Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1354783
moved to Dallas several years ago for Jeff's tech company, Real Geeks, after 19 years in Hawaii. It was Jeff who discovered the three-story house on Lakeside Drive, one of the city's most storied and prestigious streets. He fell in love with the lush backyard — with bocce-ball court — and, at 9,500 square feet, the house has ample room for their big brood, plus a guest house for visitors. Designed by society architect Hal Thomson in 1918, the stately Italianate residence has impressive features from the era such as a 30-foot-high great room, restored Venetian-plaster walls, massive stone fireplaces, and beamed ceilings. A mutual friend introduced April to Dallas designer Shelly Lloyd to help with the interiors. "I'm a maximalist and would have gone totally crazy with wallpapers, but you can't do that in a Hal Thomson," April says. "Shelly brought order to the chaos." Lloyd is a graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York City and was a fashion designer with Ralph Lauren for 17 years before moving back to Dallas and opening her design firm in 2006. She often draws on her fashion background and mastery of color, pattern, and layering for interiors, and the Mansons' house was no exception. "We're always pushing clients to move out of their comfort zone, and this was a fun project because they did not need coaxing to do something different," Lloyd says. Although April was the driving force behind the design, Jeff was very involved. "His conservative, less-is-more aesthetic was very helpful," Lloyd says. "To get a maximalist look, you don't need piles of things loaded on top of each other. We chose carefully and intentionally." Most of the initial design cues came from the house's traditional bones. "There are a lot of architectural elements and European influences in the house, so I knew it would be important to stick with really classic pieces and silhouettes. But where we moved out of the box was with color, art, lighting, prints and embroidered fabrics." Color is the star here, perhaps with Wes Anderson and The Royal Tenenbaums as visual cues, along with the vibrant art collection featuring canvases by RETNA and Ashley Longshore, antique Madonna paintings, and santos. The library's dazzling cobalt hue was pulled from a work by graffiti artist Alec Monopoly, while red and blue upholstery in the great room references colors in a pointillist painting by Dallas artist Todd Rakestraw. Lloyd and April clearly had fun with the furnishings. They headed to Paris to shop top antiques markets, such as Paul Bert Serpette 66 April Manson skates by a framed Zuber hand-painted wallpaper panel.