Lights Dimming At The Home of the Brights

This may moisten your eyes if you, like me, are obsessed with homes. It’s a response I received from a prominent Dallas Realtor who is also saddened to see 4500 Lakeside chipped down tile by tile by the wrecking vultures. “Scraper” is the term we Real Estate junkies use to describe a home that needs to go — one where the attic rats are more at home than the humans. It did not appear that 4500 was such a “Scraper”. I’ve thought long and hard about this tear-down battle since I have experienced each camp: we lived in a 1936-era “remuddled” home that oozed charm and other fluids on occasion. Now we have a new home; we moved the 3/2 brick ranch off the lot (I literally bandaged tree limbs to protect) which cost us more than scraping would have in time, interest, and the fact that the House Mover’s check bounced. The home we moved was poorly insulated and one sink was plumbed into a wastebasket. I love every inch of my new home from the grounded outlets that WORK every three feet to the techie water bugs on every liquid vessel. Yet no matter how frustrating our old home could be, like a rebellious child we kept her presentable regardless of how large the “maintenance” category bulged in Quicken.

But 4500 Lakeside seems like it was loved. It had warm hands Windexing the fingerprints off the woodwork, gentle brushstrokes touching up the eaves and years of elbow grease shining the windows. Why, we wonder, couldn’t someone have just bought it and continued the cycle?

My daughter and I drove by a sprawling ranch three doors down that is about to go. So sad, she said. Dr. X lived there and raised his family, took care of his sick wife, and now all that will be crushed, all those memories demolished.

Value’s always in the land, I said, ever the practical dirt queen: not the house.

Well, she said, maybe we should never built houses then but should just camp out on the land if it’s so almighty.

Homes do take on the life and style of the inhabitants, and the tsunami of wealth that has swept our decade has given way too many the opportunity to create their own statement in (most often) stone and mortar. (And, hand me a Tums, turrets.) “Everyone wants their own castle,” says Della Lively. Fret all you want about the sinking Real Estate market, raw land (um, scrapers) are hotter than ever and fetching asking price or more. We love to admire other people’s dreams but when the pocketbook is flush, we want to create our own. From scratch. No different from those of us who felt compelled to make their own baby food. And honestly, I think we all deserve that right

Still, if a home has charm and great bones, why not save at least a portion of it? Surely these m/billionaires could reach a little deeper to cough up the extra money it always takes to remodel — do they really care about re-sale value? Here’s what I think we ought to do — offer tax credits. You save an architecturally significant home and you will get a break on your property taxes — after all, the city is raking it in now from all the residential growth downtown. I have never known a millionaire who isn’t interested in saving on taxes. That would help preserve more homes that are not outright historical but tell a wonderful story about our community and our past. Like 4500 Lakeside Drive:

4500 Lakeside Drive was home of one-time Dallas Cowboy’s owner and banker Bum Bright. It was built in 1916, and was another of Anton Korn’s masterpieces. His daughter Carol Reeder was the listing agent, and it sold in July 2006 for an undisclosed price. A cool $12M was the asking price. Sadly, I never got to see it, and I don’t know who bought it.

Mr. Bright was a crusty old guy whom I had the fun of knowing when I was as student assistant for the Texas A&M Board of Regents, and he was Chairman. His wife, Peggy, was lovely, but pretty salty herself, and one of my jobs was to watch out for their Maroon Lincoln Town Car to glide up to the Regents Quarters. I would then fetch and carry bags, and whatever else they wanted. (All the other regents would be retrieved from their hometowns by one of three A&M planes, but Bum insisted on driving down from Dallas. He was notoriously thrifty.) I’d read that they had a great dane named Regent who they shared their bed with. I couldn’t believe it.
When I graduated and moved to Dallas, I wanted to know where the Bright’s lived. So I looked it up and soon found myself on Lakeside Drive, wide-eyed at the spendor as I drove down the street. I got to the corner of Laurel, and that big maroon Town Car was in the porte cochere. Well, this country boy drove off feeling a little less small here in the big city because I knew some folks who lived on Lakeside Drive.

It hurts my heart to see that old house come down.