Nagel, Chester and Lorine, House

Perched on a bluff above Shoal Creek in Austin's Westwood Ridge Addition, this 1941 house was designed by architect Chester Emil Nagel for himself and his wife Lorine, a Latin scholar and rare books librarian. Nagel had studied at Harvard under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, and the house applies Bauhaus ideas with local materials. It combines light wood framing, white vertical siding, loadbearing limestone walls, steel pipe columns, strip windows and a spiral stair. Its orientation and openings respond to sun and wind, and the open first floor extends toward the landscape. Mortgage companies refused to finance such an unusual design, so a lumber company loan secured by Nagel's life insurance made construction possible. Published in New Pencil Points in 1943 and in a French journal in 1950, it drew national and international attention. It is recognized as an early Texas example of the International Style, and it retains most of its original fabric despite a 1983 remodeling that enclosed the porch and added a basement stair.