LH Press Library
Block Sees Booming Summer
Deer Trail residents finally feeling teardown trend
Lake Highlands People, by Bob Pittman
September 2, 2005
The 8000 block of Deer Trail Drive has always been just a little different.
Surrounded by well-manicured yards and tidy brick ranch houses of the early 1960s, the block just north of Flag Pole Hill has no curbs and few privacy fences.
Until recently, it was almost exclusively made up of small, aging, wood-frame houses, and a quiet country atmosphere prevailed. A large extended family of cats moved from yard to yard. Roaming chickens were seen from time to time.
But that was before the destruction-and-construction boom gained momentum.
Starting about a year ago, and peaking this spring and summer, many of the older houses were razed. Rising in their places are large homes that rank among the most expensive ever built in the neighborhood just off White Rock Trail south of Walnut Hill Lane.
“It’s just gone wild this summer,” said Dean Smith, an architect who built the first of the newer homes on the block in 1995.
He and his wife, Linda, were something of pioneers then. After building their house with a Dutch Colonial air at 8023 Deer Trail, they expected more new homes to quickly replace the smaller houses.
However, because a large number of the homes were rentals owned by a single absentee landlord, that didn’t happen until the owner died a few years ago and the heirs started selling the properties.
Ismael Delgado, who has lived at 8043 Deer Trail for more than 20 years, also has been impressed by the recent changes on his block
“This summer has been quite an eye-opener, to see the street change so quickly,” he said. “I’d go to work, then come back that night and say, ‘whoa’ — another house would be gone.”
Ask 10 residents the history of the street, and you’ll likely get 10 different answers: It started out as a spot where people built weekend cabins to fish at White Rock Lake and escape the city heat. Or it was an early African-American hamlet. Or some of the oldest houses were moved to Deer Trail from an area near Audelia Road. Or the buildings were “starter homes” thrown together hastily for GIs who served in World War II and then sparked a tremendous housing shortage when they began having families in the late 1940s.
One bizarre account even holds that the area had a spooky reputation in the 1970s, when high school students scared each other with whispers of a coven of witches or devil-worshippers.
It’s difficult to establish which account is true, but it’s obvious that the area has an interesting history.
Mrs. Smith said her father recalls visiting the area in the late 1930s and finding arrow heads left by Native Americans.
“Doran’s Point,’’ the original name for Flag Pole Hill was an area landmark long before the Civilian Conservation Corps added the overlook, picnic shelter, and other amenities in the late 1930s.
Dallas Central Appraisal District records indicate that there are 19 lots in the 8000 block of Deer Trail. Top valuations for tax purposes include $382,080 for a 2,900-square- foot house built in 2004; $268,040 for a 2,200-square- foot house; and $297,960 for a 2,700-square-foot house built in 2004.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, several now-vacant lots are valued by the district at $70,000, and a handful of small houses are valued in the $79,000—$88,000 range.
Several houses are tiny by anyone’s standards one of the smallest dates from 1955 and has only 562 square feet of living space, appraisal district records indicate.
Stanley and Mary Ann Greene have an unusual perspective about the changes on Deer Trail. They’ve lived on the block for about 10 years, seven years in a wooden cottage at 8039 Deer Trail and the remainder in a new house they built next door at 8035.
“I hope that tall fences don’t go up as more new houses are built;’ Mrs. Greene said. ‘It’s nice to be able to see your neighbors and talk with them. It’s nice to go for a walk along the street. The street has always seemed to me like it had a vacation quality to it, like little weekend houses.”
The block’s uneven terrain has brought a blessing during the building boom, the Greens pointed out: each lot has a different elevation, so each new house has a different appearance, which has kept them from having an identical “cookie—cutter” appearance.
Edwin Chamberlain purchased the Greene’s former home at 8039 Deer Trail about a year ago, and he and his wife like it just fine.
“It has all the modern conveniences,” he said. “We lived in Maine previously, and our son and daughter-in-law have a business in Dallas, so we decided to move down here. We don’t need a large house.”
Asked about the construction taking place around him this summer, Mr. Chamberlain said, “It’s a mixed blessing. The worst thing about it is that during the day, the dust from the construction work settles on the trees. Then, at night, the dew mixes with the dust and then drips on our cars. You could wash your car every day, and it would still need it the next.
“The real difficulty is that if someone lives in a house of this size in this area, with the value increasing all the time, if you ever sell the house, you are most likely going to have to move somewhere else, somewhere further out of the city, to find a comparable house you can afford.”
It’s clear that prices for new homes on the street haven’t topped out. Sales fliers posted in front of a new house at 8019 Deer Trail list the three-bed room, three-bath house constructed by Barnett/West Custom Homes at $475,000. It has 2,842 square feet and will be available for move-in in October.
“Taxes are definitely going up,” said Mr. Delgado, who moved into his house in 1975 renting it until he purchased it in 1985. “But that goes with the rising property values. You can’t have one without the other ... sometimes I think I would like to sell and move out to the country but I raised three sons here and this is home.”
We're always looking for volunteers!
Find out how you can help out LHAIA!
