One of the advantages of a public over a private school is that one attends with his neighbors, who grow up with him chasing lightning bugs and playing freeze tag, discovering sandlot sports and taking bike rides — cruising in the first car.

Our neighborhood is sought out by some specifically for its diverse and delightful nature. Before the ’50s, some Wildcats grew up on Swiss Avenue or in Lakewood mansions, Munger Place Four-squares, or M-Street and Hollywood Heights Tudors. But the majority lived (and still do) in the beloved Bungalows of Vickery Place, Lakewood Heights, Mt. Auburn and Junius Heights.

Sign up for our newsletter

* indicates required

I recently became engrossed in the Bungalow boom sweeping the country.  I am renovating a house (circa 1913) my father left to me on Worth Street. He purchased it from the late Billy Rogers ’39, whose father had bought it from the original owner in 1917 .

My classmate Joe Sholden’s ’76 father, Joe K. Sholden ’38, had grown up a block away on Tremont (near the end of the streetcar line and the columns). Super-alum Billye June Kay Rees-Jones ‘ 41 lived across the street. Trammell Crow ’32 dated a girl on Victor.  Lipscomb Elementary, which served all of Lakewood until Lakewood Elementary was built, is on the next block. Mr. Rogers had all the original plans and papers along with historical pictures, a video and even loan payment records, which he gave to my father. The home was pictured in “A Field Guide to American Houses” by our very own Lee and Virginia McAlester.

The Bungalow had roots in India and borrowed from Swiss and Japanese architecture, but it became truly the quintessential American home, whether Craftsman, Mission, Prairie or California style.  Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who coincidentally lived on Glasgow (our alma mater, on Glasgow, connects the Mt. Auburn and Junius Heights Bungalow neighborhoods) and Craftsman Gustav Stickley of Eastwood, New York, also popularized the homes as an intellectual movement. It was seen as a rejection of the frilly Victorian era and a return to nature after the Industrial Revolution. A neo-Walden, after Art Nouveau and before Art Deco.

Now a simplification movement along with influences such as “This Old House” have made these the hippest homes on HGTV. A Junius Heights home was featured recently on the network. Craftsman and Mission furniture is enjoying a revival and great appreciation. Numerous web sites (including a Minneapolis-St. Paul Bungalow Club) tout reproductions of everything from porch lights to picture frames. Restoration Hardware, which has a location on Knox, presents the style in a very chic setting (you have to remind yourself it is supposed to be a hardware store).

Speaking of Knox street, the new bridge crossing Central to Henderson, with its columns topped with Texas Mission Lights, is ironically bringing a threat to our Bungalows.  A few were torn down for the Knoxbridge Apartments, built in the Craftsman style. A more pernicious peril is Park Cities Creep, where the Bungalows are bulldozed for vaguely Tudor/French/Mediterranean mini-mansions.

I am all for new homes being built in the area; some homes are not worth saving — but do we want houses higher than noses? And Bungalows usually require an master bedroom-attic conversion and back porch enclosure or addition to meet the needs of today. These new homes are priced up to the $400,000 range and are adding another economic stratum to our area, which is good. But what will these changes bring to Vickery Place and other areas?

Should more Conservation or Historic Districts be created? Mt.  Auburn, located next to Tenison, Samuell and Randall Parks; along the future hike and bike trail (but now un-funded) from Lakewood Country Club to Downtown; and between I-30 and the very hot Hollywood Heights (already a Conservation District), is a prime candidate for redevelopment. Home prices there are less than lots in new suburban developments. Some of its vast supply of Bungalows have been modified, but many can be saved. Will a suburban developer, such a David Weekley Homes, now building in Munger Place, come in and do a sensitive development? Or will some other third-tier suburban tract builder come in and mow the whole thing down for North Dallas “Big Hair” Houses? Or will the Bungalow boom bring Yuppies (with or without children) on a restoration mission?

For Woodrow, it has another consequence. Redevelopment might remove a lower economic stratum once known — literally because of the former Santa Fe Railroad — as “the other side of the tracks.”  These families are primarily lower-middle-class families, including a large sector of our Hispanic culture. Remember when we (Anglos and all) fought to keep at least a modicum of African-American students by going to court in the ’70s and ’80s? What should we do to keep our diversity in the future?

Food for thought – best consumed in the comfort of our Bungalows.