Support Preservation on North Texas Giving Day!
North Texas Giving Day is Today!
Today is the day to support preservation in Dallas by taking part in North Texas Giving Day! There are hundreds of worthy nonprofits to support today and we hope that you chose Preservation Dallas as one of those nonprofits to support!

For 45 years Preservation Dallas has worked to advocate for historic places and educate people about the importance of those places. Your support today will help us continue this important work and furthering our mission.

You can give to Preservation Dallas by clicking here. Donations of $25 or more will be amplified by bonus funds and make us eligible for additional cash prizes... meaning your dollar goes even further!

We hope that you will consider a special gift to help support preserving the historic places of Dallas!

So why is there a picture of Preservation Man above? He's helping Preservation Dallas of course! Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to see where he will be spotted throughout the day.
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Frank Welch Home Tour on Saturday, October 28
Architect Frank Welch’s decades long career bequeathed Dallasites with dozens of incredible residences from the 1960s up to his contemporary projects prior to his death in June. We are honored to partner with Coldwell Banker Global Luxury to commemorate Welch and his visionary work by presenting the 2017 Fall Architecture Tour- Frank Welch In Dallas.
On Saturday, October 28, our patron tour will feature seven of his best houses, one from each decade, and you do not want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity! Let us open the doors for you to experience the evolution of Welch’s design style which emphasized siting, natural light and exemplary interior craftsmanship.
The tour houses range from Park Cities modest, to Turtle Creek fabulous, to Preston Hollow stately (with LOTS of grounds). See more about tour homes as house descriptions will arrive each week leading up to the tour. We expect to sell out so please purchase your tickets now. Click here for more information and to make reservations.


2017 Fall Architectural Tour
Presented By
Historic House Specialist seminar is next week!

 Thursday & Friday, September 21-22 , beginingng at 8:45am
Wilson Carriage House

Become an authority of historic Dallas neighborhoods! This popular two-day seminar includes lectures from local experts on architectural history and styles of Dallas, the preservation ordinance, tax incentives, how to research the history of a building, a bus tour of historic neighborhoods in Dallas, and more! Participants receive a signed copy of Virginia McAlester's  A Field Guide to American Houses and a complimentary one year membership to Preservation Dallas. Do not delay! Enrollment is limited to 25 people. The past sessions have sold out with a wait list! To find out more and to register, click here .
Preservation Dallas Wins Award

The Greater East Dallas Chamber gave out several awards last month at their awards luncheon. Preservation Dallas received the R.S. Munger Business Pioneer award which goes to an organization responsible for the development of an innovative technology, creative/artistic concept or process, or business method, model or concept. Pictured with the award (L to R) are Executive Director David Preziosi, Congressman Jeb Hensarling, and Preservation Dallas Board President Alicia Quintans.
City of Dallas Preservation Staff Spotlight: Marsha Prior, Ph.D.

Marsha Prior, Ph.D. began work as a Planner in the Historic Preservation section at the City of Dallas in 2015. Her role there is to work with the Junius Heights, South Boulevard-Park Row, Tenth Street, and Wheatley Place Historic Districts helping applicants in those districts through the Certificate of Appropriateness process.

Marsha has been in North Texas her whole life, except for 15 months when she lived in Jamaica while working on her dissertation that studied violence against women in Kingston. Her undergraduate work at University of North Texas was in Sociology and then she went to SMU for a graduate and doctoral degree in Cultural Anthropology specializing in Urban Anthropology.

After school she went to work for Geo-Marine, a local cultural resources firm, where she was involved with several projects including working with the Chiricahua Apache Indian tribe on studying and documenting their history, documenting the Freedman’s Cemetery in Dallas before the expansion of Central Expressway, and evaluating Cold War era military buildings. In addition, she has worked with many municipalities on nominations of historic districts to the National Register of Historic Places, historic building and district surveys, and context statements for historic areas.

All of her past experiences have come in handy with her work at the city. She says that she enjoys helping applicants through the approval process to do work in a historic district, one which is not always easily understood. The work for her is very satisfying and provides her the opportunity to do more work in Dallas and do work that benefits the city and helps people appreciate and value their own heritage and that of others. 

Marsha was also a Preservation Dallas board member from 2007 to 2013 and still serves on the Education Committee. In 2013, she volunteered to help write the National Register nomination for the Paine House in Irving and was instrumental in helping to edit the descriptions for the sites on our Pegasus Urban Trails mobile app.

