A castle-like home in Turtle Creek includes a removable turret. Although it may look like an observatory or a complex skylight, the home has a different way to bring its residents closer to the sky.
The home includes an art piece that frames a portion of the sky. Seeing the space in person, lying in lounge chairs and looking up at the sky gives people a completely different perspective, said Diane DuVall of Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty, the home’s listing agent.
The home at 3901 Turtle Creek Boulevard No. 7 was listed for $8.9 million in April, according to Zillow. The home features an art installation by artist James Turrell that can be accessed by removing the residence’s turret. The property was owned by prominent art collectors.
The four-story home includes three bedrooms, four full bathrooms and two half bathrooms, according to its listing. The residence is within the Place des Vosges enclave on Turtle Creek Boulevard and is described as an homage to a French château in the Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty listing.
The feature that involves opening the home’s roof is an art piece, a Skyspace, called Plato’s Eye. The roof rises and swings open as part of a custom design by David Thurston, a NASA engineer, to reveal the sky, according to the listing.
“James Turrell’s Skyspaces, they have an aperture in the ceiling, or in the roof of the Skyspaces,” DuVall said. “So in other words, an opening. That opening creates the aperture for the actual artwork itself.”
Turrell created other skyspaces around the world as part of the series, including an installation at the Keith House in Fort Worth. Other Skyspaces are located at the University of Texas at Austin and Rice University in Houston.
A Skyspace called Tending (Blue) was located in the Nasher Sculpture Center in Downtown Dallas, but after the construction of Museum Tower obstructed the Skyspace’s view of the sky, the piece was declared destroyed by Turrell.
Turrell’s Skyspaces frame the sky and manipulate light in meditative and transformative ways, according to the Keith House website.
The Turtle Creek home was owned by Amy Faulconer and Vernon Faulconer, who founded a company that enhances the production of gas wells. The couple were also art collectors and shared pieces of their collection at The Warehouse, an art foundation and gallery in Dallas.
Fellow art collectors Cindy and Howard Rachofsky also shared their collection at The Warehouse. Their home, the Rachofsky House, is also listed for sale.
The home on Turtle Creek Boulevard was built in 1997 by the Faulconers, DuVall said. The Faulconers or their estate owned the home up until 2018, according to the Dallas County Appraisal District.
The appraisal district valued the home at $3.1 million for tax purposes. The home is within the Dallas Independent School District.