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In 2005, David Griffin and James Ferrara hosted a weeklong house party at a restored villa in Italy's northeastern Veneto region. Villa Saraceno, built in 1545, is one of 20 or so surviving estates designed by Andrea Palladio, one of the greatest Italian architects of the Renaissance. During their stay, Griffin and Ferrara became smitten with the villa's high ceilings and classically proportioned, symmetrical rooms. Despite its voluminous spaces constructed of solid stone, the house proved to be a surprisingly comfortable place to relax and entertain. This was no coincidence — Palladio often used a classical mathematical ratio, sometimes referred to as the golden mean, to create aesthetically pleasing spaces. The Greeks used it to build the Parthenon; Palladio appropriated the calculation for the temple-like country homes he created for Italy's gentry. "Villas are such delightful houses to be in," says Griffin, president of David Griffin & Company Realtors, which was founded in 1982 and markets architecturally significant homes. "I told James, 'If we ever build a house of our own, let's do a contemporary villa.'" Two years later, they did just that. At the time, Ferrara was an associate with Buchanan Architecture. His desire to build a house with design roots in Italy went far beyond their stay at the Villa Saraceno; it was already coursing in his blood. "I grew up in an Italian-American household with lots of siblings and a Sicilian grandmother, and we traveled extensively through Italy," says Ferrara, whose passion for architecture was ignited on those early trips. He studied Palladio's work in graduate school at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he earned a master's in architecture. Later, stints with Omniplan, Lionel Morrison, and Buchanan Architecture reaffirmed his passion and focus for contemporary architecture. Designing a classical temple, though, was never on his agenda. "In architecture, the idea of building a Palladian villa is a loaded thing — it can sound pretentious," Ferrara says. "But we wanted to do a deconstructed, contemporary version. The best of Palladio's villas were simple and stripped down. That's what we were going for: something solidly built with integrity that required very little maintenance." The couple found the perfect lot: a hillside setting in Oak Cliff's Kessler Woods, overlooking five acres of nature preserve. "It was very similar to the kinds of settings in the Veneto region, where Palladio had built his villas," says Griffin. Palladio often sited the villas on hilltops, and faced them towards the most dramatic views. At Villa Saraceno, the house aligns south to frame the craggy, snow-capped Dolomite Mountains. In Dallas, Ferrara wanted their house to face north towards the expansive nature preserve and a grove of cedars below. Enter landscape architect David Hocker of Hocker Design Group, who was hired to create landscaping and water features that resonated with the surrounding nature preserve and were founded in traditional Italian design. "I distinctly remember the first meeting with David and James, and them introducing me to their passion for Italian and contemporary architecture," Hocker says. "I go back to Italy several times a year, because my wife is Italian. I am very familiar with the language of what they were talking about." A s a young man, David Griffin loved to backpack throughout Europe, where the architecture was "like beautiful stage sets," he 63 In the dining area, B&B Max Alto Max table with custom red lacquer leaves by James Ferrara. Vintage red leather Cassina Cab chairs by Mario Bellini. Floating book- matched walnut wall with hot-rolled steel frame by Ferrara. The French chandelier is 110 years old. From left: José Lerma's Untitled, #1, 2007, from Saatchi Gallery, New York; Jeff Zilm's Wife & Auto Trouble, 2014, from And Now gallery, Dallas. In the vestibule, late-18th-century Venetian mirror from James Powell Antiques, Austin.