In her quest to continue educating people about historic resources she has taken on a project with two of her co-workers – Liz Casso and Eric Hill, he has since left the city, to do an Acadia book on the images of Mid-Century Modern Downtown Dallas due out next spring.

As Marsha continues with her role at the city she will also work on special projects with the rest of the Historic Preservation team including updating the cultural resources survey and continuing public outreach to help more people understand the value of preserving historic resources in Dallas. We are certainly thankful for Marsha’s work at the city and her desire to help others appreciate Dallas’ historic places. We also can’t wait for the book to be published! 
Preservation Issues
DART D2 - The Dallas City Council this week voted to approve the Victory-Commerce-Swiss alignment for the D2 subway as the Locally Preferred Alternative route for the project. The alignment will still need to be studied further by DART as they work on their environmental assessment and decide where the portals for the tunnel will be located along with the portals for the underground stations. However, the vote by City Council will allow DART to continue with their application to the Federal Transit Authority to secure grant funding for the project.

Green Acre Courts - The Landmark Commission last week discussed whether or not to initiate the Landmark Designation Process for the former Green Acre Courts motel on McCoy Street. The motel was one of the few which provided accommodations to African Americans in the late 1940s in Dallas. Preservation Dallas spoke on the history and importance of the motel at the meeting and several Commissioners commented on its significance. The application for the initiation was ultimately removed at the meeting due to the fact that the owners of the property already acquired a demolition permit from the city which can not be revoked. You can read more about the history of the motel in the Dallas Morning News by clicking here.
Director's Letter
David Preziosi
This hurricane season has been especially brutal with Harvey and Irma hitting the US back-to-back damaging and wiping out much in their paths causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage and affecting millions of people. As I have been watching the news and reading stories I am taken back to 2005 and the massive damage Hurricane Katrina caused to Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, which was after it barreled across Florida to get to the Gulf Coast.

Katrina's high winds and massive storm surge which slammed into 80 miles of Mississippi coastline showed no mercy. Historic structures were devastated or destroyed completely including gracious beachfront mansions, simple Creole cottages, bungalows, and shotgun houses. Downtown commercial centers and residential areas farther from the coast were devastated by the raging flood waters. Buildings were pushed off their foundations by the raging storm surge, others were damaged by high winds and flying debris including trees and even large shipping containers.

At the time of the storm I was the Executive Director of the Mississippi Heritage Trust a very small statewide preservation nonprofit. Post Katrina we changed our work plan to focus on responding to the devastation. For two years I worked nonstop on recovery efforts fighting for historic buildings against great odds. It was a Herculean effort for a tiny organization with me being the only staff. I worked with teams from the state preservation office for weeks on end documenting damaged historic properties and identifying historic areas in need of additional assistance. It was grueling both physically and emotionally, especially to see the damage up close and to meet the people that were trying to salvage what they could of their damaged homes or digging for personal items in piles of debris.

Thankfully help came later on from volunteer crews of architects, structural engineers, and historians from around the country to help us with documenting buildings, working with property owners, and analyzing structural integrity to prevent unnecessary demolition. We also had a great team come from the Texas Historical Commission to assist us. I’m sure many of those same volunteers will be gearing up to travel to Texas and Florida soon to help with similar efforts.

Seeing the destruction and having no resources for assistance I set up a recovery fund for preservation related work and raised over $250,000 through the fund. That may not sound like a lot by today’s standards but for us it was huge as it was double our annual budget. The money was used for public outreach, volunteer support, items related to recovery and the development of our Pilot Stabilization Program which was developed in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to show that damaged historic buildings could be stabilized rather than demolished. Seven houses, one Masonic lodge, and a historic school were part of the program.
 
Together with state and national partners we lobbied for preservation funding at the national level. I even testified before a Congressional subcommittee on the damage to historic properties and we also hosted tours for Congressional delegations to see the damage first hand. All of that helped secure $26 million in federal funding for stabilization and repair of historic properties. Hundreds of historic properties across the coast and the lower half of the state benefited from that money and are around today because of it.

Katrina came in an age before smartphones, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So we had to rely on our website as the only tool for dissemination of information, basic I know! After my trips to the coast I would post photos showing the damage to historic properties and information about the work to save those places. We parlayed that into raising media attention for Mississippi, which was not easy due to the non-stop coverage of all of the issues in New Orleans.

