Caruth Farmhouse after it was taken over by the Hockaday School.
Walter Caruth was looking for the highest point in Dallas when he built his expansive Bosque Bonita (beautiful woods) in 1885, a Victorian style farmhouse where he lived until his death in 1897. Caruth, along with his brother William, arrived in 1848 with $100 and a pony, according to lore, and opened a general store. They bought up expansive tracts of land all over the city, giving Walter Caruth his pick of locations for his personal residence, a country house with city views. When Miss Hockaday’s School for Girls made plans to build a two-story brick facility on the land in 1919, the house was painstakingly moved down the hill, with each section rolled on logs. At its new location, a swimming pool was added and the students used the creaky old residence for parties. When the school relocated to Preston Hollow in the early 1960s, the house was demolished around that same time to make room for the luxury apartment complex Hockaday Village. The Caruth farmhouse is not to be confused with the Caruth mansion that still stands today, just west of Central Expressway. (Sources: The Dallas Morning News, The Hockaday School)
