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Left: Robert Bellamy Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Fireplace is salvaged granite. Table made from antique barometers and tile. A former garage in the garden house now holds a pastel drawing by Susie Phillips from Conduit Gallery and a sculpture from Cris Worley Fine Arts. The round antique-glass window in Robert Bellamy's bedroom slants inward like a garret apartment in Paris. Artwork by Ben Reynolds, Guatemalan coverlet from Garza Marfa. Side table made from a Japanese maple trunk In the stairwell, grillwork from the Mercantile Bank Building. Small painting by Rubén Torres, Barcelona. Billy Hassell painting, Conduit Gallery. street. "The last thing I worried about was getting a permit; you could do whatever you wanted around here [back in the '80s] because whatever you did was better than what was here, which was nothing." When a Door Shuts, a Window Opens Like many of Robert Bellamy's follies, the idea for the Tower House started with a window — In this case, 14 metal casement windows a friend was discarding. He sketched out the design with a contractor, coming up with a three-story loft-like structure with one bedroom and an office space. Friends who are Bellamy's age — he's now in his late 60s — are downsizing into single-story residences with the idea of aging in place. "I did the opposite; I supersized and put in two staircases," he says with a laugh. "But I did what I'd always wanted to do, so that was rewarding." To reference the original cottage next door, he had the exterior covered in similar dusky pink stucco and replaced some of the windowpanes with textured glass. As he had more windows than he needed, a few were repurposed into doors. While this structure is more refined than the others on the compound, much of it was constructed with scraps and collected materials. For his bathroom, he used encaustic tiles he's been "saving forever" and big travertine panels from a marble company going out of business. Slabs of black basalt salvaged from a razed building downtown were used to create a fireplace surround. The kitchen island is made from a wood door from a long-demolished restaurant on Fairmount Street, which he'd previously been using in his outdoor kitchen. "There's bits and pieces of Dallas all over this house," he says. He enlisted help from local artisans corralled over the years to work on various projects for clients. "I used my glass guy, my metal guy, my tile guy, my stucco guy. It was a nice blending of the teams," he says. The Tower House gives off an earthy Mexico City vibe with its faded pink stucco and climbing New Dawn roses. Bellamy has spent time there, too, where he was inspired to model his new house after the studio shared by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. There's a timeless quality to Bellamy's house. "It's the windows that make it look like it's always been here," he says. The massive windows he's talking about — no easy task to install — are variously angled toward the inside or outside, depending on the view Bellamy wants to emphasize. The round antique-glass window in his bedroom on the top floor slants inside and reminds him of a romantic garret apartment in Paris. It looks down over the original cottage, where he spent four decades of his life. He's ambivalent about the change. "It feels aimless in a way," he says. "I've created this Fabergé egg that's so pretty and has so much of me in it, and I come home and put the latch on and look out the windows at the lawn; except for what happens in the seasons, the gardens won't change. There's nothing left to build." Yet, this newfound free time has given him a fresh start. "I have more reason to get up and travel now," he says, and maybe spend more time at his house in Marfa. Recently an artist friend began using the bottom floor of the cottage as her studio. Bellamy's job now, as he sees it, is to keep the garden thriving. "I like to give life to things," he says. 52