Page Wilson got his start in creating structures as a soybean and rice farmer on the fertile flatlands of eastern Arkansas. As he says, “farmers build stuff literally all the time.”
But he was growing frustrated with conventional farming’s ecological impact, and the only thing he felt he had left to do — get bigger — wasn’t a path he wanted to take. In 2002, he and his wife Cary moved to Little Rock where he started looking for a way out. In the meantime, he spent four years making a regular commute from the capital city to his farmland near Lonoke.
His second act came in 2005 when he founded Paul Page Dwellings with his colleague Paul Johnson, and though Paul’s involvement diverged from the venture, his name stuck. Starting out building speculation homes in Little Rock’s South Main (SoMa) district, the one-man team has broadened its base to custom homes and project management, with a portfolio ranging from a rural wood-and-metal cabin on the Little Red River to SoMa homes blending contemporary and farm aesthetic in the urban heart of the city.
Page counts the simple geometry of farmland, a deep respect for the utilitarian and an environmental consciousness as sources of inspiration. His fondest creation embodies all three: a dogtrot-style house built in Lonoke County in 2003, where Page lived when he needed to be close to the farm. It was a simple affair — 600 square feet in all, including the breezeway — but it’s what Page says “started everything.”
Today, most of Page’s time is spent on custom homes; the company has three metal homes in the queue, plus one more for himself once he sells his current residence, a Paul Page Dwelling foursquare built in the MacArthur Park Historic District.
Downtown Little Rock has special significance for Page. Though it’s now experiencing a revival with new restaurants, shops and offices opening seemingly on a weekly basis, it was a different story when he and his wife relocated to the area from The Heights six years ago.
“Neglected as it was, I thought that was a good place to spend my time,” he says. “What I was doing was the same thing as taking a neglected piece of farmland that nobody else wanted. … You knew you were doing something good.”
And it’s this community-building aspect that overarches the individual projects, dovetailing with efforts near to his heart like mending the divide between income and race that a structure like Interstate 630 can create and the need to reduce suburbia’s never-ending sprawl by recycling city lots, encouraging density and building the local economy.
“I’m in a social experiment down here. Can we put the city back together?” he says. “Building a community downtown is much more meaningful than simply building a house.”
Page Wilson’s love for mixing metal and wood — cedar and bronze in this case — is evident in this Paul Page Dwellings-designed house in downtown Little Rock.
Page Wilson’s love for mixing metal and wood — cedar and bronze in this case — is evident in this Paul Page Dwellings-designed house in downtown Little Rock.
Page Wilson’s love for mixing metal and wood — cedar and bronze in this case — is evident in this Paul Page Dwellings-designed house in downtown Little Rock.