Austin Architect Ad Stenger
Arthur Dallas Stenger initially commenced setting up houses in the 1940s in Austin, primarily on Arthur Lane in the Barton Hills area, which was named immediately after his father (the first Arthur Dallas Stenger), who was also an architect. Though Stenger attended architecture school at the University of Texas after returning residence from World War II, he hardly ever graduated. He did get his architecture license as an undergraduate, and started creating houses for post war Austinites.
While FHA financial loans had style and design constraints developed into them, it did not stop Stenger from building exceptional homes that were reasonably priced, even if he experienced to assistance the owners discover financial loans. He also worked in different ways from other builders, by buying land (typically in the Barton Hills and Pemberton Heights places), acquiring a consumer, and building a home without having creating his clientele signal contracts. There was no pressure for the customer to acquire the home on completion, although customers seldom backed out right after observing the household.
A Stenger property will stand out, with signature lower peaked roofs, clad with concrete, wooden rock and other natural materials. He also utilized rock and stone quarried from the household site as siding or created into the hearth, encouraging the property suit very easily in just its surroundings. Stenger had a appreciate for long, minimal slung fireplaces reminiscent of 50s lounges, so just about every household he built provided a wood burning fireplace, nevertheless not notably important in the heart of Texas.
The houses also have lots of of the facilities that Austin’s large modern day building boom now cherish, with walls of home windows and clerestory windows hanging just underneath the exposed roofline, and tinted concrete floors, now pricing out all-around 10 dollars a sq. foot. He also employed the organic making concept of “bringing the outdoors in,” by working exterior stonework by way of the home and into its interior.
However Barton Hills was showcased as “the world’s greatest air-conditioned subdivision” in the 1956 Parade of Homes, Stenger failed to build his residences with central air. As a substitute, he constructed large home windows to capture early morning light, and not the incredibly hot solar light of mid afternoon, and a flooring approach to allow for a breezy pass through ventilation when the windows were opened.
In 1957, when Stenger’s pal, radio host John Henry Faulk, ended up blacklisted as a communist in the McCarthy era, he designed and financed a household for him, recognizing his pal was swamped with authorized costs. He took his other shoppers monetary predicaments into account as very well, supporting offset furnishings costs with a number of constructed ins, and pricing his properties among $18,000 and $22,000, though these days they can variety from $400,000 to $600,000.
Stenger built all around 100 exceptional houses in the Austin region, developing his last for his spouse Jean in 1999, a few several years just before he died in 2002 at the age of 82. Today’s battle lies concerning people trying to find out Stenger properties for their originality and excellent use of house, and other folks who prefer to tear down these homes to construct larger households, because the places are really sought immediately after for their land by itself.