One of the hardest battles was fighting the constant push for demolition to "clean up" as quickly as possible. For the first time FEMA was allowed to remove debris from private property and demolish damaged structures without cost to the property owner. That was very difficult to combat before the federal grant money came to help historic properties nearly a year after the storm. Much was lost because of the change in FEMA demolition policy which could have been repaired if money was available. I hope that FEMA has learned how to handle that better as they begin to work in Texas and Florida.

There is much more to the story of the recovery efforts and the battles we had to fight, way too much for a newsletter! As I look back on all that was accomplished despite great odds and a severe lack of resources I am amazed. I am also eternally grateful to the numerous dedicated volunteers who came to us in our time of need and worked tirelessly to save as many of our historic places as possible. I saw firsthand the capacity of one to give in a time of need and I hope that will hold true for Texas and Florida as recovery efforts get underway. The recovery process is a slow and arduous one and I hope that the lessons we learned can be applied to efforts here and in Florida so that it will be easier to save damaged historic places and to avoid many of the struggles we had to go through. 
Events
Young Professionals Happy Hour
Thursday, September 14 , 6 p.m.
Lorenzo Hotel, 1011 South Akard

Come join PDYP for a happy hour at the new Lorenzo Hotel. Built in 1972, Hamilton Properties recently renovated the structure that has sat empty for more than five years. Mingle with fellow young professionals at the hotel bar starting at 6 p.m. Larry Hamilton of Hamilton Properties will join the group around 6:45 p.m. to speak about the history and renovation of the building followed by a quick tour. Register here.
InTown Outing: St. Jude Chapel
Tuesday, September 19, 6 p.m.
1521 Main Street, Dallas 75201

Come learn about the history of St. Jude Chapel competed in 1968 and the intricate work done to restore the mosaics on the inside and outside of the building located on Main Street in downtown Dallas. Julie Richey of Julie Richey Mosaics will talk about her intricate work to restore the mosaics which will then be followed by a tour of the chapel. Register here.
Coffee with Hal
Saturday, September 23, 10 a.m. to Noon
Aldredge House, 5500 Swiss Avenue

Join us for coffee at the Aldredge House followed by a presentation by Wilson Fuqua, who will provide fascinating insights into the work of noted architect Hal Thomson, who designed many prominent mansions along Swiss Avenue and in the Park Cities in the early 1900s. Thomson traveled extensively in Europe and used what he learned to introduce architecturally refined homes to Dallas. His design of the Aldredge House is considered the high mark of his career. This event is in partnership with the Friends of Aldredge House and tickets are $30 for Preservation Dallas Members. Register here.
Advanced Historic House Specialist seminar
Thursday, October 19, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Hone the skills learned in the Historic House Specialist seminar by taking our one-day advanced class. Learn about materials and methods of housing in Dallas, preservation economics, home appraisal, landscape and more. This class includes a trip to the public library for advanced historic building research. Don't delay! Enrollment is limited. The past sessions have sold out with a wait list!
 
Register online with  MetroTex Association of REALTORS  or at 214-540-2751.
Please Welcome our New Members!
Sustainer
Marilyn FItzner
Andrea Madison & Katie Aiello
Janet Nevil
Laura Noe
Bill & Jane Sadek
Beverly Williams

Individual
Noelle Brisson
Karen Tindel Wiggins
Karen Wilson Smith
Young Professionals (PDYP)
Jordan Cortez
Michael Dewberry
Kerri L. Olsen

Student
Nicole Horn
Thank you to the following members for renewing!
Vanessa Baker
Beth & Rrick Bentley
Christine Sevin Burke
Karen Casey
Richard & Frances Donaldson
Angela Downes
Rob Elmore
Phillip Faulkner
Charles Fiscus
Chas Fitzgerald & Jack Hammack
Elizabeth Gallagher
Steve Grice
Cynthia Hall
Faisal Halum
Denny & Lori Hunt
Carl & Claire Janak
Susan Lowry
Leigh & Tom Martin
Deborah Michel
Catherine Mukasa-Magoye
Paul & Leigh Richter
Byron Craig Robertson
Matt Rocha
Gabriel Rounds
Rene Schmidt
Stacey Soper
Eric Spinazzola
Joyce Taylor
Aaron Trecartin
Patricia Turner & Jeremiah Kelley
Marc A Vita
This newsletter is sent to all current and past members, and those interested in preservation in Dallas. To become a member or to renew or upgrade your membership, please click below.
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