Douglas Newby Insights - Page 11
Trail of Tears
The recent teardowns in Highland Park have left a trail of tears across the Highland Park neighborhoods. Maybe this architecturally significant Beaux-Arts style mansion designed by Herbert M. Greene will not be torn down. There are 5 reasons why the home might not be torn down. As I discussed with Dallas Morning News reporter Steve Brown: 1) This 1912 Herbert Greene architect-designed home is the most iconic home in Highland Park. Andy Beal did tear down a historic but relatively insignificant home on 6 acres on Preston Road, but he did not tear down the iconic Crespi Estate on 25 acres when he owned it. 2) The Beaux-Arts style seen here is the most prominent example of this architectural style in Dallas. 3) Located at the corner of Beverly and Preston, it is at the epicenter of Highland Park. 4) The home has a rich historical heritage even before prominent business leader and philanthropist Ed Cox owned the home for over 40 years. 5) 4101 Beverly has an elevation more impressive and a greater height than presumably Highland Park would allow for a new home. Most homes that get torn down are to accommodate a more impressive and larger new home. Here architect Herbert Greene designed a home on 7 acres that is already perfectly sited and magnificent.
Some of the other reasons that this home is so important to Dallas is because it is a link to the cultural, business, spiritual and aesthetic lineage of Dallas. Architect Herbert Greene also designed in the early 20th century the Neiman Marcus building, the First National Bank, the Scottish Rite Cathedral, and the First United Methodist Church, Dallas, the Dallas Morning News building and the Belo Mansion. These Herbert Greene designed buildings all quickly convey the heritage and modern founding of Dallas over 100 years ago. My hope is that 4101 Beverly Drive continues to contribute to our historical understanding of Dallas and to our aesthetic enjoyment.
*Trail of Tears
#HerbertMGreene #HighlandPark #Preservation #HighlandParkPreservation #DallasPreservation #DallasArchitect #DallasArchitecture #BeauxArtsArchitecture #HighlandParkDallas #HighlandParkHomes #ArchitecturallySignificant #ArchitecturallySignificantHome
Mary Vernon
Here is my favorite Mary Vernon painting. A still life that explodes with nature. A precarious balance held in place by a composition filled with blocks of color and layers of detail added to and subtracted from the canvas. Thinking about why I am so captivated by this piece, I realize it is because it exudes nature. Just as a vignette of a home looking out a window can often convey nature more poignantly than an image of an outside landscape in its entirety, this painting, just like a home, embraces the interaction of nature and the materials nature provides for the built environment. Just as a home can be programmatically modern but not rigid, this painting can be modern and yield to the subtle influence of deliberate spontaneity from the hand of whomever yields it.
Anyone with the love of art, history, or Dallas, already owns or should own a painting by Mary Vernon. Mary is foremost a brilliant artist. She has also mentored scores of successful artists as a friend or as the former Chair of the SMU Art Department. Mary has also helped shape SMU in leadership roles including serving as the President of the Faculty Senate. Mary Vernon has embraced Dallas and Dallas continues to embrace her. Currently, you can see an exhibition of Mary Vernon’s recent work at Cheryl and Kevin Vogel’s Valley House Gallery. Mary Vernon’s paintings bring both joy and a better understanding of art.
*Mary Vernon
@Cheryl_Vogel_Valley_House @ValleyHouseGallery #ValleyHouseGallery #MaryVernon @m_vernon1953 #Art #Design #Modern #Dallas #DallasArt #DallasArtist #DallasModernArt
Summer House
An enthralling estate home is more than an elegant facade. It needs to be beautifully sited, as this Lang & Witchell home is on Swiss Avenue boulevard. An estate home also needs to be balanced with the proper amount of land around the home to accommodate gardens and the subsequent structures, adding to both the architecture of the home and the enjoyment the family will have living in the home. Pictured is the summer house placed in the garden at 5112 Swiss Avenue, as the conservatory, pool, and library over the garage are also found in the garden. The main house has formal rooms larger than many new homes that are twice its size, and this home has more intimate spaces in the garden for oneself, friends and family. Gracious homes allow gracious living.
