder bath in Dallas. Cottrell had the house’s original cabinetry painted, then specified woven vinyl sisal for the floor, by Bolon of Sweden, from Interior Resources in Dallas. On the walls, Cole & Son’s jaunty Automania wallpaper, with line drawings of vintage sports cars; on the ceiling, silvery Mylar wallpaper by Wolf Gordon. The sink’s faucet is sensor-driven, to save water. (Cottrell calls it “the American Airlines Admirals Club faucet.”). Cottrell had two of Flos’ Lampadina table lamps — designed in 1972 by Achille Castiglioni — converted into wall sconces. The damask towel is from Anthropologie.