The one-story, flat-roofed, brick- and glass-walled pavilion that Houston architect Hugo V. Neuhaus Jr. designed for his family is one of the great works of domestic architecture in Houston. It opens to its landscape, the flat portion of what had been a larger lot in the elite Homewoods section of River Oaks. The spatial composition and detailing of the house bespeak Neuhaus's collaboration at the time of its design as local associate with Philip Johnson for the Menil House (
HN7). C. C. Fleming was the landscape architect. Next door at 1406 Kirby Drive is “Rienzi” of 1954 by Staub, Rather and Howze, which now contains the Museum of Fine Arts' Center for European Decorative Arts.