Miller, John Hickman, House

The Miller House, located in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas, was built by John Hickman Miller in 1904. An excellent example of Shingle Style architecture, this house is one of the few remaining in Texas and is the only known Shingle Style left standing in Dallas. The Shingle Style is considered a transitional style between Victorian and Prairie. Although it was prominent in the Northeast between 1872 and 1900, the Shingle Style did not flourish in Dallas, a city whose architectural influence was more from the Midwest. The house displays the basic characteristics of the Shingle Style: upper and lower stories are covered with uniform size shingles with a broad band of weatherboarding around the middle section of the house, the roof is moderately pitched with gable ends, the front of the roof is unified by a single broad gable, and there is a strong horizontal emphasis to the house. Other characteristics which the house exhibits are the large areas of glass used in the front windows, the bay window in the dining room, the Palladian window on the second story, and the large veranda across the front (south) and east sides of the house. The interior with its spacious entryway, two parlors, and large upstairs bedrooms is an excellent example of a floor plan for a Shingle Style house. This structure has been listed on Drury B. Alexander's Dallas Historic Landmark Survey and is under consideration for designation as a Dallas Historic Landmark.

John H. Miller built this house as a wedding present for his wife, Katherine Melone. The Millers moved into the house in January 1905. John Miller, the son of William Brown Miller, a large landowner and early settler in Dallas, was the partner in the firm of Fife and Miller, a buggy and farm implement business. It is not known how Miller decided on the Shingle Style or who the architect of the house was. Speculation has been that the idea of the house came from a pattern book of the period. This house resembles many of the later Shingle Style houses such as the William Low House, Bristol, Rhode Island, by McKim, Mead, and White. The Miller house has a similar Palladian window and single broad front gable as does the Frank Lloyd Wright House at Oak Park, Illinois. The Isaac Bell House, Newport, Rhode Island, by McKim, Mead, and White displays similar use of a bay window as does the Miller House. This style began to move west to Chicago, in the late 1880s and then eventually to California, Colorado, and Wyoming. However, this style never flourished in Texas. The Colonel House House in Austin, Texas, was one of the best examples of the Shingle Style built in Texas. Since the demolition of the House House in 1967, the representative houses of this style are very few in number. The Miller house in Dallas is one of the few remaining examples of this style in Texas. The Oak Lawn area in Dallas, where the house was built, began to develop in 1900. Many of the prestigious families in Dallas were built in this area. Sheppard King, Sr. a wealthy cotton broker, Mayor Adieu, and J.C. Tenison, a prominent Dallasite, all lived in this area. John Miller bought his acre lot in 1904, from real estate promoter, Thomas Field, for $3,000. It probably cost him between $3,000 and $5,000 to build his house. John Miller died in 1933, but his wife, Katherine, continued to live in the house until her death in 1969. The house was used as a boarding house during the Depression and after Mr. Miller's death, but Mrs. Miller was living in the house during this period. Between 1905 and 1969, there were very few changes made to the house. The back porch was enclosed and, it is thought that the coal furnace was added in the basement. It is not known for certain whether the bathrooms were added at a later date or not. The house was sold in 1970, to Howard Sluyter who rented the house as a dance studio and theater. He sold the house in 1979, to Blanchard, Scherer, and Koller who planned to tear it down and replace it with condominiums. Pearlstone and Casey Insurance Agency purchased the lot but were not able to purchase the rest of the acre lot. The house still retains much of its original character although it has been vandalized in the past ten years.