You might take it for granted, but old homes live just like the people who own them do — through good times and bad. A hundred-year-old home may be the meaningful setting of a bridal shower or a funeral reception, someone’s first breath or their last, a gleeful war homecoming or a dreaded knock at the door. That’s why we at daltxrealestate.com go beyond the square footage and luxury features of a home, and tell a home’s history — often an untold one.
Some homes have jaw-dropping provenance and other homes have interesting anecdotes in their history that almost serve as a footnote. This week’s Highlight Home of the Week, sponsored by Dallas mortgage expert Lisa Peters of Cardinal Financial, is a David Griffin and Company Realtors listing on Edmondson Avenue in Highland Park. Griffin actually sold it the last and only time it was on the market 10 years ago. He’s part of that anecdotal history told in newspaper classified ads and media through the decades.
No doubt the home at 4417 Edmondson Ave. is a classic Highland Park beauty. A handsome two-story English home with steep gables and picture-perfect windows on a tree-shaded street.
“When you think about historic Highland Park, you probably think about homes with charming period architecture like this,” Griffin said.
The four-bedroom home appeared to go on the market as soon as it was built — in at least September of 1928, when a one-line classified ad advertised it was “open for inspection” i.e. an open house. Some real selling points for the home, according to a more verbose January 1929 classified ad — dark stained floors and artistic hand-wrought iron lighting fixtures, large closets, fire-safe construction, slate roof, and a heating unit installed.
The year 1929 would be the year some parts of the country began to experience the early rumblings of the Great Depression. But I see the effects of the Depression didn’t fully hit Dallas until mid-1931 thanks to an oil boom. Eventually in March 1929, the home appears to sell.
Better times come to this home in 1939 as the Depression ends. The “Business and Pleasure” column, a social tally of the comings and goings of Dallasites traveling, shares the news that homeowners Mr. and Mrs. W.H. Avery of 4417 Edmondson are jetting off to Los Angeles. And several more prosperous Dallasites come to own and love 4417 Edmondson in the 1940s as one particular long-time homeowner, Mrs. E.C. Ricker, hosts no fewer than half a dozen events here, which keeps writers on the so-called “women’s page” busy.
Picture this kitchen full of 1940s ladies who lunch for bridal showers, society lunches, and debutante luncheons. Of note, “an appenzell cloth, handmade by nuns in French Indo-China, will cover the dining table where appointments will include porcelain figurines and a Dresden candelabrum with sweetheart roses.”
Finally, one quick appeal to the future owner of 4417 Edmondson: let us know which fine China you’ll be using for your next social fete.
