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Frontier District

Texan art dealer Hiram Butler' home 15 minutes from modern downtown Houston, USA

Hiram Butler - until recently Magnolia Grove, a leafy and wooded residential district only 15 minutes from modern downtown Houston was thought of as a Frontier district, poor wooden houses built for immigrant railway workers in the late 19th century. Contemporary art dealer and born Texan Hiram Butler realised the potential of the area in the late 1980's and bought a small block of derelict properties. He has restored one as his home, given one away to a friend, delivered on a trailer, and built his cotton-barn, cum-Glen Murcutt inspired studio in the expanded garden space. The houses feel like Russian dachas, thin papery walls covering a 'balloon' frame designed to withstand hurricanes. Although derelict Hiram preserved everything that was possible. The Louisianna cypress floors, wood ceilings and windows. The bedroom and shower room is an extension at one end of the rectangular building.. Naturally the interiors are filled with art. Rauchenberg, Jasper Johns, James Turrell, Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle and Tony Feher among others. With high ceilings, well proportioned windows and good sized rooms these simple homes nevertheless present an elegance of an earlier architectural era.