The Bellaire House is located on a trapezoidal lot in Bellaire, Texas. The clients’ program was relatively standard — requesting a combined living and dining area, a kitchen with breakfast nook, and a master suite on the ground floor, with two bedrooms and a study upstairs. Their aspirations for the house’s expression, however, were far from conventional. They emphasized a desire for something “original” and “atypical” in its character.

The narrowest side of the trapezoidal lot faces the street, marked by the presence of a mature live oak tree. While the northeast corner of the site forms a right angle, the southeast corner narrows to an acute angle less than 45 degrees. To take advantage of the site’s geometry, the design consolidates most of the house within the northeast corner, where three stucco volumes are positioned to frame and focus on the center of the property.

To unify the site, an 18-inch-high brick wall wraps around the live oak tree. As it extends outward along the property line, this wall incrementally increases in height — first becoming a fence, then rising higher as it nears the stucco volumes. There, it defines the walls of the living and dining space before continuing upward to form the chimney. This brick volume occupies the heart of the site.

The arrangement of the stucco masses leaves space for two outdoor courtyards, aligned with large openings in the brick enclosure of the central living area. Transitions between the inner brick volume and surrounding rooms are further enhanced by skylights on the second level, which wash natural light across the textured surfaces.