Park Cities Home Tour shows off five homes with character

As seen in the Dallas Morning News:

Park Cities Home Tour shows off five homes with character

11:02 AM CDT on Thursday, April 1, 2010

BY CHRISTOPHER WYNN / Staff writer

Can a red Radio Flyer wagon gracefully share the living room with an antique Steinway baby grand? Find out April 10, when the Park Cities Historic and Preservation Society's 8th Annual Home Tour makes a good case for living history.

MEI-CHUN JAU/Special to DMN

Iron chandeliers by Dallas' Potter Art Metal Studios and a carved-stone mantel are among the original touches in this 85-year-old Drexel residence (above and far right), one of five historic homes on this month's Park Cities Historic and Preservation Society tour

In an age of tear-downs and do-overs, this year's five quite different residences – 4611 Arcady Ave., 3501 Beverly Drive, 3404 Southwestern Blvd., 3510 Drexel Drive and 3409Harvard Ave. – manage to retain their original character yet still boast Viking stoves, flat screens and humidity-controlled wine cellars.

At one end of the tour's casual-to-grand range is the prairie-style home on Harvard, where a wide-plank front porch gets heavy use by the young family that lives here. (Marine-grade paint is perfect to seal 1920s wood from the weather and stroller scuffs.)

At the other is the Drexel address, a majestic 1925 Spanish-Mediterranean by Fooshee & Cheek (the architectural duo behind Highland Park Village), which boasts Henry Mercer-style arts and crafts floor tiles, ironwork chandeliers from Potter Art Metal Studios and hand-plastered walls so thick it's tricky to get a cellphone signal. Furnishings from the Althorp Collection are licensed from the estate where Charles Spencer and his sister, the future Princess Diana, grew up.

A portion of proceeds from the tour, co-sponsored by FD Luxe, benefits preservation and maintenance of the Park Cities House at Dallas Heritage Village.