*Summer House
#HomesThatMakeUsHappy #SwissAvenue #HistoricSwissAvenue #Garden #Dallas #DallasHome #HistoricDesign #OldEastDallas #MungerPlace
Exclamation Mark
It is always fun to sell one of the most architecturally significant homes on Swiss Avenue. I consider this home an architectural exclamation point on the boulevard. It is even more fun when a fabulous home completes an entire block face of homes that I have sold on the street. Since my real estate career started exclusively in Munger Place, I have sold a majority of homes on Swiss Avenue and the rest of the Munger Place historic districts at least once. However, there are still many blocks on Swiss Avenue where I have not previously sold every home. This block of Swiss Avenue I consider the finest and most prominent on the boulevard. There are only five houses on this side of the 5000-5100 block of Swiss Avenue, because the lots are wide and large—between a half acre and one acre of land with a clear view to downtown Dallas. The homes that I have previously sold on this block include the Higginbotham’s first home designed by Charles Erwin Barglebaugh of Lang & Witchell Architects. Barglebaugh had previously worked for Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie style design is evident in this home. I also sold the home next door at 5020 Swiss Avenue, also designed by architects Lang & Witchell. This home the Higginbothams built for their daughter for a wedding present. The home I just sold is the third house Lang & Witchell designed on Swiss Avenue. Since all three of these Lang & Witchell designed homes are located in the two blocks of Swiss Avenue that are in the original Munger Place Addition, the ceilings are higher—11 feet tall—and the formal rooms are larger than those we are now finding in 12,000 s.f. Highland Park homes. The original Munger Place Addition deed restrictions and the current Swiss Avenue Historic District restrictions protect the setbacks and architectural continuity that perpetuates Swiss Avenue as one of the five iconic streets in Dallas. Go to the blog article https://douglasnewby.com/2021/11/swiss-avenue-architectural-exclamation-mark/ and see the five Swiss Avenue homes that make up this block face. *Exclamation Mark
#SwissAvenue #Preservation #SwissAvenueHistoricDistrict #MungerPlace #OldEastDallas #DallasHistoricHome #DallasNeighborhood
Greenlining As Remedy
Greenlining, designating a neighborhood solely for new and renovated homes, serves as an affordable housing tool and as a neighborhood revitalization tool. For 35 years, since Eric Moye chaired Mayor Starke Taylor’s Southern Dallas Task Force, the city of Dallas has called for the tax base and desirability of Southern Dallas to become closer to that of Northern Dallas.
Greenlining specific Southern Dallas neighborhoods would propel the desirability and economic development of Southern Dallas. At a time when transit lines and stops are billed as renovation tools but fail to bring economic development on their own, and new mixed income apartments are touted to help a neighborhood, single-family neighborhoods increase the desirability of the property and all the uses around them.
Greenlining neighborhoods in Southern Dallas also increases the number of affordable homes and opportunities for low- and moderate-income families to become homeowners. The timing for greenlining, protecting and promoting single-family home neighborhoods in Southern Dallas is even more fortuitous when Oregon, California, Minnesota and other parts of the country are in the process of eliminating single-family zoning, promoting apartment development in existing single-family home neighborhoods.
Greenlining designated areas of Southern Dallas for new and renovated single-family homes would give that neighborhood a positive direction, an economic thrust, homeowner confidence that propels a neighborhood and a certainty of success. See blog article on how Southern Dallas could be 21st century demonstration greenlined area for revitalization of a neighborhood and increased homeownership creating generational wealth. https://douglasnewby.com/2021/11/greenlining-is-remedy-for-redlining-and-bluelining/
*Greenlining As Remedy
#Greenlining #SouthernDallas #Redlining #Bluelining #Revitalization #AffordableHousing #Homeownership #Dallas #DallasNeighborhoods
Preservation Triumph
I just sold one of the most important architecturally significant and historically significant homes in Highland Park, Dallas, and North Texas. This Mark Lemmon architect-designed home will be saved, preserved, and further renovated, accentuating the historic architecture and significance. This preservation success can be attributed primarily to preservationist and community leader Anthony McClure who developed a strategy to perpetuate the preservation of his home and land around it for over 20 years. Preservation starts with the homeowner of an architecturally significant home. The buyer is the next most important participant of a historic and architecturally significant home. The buyer is from a several generation Dallas family, is passionate about Dallas history, and is a graduate of SMU across the street from this Highland Park home. The third component of this preservation triumph is the architectural deed restrictions placed on the property that I helped with as the listing agent. This is an incredibly important Highland Park home that Mark Lemmon designed for his own family. The late Ted Pillsbury, the former director of the Kimbell Art Museum and Meadows Museum, wrote in the forward of the book on Mark Lemmon, authored by Rick Brettell and Willis Winters, that Mark Lemmon was the most important historicist architect of the 20th century in Dallas. This small Normandy style cottage was also extremely vulnerable because it was on two large platted lots combined that made over .4 acres. Small houses on large lots are seldom saved. In addition to the architectural deed restrictions placed on the home, deed restrictions were placed on the lots so that neither of the lots could be sold separately. This extra land allows full views of both the front facade and the side facade with the Normandy style bay wall window. Read more on home and preservation process https://douglasnewby.com/2021/11/highland-park-preservation-success/.
