Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1539744
W hen Dallas d e v e l o p e r Pierce Jordan s e t o u t t o b u i l d h i s o w n h o u s e in Bluffview, he threw out the spec playbook. No neutral palettes. No resale-minded decisions. Just a vision that began with a slab of rare Calacatta Viola marble, laced with a ribbon of deep red and green. Handpicked by Jordan during a trip to Carrara, Italy, with Aria Stone, the dramatic marble is prized for its unexpected color combination and painterly variation. Taken by its richness, he imagined a house that felt atmospheric and storied — like the European hotels that have long shaped his sensibility. "Hotels are special places where designers think about escapism and can push the design envelope," Jordan says. To realize that vision, he brought in Austin-based architect Juan Carlos Deleon, a longtime collaborator on many of his spec projects. Together, they conceived a 5,000-square-foot French Normandy– influenced house with four bedrooms and six baths. Details include barrel-vaulted ceilings, arched passageways, hand-troweled plaster walls, and floors of reclaimed French limestone and antique terracotta. A stay at the 900-year-old Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco in Tuscany inspired many of the door and window details, and the richly veined Calacatta Viola slab became the kitchen's defining feature, wrapping the counters and backsplash. Midway through construction, Jordan enlisted Los Angeles designer and fellow developer Evan Shane Krenzien, just as the interiors were beginning to take shape. The two had followed each other on Instagram for years when they happened to run into each other at Equinox in Dallas and struck up a conversation between workouts. At the time, Jordan was looking for a collaborator with a strong point of view — "someone to push me out of my arena," he says. C onstruction is in Jordan's DNA. His father is a builder in Mississippi who designed the family house in a traditional s t y l e , m a k i n g a n e a r l y impression; as a child Jordan often tagged along on construction jobs. While he was away at SMU, his parents restored an 1840 antebellum house, cementing his appreciation for craftsmanship and history. "My mom taught me to appreciate old china, old silver," he says. "I was raised to value those things." He studied finance in college, a foundation that's served him well in business, and over the past decade has built more than 30 houses in Dallas, focusing on the Highland Park and Preston Hollow markets. "I have a business background with a designer brain," he says. Modern architecture formed the backdrop of Krenzien's upbringing in West Los Angeles, sparking an early fascination with design and the built environment. He studied urban and environmental planning before earning a master's in real estate development. During his tenure with one of Southern California's largest real estate companies, he focused on multifamily and hospitality projects, launching his own firm in 2020 to concentrate on design-driven projects. "Our backgrounds are different," Jordan says, "but that's what makes what we do unique." What began as a casual consult quickly evolved into a full creative partnership, with Krenzien flying in regularly from L.A. to help shape the interiors and Jordan making trips west to explore L.A.'s network of vintage and modern dealers. "I opened up Pierce's eyes to a lot of new 112