IMITATING THE MEDIEVAL HALL HOUSE

English manor houses in the late Medieval period always included a high-ceilinged "hall" which served as a communal living area. Many of the Tudor Style and Mediterranean Style homes in Highland Park, in Lakewood's Country Club Estates, and a few homes in Greenland Hills have living rooms with raised ceilings decorated by false timbers. (This extra-high ceiling was particularly favored by Clyde Hutsell.)

This evocation of the Medieval hall house by means of a raised ceiling was not unique to Dallas, but was part of a nationwide trend in fine home design in the late 1920's. This is discussed in the chapter on "Residences"  in The Practical Requirements Of Modern Buildings.

Source: The Practical Requirements Of Modern Buildings, by Eugene Clute, copyright 1928.

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Tudor-Style home in New York, built about 1927.

Homes, being the most intimate kind of architecture, reflect the changes in the minds and manners of the people more accurately than buildings of any other kind. It is, therefore, only natural that the planning of residences has undergone many changes in recent years. The relaxing of formality and the discarding of pretense are among the most marked of these changes. Instead of houses of moderate size that show an effort to imitate the mansions of more affluent home owners, we have had for many years simple,straightforward small and medium size house plans, designed to fit the kind of life their owners lead and to provide the greatest possible comfort and convenience.

Some years ago the reaction from the pretentiousness of the preceding period brought with it in some cases a specious kind of simplicity that was as false as the pretentiousness had been. Country houses that were really large were frequently designed after old farmhouse models, sometimes one story in height, with two more stories forced into the big roof and bursting out in long dormers. It was a case of going too far in the opposite direction. Now, as a rule, the larger houses designed by the better architects have a delightful simplicity while the smaller houses have the dignity and charm that come with good scale and an appreciative use of historic precedent.

In the smaller houses the development of the living room has proceeded until now there are not a few houses of moderate size that have living rooms that are of a height equivalent to two ordinary stories. First came the living room with the large floor area, now ceiling height is being added. There is an increased sense of freedom and space in such a room that many people like, and there is greater dignity. Furthermore the decorative possibilities of a big, tall room are superior to those of a large room that has a low ceiling, generally. The introduction of tall living rooms into moderate size houses has been accomplished very successfully.

Giving people the kind of rooms that are suited to their manner of life and necessary to their happiness seems to the author to be just as truly a way of meeting a practical requirement as giving them seats in a theatre that command a good view of the stage, or doing any one of the many things that are ordinarily regarded as practical.

Beamed ceiling of the home.
You'll find the same treatment in Highland Park,
Greenland Hills and Country Club Estates in Dallas.