Diana Oates over at CultureMap beat me to this one, but that just gave me a chance to go plant my basil garden! (Thanks, Diana!) The Diva of Dallas entertaining has put her home on the market! Kim Whitman, the author of six fab entertaining books (I still have her very first, about parties for her dog Lola as well as The Pleasure of Your Company), Today Show appearances, her blog based on the century old RSVP Social Calendar that is THEE go-to for charitable events in Dallas and her daily radio segment on Dallas’ number one morning show and co-host of KTXD’s live daily television talk show, Texas Living, is the seller, along with her husband Justin, of course. In 2011, Kim became the Editor-at-Large of Southern Living Magazine. In addition to leading a media empire, Kim’s a wife, and a mother of two children — Millie Stuart just turned one this weekend, in fact.
And now she’s a home seller. Putting her Highland Park home in the capable hands of her sister, Kari Schlegel Kloewer, a star at Allie Beth Allman, (and one of our favoritie daltxrealestate.com Realtors) the Whitmans are looking to buy in Preston Hollow or Bluffview. Like most people, they were waiting to see about school choices. I’m heading over to see the house on tour tomorrow — fresh in MLS — but thought you might want to check it out early. Asking price is $5,250,000.
The home is at 4465 Rheims Place. It was built in 1952, sports 7,215-square-feet with five bedrooms, seven baths and a four-car garage. It sits on a prime half-acre of land in the honeypot of Highland Park. Walkable? In keeping with the 82nd Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, all our homes this week are “walkable” — that is, they have quality “footpaths, sidewalks or other pedestrian rights-of-way, traffic and road conditions, land use patterns, building accessibility, and safety, among others”. You can easily walk to Highland Park Village from 4465 Rheims Place, and there are oodles of sidewalks in Highland Park. In fact, my dream retirement home is to be close enough to walk to the Starbucks at Highland Park Village. 
The Whitmans have owned Rheims Place since 2007, and when they moved in they were expecting their first child.
“We have done kids parties, swim parties, cocktail parties and formal dinners, and the home works so well for everything,” says owner Kimberly Schlegel Whitman.
Designer extraordinaire Jan Showers helped her decorate the house, “with a small and growing family in mind.”
Kim told CultureMap that all the rooms have distinctive personalities, and no detail was overlooked, from a zebra-skin rug in the library to tangerine twin sofas in the formal living room.
Her favorite room is the rich navy blue library.
“That is where we put our Christmas tree,” she says, “and we have little dance parties with the kids.”
The recently renovated kitchen is awash in white carrera marble and loaded with top of the line appliances. And that huge island: my new mantra is you can never be too thin, too rich, or have too big a kitchen island!
“One person who came to look at the house took one look and said that it should be referred to as a continent instead of an island,” says Kari.
Of course the kitchen opens to the huge 23 by 21 square foot family room, which overlooks the pool. All five bedrooms are upstairs, including the master suite. This is a family home and we had the exact same set up when our kids were littles: you want to be near them. This “master suite downstairs” business is great when they are teens or off at school. All bedrooms have en suite baths and huge closets, and the whole home has gorgeous hardwood floors. The home also has a play room for the children.
The back of the house is almost all French doors and windows facing the oversized salt-water pool. That netting over the pool keeps children from getting in — I will be needing one of those soon, too, for grand-babies!
