Property of Mr. and Mrs. John Wallace, Athens, Alabama | Architect: Paul Rudolph

Of all forms of American regional architecture, none is quite so indomitable as that of the South. In New England, weathered saltboxes rub shoulders with vastly dissimilar glossy new neighbors, just as Californian houses range from Spanish and neo-Tudor to the madly contemporary. But in the deep South, the memory of Tara persists. There are few old houses of importance- and fewer new ones-that do not mirror the columned whiteness of the early nineteenth-century Greek temple style. 

This house in Athens, Ala., designed by architect Paul Rudolph for Mr. and Mrs. John Wallace and their three children (one ten-year-old, two teen-agers), is as classic, in spirit and scale, as Olympus. At the same time, it is completely contemporary. Inside, you move through a delightful succession of informally related rooms of varied shapes-low and round, high and rectangular, wide and windowed. And for all its classic exterior, the house is as livable- and as lived in-as design and cherishing can make it.

The porch side of the house is an exuberant contrast to the opposite side which is quite solid, reserved, and very private. Guests always know they are welcome at the Wallaces, although to find the welcome mat, they have to wait until they have driven up a winding drive and around to the main entrance at the south end of the house. Once inside they find themselves in a two-storied hall with an oval bay containing a spiral staircase to the bedroom floor above. The living room is at the left of the hall. Straight ahead-past the powder room is the dining room, and, beyond that, the breakfast room, which is partly screened by a smooth white wall curved into an oval. Extending around the breakfast room are the pantry and kitchen, and to the left at the far end of the court is the family room.

Upstairs, two-thirds of the U-shaped space is given to the children's bedrooms and baths (the boys' overhangs the court like a skylighted oriel), a study shared by Mr. Wallace, the children, and television, and a long gallery which parallels the court. The other third is devoted to the parents' suite, a composite of bedroom, dressing rooms, and two baths.  

Unless the family uses the outside staircase from the court, they go aloft via the front hall stairs which means a 72-foot trek for the senior Wallaces-a walk they enjoy because it gives them varied views of the court and the porch. But in case they someday tire of this exercise, an elevator shaft from the family room awaits a future cage which will whisk them straight up to their bedroom.

Imposing as it is, the house has never seemed to the Wallaces to resemble a monument. They love its drama, but they live in it exactly as they have always lived-in southern comfort. When they moved in, it never occurred to them to order up new furniture.