An “O” House is a home so fabulous you have to drop whatever you are doing (yeah, even that) or holding, including your nail file, to look!
typing the name “Angie Barrett” takes me back about ten or so years, to when I had fewer wrinkles, smaller gluts, and Skip Hollandsworth wrote his famous “Angie Barrett Does Not Use Butt Cream” chef d’oeuvre for Texas Monthly.
(If it works, then I surely need it.)
Remember Angie Barrett? Click here if you need a refresher course or are so new to Dallas that you’ve never heard of her. Strong woman, smart woman, a real Dallas survivor.
The story of Angie Barrett’s ascension to the top of Dallas’ social heap is a story so unusual, and at times so utterly comical, that many people who have heard it told around the tables at the city’s best restaurants still have trouble believing it is true. Exactly twenty years ago, Angie was not a famous socialite. She was not even remotely on her way up the social ladder. Her name was then Angie King, and she was on her way to the state penitentiary, charged with stealing more than $500,000 worth of designer clothes from the downtown Neiman Marcus.
Yeah, but she served her time, got out of the pen, and worked her butt off, cream or no cream.
Here’s the rags to riches part of the story: nearly in poverty, eating Southwest Airline peanut packages for dinner, she fell into the arms and life of her “knight in shining armor”, Bill Barrett, a wealthy former Coors Beer distributor and philanthropist. When Bill’s wife died after a long battle with cancer, he and Angie began to date. After all, he had sent a limo with a bottle of champagne in the back seat to pick her up from prison. They married in April 1992. For awhile they lived in Colleyville, then moved to Beverly Drive, where her home had a coffee bar in the master closet complete with sink and fridge. The word “budget” vanished from Angie’s vocabulary forever. They divorced. When Bill died in 2006, Angie had downsized from Beverly Drive to buying and remodeling TWO units into one at the newly built One Arts Plaza.
It was, in a word, fantastic.
Now the folks who bought it from Angie have it on the market, all 3153 square feet. The furniture they bought from her is still there in its glory, but will not be sold with the house. The architectural design is by Lionel Morrison, interiors by Droese and Raney Architecture Inc.; they did the interiors of Brian Bolke’s Forty Five Ten on McKinney Ave. There are custom touches everywhere, a master closet to die for (we actually had an entire party in there), unparalleled floor to ceiling window views of the Arts District & downtown Dallas, and so much spent on extras that I am not sure I can capture them all in this article.
Let me put it this way: Angie spared no expense, and paid full retail for everything. Like $200,000 for a safe! So you are getting the best of the top of the line from the hardwood floors to the custom air vents in this elegantly contemporary unit.
You walk into an expansive foyer that leads to a huge living/dining combo with a functional, sleek Poliform kitchen stocked with Miele and SubZero. To the right is the master suite with that huge party room of a closet plus custom bath. To the left, the guest room. There are two and a half baths. Straight ahead: 673 feet of terrace.
There are Edelman-leather walls, museum lighting everywhere by Tully Weiss, an under-the-radar lighting designer with a cult following among art collectors and modern architects in Dallas. They did the lighting for Raymond Nasher’s house, as well as Howard Rachofsky’s place.
Read my lips: nothing cheap.
The window treatments are motorized, even some of the lights are. Current owners bought the Cassina sofas in the living room — you know those pups retail for like $11,000 each — the Brueton coffee tables, four Van Der Straeten lamps as well as three and a half rugs plus bedding (and more) custom designed by Julie Cohn. Julie is a Lakewood artist, designer, and overall superwoman of talent. Supposedly she was working on very custom bedding for the guest room with the outline of a woman on the bedspread with Angie’s prison number on it, but they never completed it. Current owners bought the bed and the nightstands and a Pucci architectural coffee table that is one of only ten in the world.
The new owners also did a lot inside this unit to take it from the stark white white white box of Angie’s World to bring in warmth. They opened the master suite to its magnificent windows to the world — for some reason the master windows had been blocked off — and added natural stone to the bathrooms. Color was subtly added to every room in the house.
They also kept (bought) Angie’s balcony furniture, but don’t fret: the outdoor terrace space is so huge, even the largest scale pieces would work here. The important thing is what is left behind in the structure, and it is a whole lot of extras few One Arts units ever see.
Dave Perry-Miller agent Kenneth Walters has this unit listed for $2,599,000 which is ironically just a little more than Angie had it listed for two years ago. (Sold for $2.1 in December of 2013.) But now, of course, no furniture will be left behind.
This is a rare chance to own a One Arts Unit that has some real Dallas history, notoriety, and yes JUICE in a building just completed in 2008. Like they say, if only those walls could talk…
