I’ll be honest. I typically barf at high-rise condos with vintage interiors. High-rises are by nature modern, so seeing Elizabethan canopy beds, William Morris wallpaper, or Louis XVI gilding just seems incongruous. Who’d have thought Georgian would work so well?
Stoneleigh double-unit 17 A/B is a whopping 7,825 square feet facing downtown Dallas. It has just three bedrooms with four full and one half bathroom. Since the C/D units have also been combined, this is a two-unit floor – not that you’d know since Stoneleigh units have private elevators what deliver you to your front door. It’s also, $6.949 million, so most of us will enjoy the pics and maybe get some ideas for recreating this smashing design in papier-mâché. The lucky agents marketing this home are Lisa Besserer and Pogir Pogir of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s.
What really makes this place sing are the plaster relief ceilings seen throughout. It’s an amazing/costly element that lets you know someone had a big budget. The other a-ha moment are the archways. Curved corners are also not off the shelf. You only get that with steam-bent wood and incredible patience.
What you can also see is another bit of uncommon, smart design. The owners live here all the time but they’re unlikely to use the formal dining room daily. What they did was switch the original dining and kitchen placements so that the kitchen faced the city skyline. The dining room feels more secluded, but is elegantly framed on two sides by those expansive curved arches. (Also note the lighting, it’s pretty nifty throughout.)
See what I mean? The dining room is open-air to the rest of the space. The doorway on the far wall leads to the kitchen. Also, note the living room and dining room pictures. What’s really great about this design is that it works well with either modern furniture (as in the living room), or more traditional (as seen in the dining room). It’s what you see in old European buildings that are able to celebrate their historic bones while embracing modernity.
As promised, the kitchen faces the windows. This is a space used daily made more remarkable by all the windows. The kitchen is a modern gray against a more traditional large format limestone floor. And since I suspect more informal parties wind up in the kitchen, it’s genius to have put it front and center to downtown.
I can’t say I usually feature laundry rooms, but this is truly estate-sized (of course at 7,825 square feet, it is). Plenty of storage and folding space with cabinetry matching the kitchen’s color palette.
This may be the best high-rise master bedroom in the city. Aside from the space, there’s another relief ceiling and walls of arched framing windows. You can see the trick of the eye here. The Stoneleigh windows are rectangular with square corners. By overlaying and recessing the room, the eye focuses on the curved arches, continuing the Georgian fantasy inside a high-rise. (It’s really good!) Although one thing you won’t see in a true Georgian manor is a huge outdoor patio facing into a modern city.
Off to the side is a seating area that offers a close-up of the archways and their paneling. Out of the window are views towards West Village (that’s CityPlace in the right window).
The master bathroom is also oriented towards the window. In typical English bathroom-ery, the bathtub is encased in marble. Being more of a shower-guy, the glass cube offers the view of the city (for those daring enough not to lower the shades).
Here’s a closet I dare anyone to fill up. While I like the tidiness of it, I’d have to put labels on the doors to remember what was in each cabinet. Again, another great ceiling light in a closet big enough for an island.
Need a less formal, more human-scale space? Try the study/TV room. While not as large as the main living room, it’s still got a wow-ceiling and chandelier. They skipped the arches for an easier space. For reference, that’s the Azure out the window making this at the opposite end of the unit from the master bedroom – and pretty near the kitchen for midnight snacks and all-night movies.
I’ve gone on and on about the views of the city – and here they are. As downtown Dallas and Uptown continue to evolve, owners on the “A” and “B” sides of the Stoneleigh have a perfect viewing platform to watch it all. And if they’re like me, there will be a glass of champagne in my hand and friends all around – if any of them remember what I look like post-COVID-19.
It’s never that you see a successful melding of stateliness with a modern space in a high-rise, but this Georgian hybrid just works. There are currently two A/B combos for sale at the Stoneleigh, I predict this one will sell first – for no other reason that I like it a pinch more.
