Lake|Flato’s Hotel Saint Augustine Rises Respectfully Next to the Menil Collection in Houston

At a museum whose galleries are housed within several low-slung buildings illuminated by gently diffused daylight, the arrival of taller, sun-blocking neighbors is a plausible threat. This is particularly true in sprawling Houston, a city where conventional zoning laws are nonexistent.

Thank goodness, then, that the namesake foundation of philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil had the foresight to assemble a force field of sorts around the 30-acre campus of the Menil Collection, the Houston art museum it operates. By buying and holding multiple parcels to stave off undesirable development, the foundation ensured that the Menil’s galleries, which include Renzo Piano’s main museum building (1987), would never be darkened by another structure’s shadow. The strategy also ensured the preservation of the prewar bungalow-lined, live oak–shaded pocket of Houston’s Montrose neighborhood that the museum is so nimbly embedded within, its approachable, pedestrian-friendly appeal maintained in perpetuity.