Starting on Rosetyme

Here's a photo of the J.D. Magee home at 1910 North 3rd St as of this morning. The damaged portion of the roof has been removed and the rooms have all been cleaned up. We had to remove the rear section of the house because of structural concerns, but the rest of it is sturdy. The framers will start soon putting a new "plate" around the top of the house to which the roof framing will attach. We'll be putting some signs up before too long. Already the neighbors are excited about this stabilization... on its way to being a neighborhood anchor again.

A good landmark solution

This week in Dallas, the former home of Stanley Marcus, the great retailer, received landmark status. That's not too remarkable in itself, considering its famous owner, its architect and how through the decades it was the site of parties for people like Grace Kelly, Eleanor Roosevelt and Lord Mountbatten.

But when the current owner first bought the house in the mid-1990s, he planned to tear it down and build (perhaps) a McMansion on the desirable lot. Through a lot of behind the scenes work and persuasion, preservationists in Dallas have turned the situation around. The owner is now in favor of the landmark status, which will allow him to make many of the changes he would like, while preserving the character of the home. Katherine Seale, director of Preservation Dallas, noted, "There's a great misunderstanding that historic status is so limiting that an owner can't make any changes to the house, and that's not true," she said. "We don't regard a historic house as an object in a museum." Congratulations to Katherine and the City of Dallas for their approach to this!

For the whole news story: click here
(photo by John F. Rhodes - Dallas Morning News)

Good News for 702 Meander

One of our members reports a new owner for the 1927 Dunagin-Norcross house at 702 Meander. This house was on the 2008 Top Ten Preservation Opportunities for Abilene and was highly endangered because of a condemnation and possible demolition by the city. The new owners are in the air conditioning-heating business and intend to improve the property. They are intererested in historic overlay zoning, which will allow them to recapture some of their expense of rehabilitation. This photo taken this morning shows the contractors measuring for the first order of business, a new roof. Combined with its across-the-alley neighbor, 701 Amarillo, the house is one of the important anchors on South 7th for the historic Amarillo and Meander neighborhood. Thanks to the neighbors who have stayed in touch with what's going on with this house.

Top Ten Preservation Opportunities 2009

Last year's list was easy. There were opportunities crying out all over the place. But this year it's not so obvious, although there are plenty of properties that need rehabilitating everywhere. It's somewhat complicated by the fact that we don't usually put a property on the list that was on the previous year's list. So at last night's APL membership meeting I asked members present to help us out by nominating properties to the list. We came up with a pretty good one. It's not ready for publication yet (we have to do some more research), but I think it's another good one.

Do you have a building that you would like to nominate? Just email us and we'll consider it.