*Preservation Triumph
#MarkLemmon #DallasArchitecture @PreservationParkCities #DallasHistoricHome #HighlandParkHistoricHome #PreservationSuccess #HighlandPark #ArchitecturallySignificant #HistoricallySignificant #HomesThatMakeUsHappy
Historic Preserves Modern
Modernism was the culprit for low-income immigrant and Black homes to be torn down in the early and mid 20th century. Now modern design is preserving historic homes from this same era. On the Dallas AIA Tour of Homes 2021 you will be able to see what had been a small, worn-out, 1,400 sq.ft. Colonial Revival house clad with aluminum siding and resting on Bois d’Arc posts on Coombs Creek Trail that architect Cliff Welch was able to transform by accentuating its simple design with a modern approach. Cartouches and carvings have been eliminated and replaced with functional design elements. Dallas has an abundance of affordable homes if we don’t turn our back on the old original housing stock in need of repair.
*Historic Preserves Modern
@AIADallas #AIADallasTourOfHomes #KesslerPark @CliffWelchFAIA #CliffWelchArchitect #CoombsCreekTrail #Dallas #Architect #Architecture #HistoricHome #OldHouse #Preservation #ModernDesign #ColonialRevival #Renovation #DallasNeighborhood
Future of Design
A celestial study by interior designer Ken Fulk at Kips Bay Decorator Show House Dallas might be a nod to an astrological prediction of design. Or it might be an example of how rooms in a historically designed home that I sold over ten years ago can keep the classical proportions and floorplan but have each room take on a very different look at the hands of talented designers. My blog article shows before and after pictures of many of the rooms showcased at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House Dallas at 5138 Deloache Avenue in Preston Hollow.
*Future of Design
#PrestonHollow @kbshowhouse #kbshowhouse2021 #Design #InteriorDesign #InteriorDesigners #kenfulkdesign #Astrology #Tarot @kenfulk @fromthegrounduplandscape @john_bobbitt @martinpainting @coreydamenjenkins @michaelaiduss @gilmelottstudio @dennisbrackeendesigngroup @lantzcollective @traciconnellinteriors @alexahamptoninc @martynlawrencebullarddesign @meredithellis @jamesshowroom @shellyrosenberg @brantmcfarlaindesign @janetgridley @creativetonic
End of Summer
A summer holiday for me usually means Basque beaches with the sea in one direction and the Pyrenees in the other direction, with the day ending at Le Kaiku, a chef-owned Michelin star restaurant in Saint Jean de Luz, near the sea. This summer, not eager to embark on international travel, East Tennessee provided an infusion of topography, charming views, and farm-fresh dinners. The views were not as exuberantly picturesque as the Basque country, but East Tennessee offered a delightful end of summer respite. A morning bike ride brings one past a charming boathouse, a cabin, maybe the prototype for the John Neely Bryan replica cabin erected in downtown Dallas, a 19th century church with hand-hewn pews, rivers, creeks, fenced pastures, forests and glorious views. Recent conditions prompted many to move to the interior of the country and prompted others to take a holiday in the interior of the United States. Happy end of Summer! *End of Summer
#EndOfSummer #EastTennessee #BlackberryFarm #HistoricChurch #Boathouse #Landscape @le_kaiku
Stars, Fireflies, Meier
The perfect grand finale on an early summer night in New Harmony is seeing the Richard Meier designed architecture illuminated under the stars that are about to fill the night sky, and then one is able to follow the path illuminated by millions of fireflies that lead you to the Wabash River. Here there are five types of fireflies. There are those that hover in and near the grass, those that dart around at eye level, those that inhabit the flight paths at tree level, and then there are those that fly high with their lightning luminescence that becomes indistinguishable from the millions of bright stars in the night sky. New Harmony might be a small town, but it is the firefly capital of the country. *Stars, Fireflies, Meier
#NewHarmony #Fireflies #LightningBugs #RichardMeier #Architecture #ModernArchitectureAtNight #SmallTown