The hippies were everywhere.
Numbering as high as 45 at one point, they slept in any available space in the sizable home on Gaston, including the garage and the home’s various floors and couches. Every Saturday, they gathered in the house’s dining area to chant and pray to keep the spirit of the home pure. Every weekend they held a garage sale of whatever they could find, including the home’s fixtures. And it went on this way for about two decades.
“They called the house the Dallas Metaphysical Center,” said John Council, who bought the former commune in 2003. “I’m told that the hippies all got together and dreamed that name up.”
The former commune is one of seven homes on the upcoming Junius Heights Historical Home Tour, and like many of its home tour compatriots, it can be said to be emerging from its own personal dark age. Formerly boasting its fair share of homes falling into disrepair, Junius Heights’ recently acquired historic district status has given developers tax incentives to spruce up the neighborhood’s homes, and many are taking advantage.
Rene Schmidt, president of the Junius Heights Historic District, says that even as the housing market has hit a downturn, home sales in Junius Heights have risen 50 percent since last year, and show no signs of slowing.
“The historic designation really stabilizes the entire neighborhood,” Schmidt says. “It makes it harder to tear down homes or to build up some streetscape of McMansions or bungalows. Add the tax incentives on top of that, and you have a sweet investing environment.”
This environment is leading to a much-needed rehabilitation of some area homes, many of which haven’t been worked on since being built as part of a planned community in the early 1900s. When Tam Pham bought two homes on Tremont (one of which is on the tour), Schmidt said one “was leaning, about to topple over.” Pham dismisses this as hyperbolic, but admits “the houses were sitting on old tree trunks, not concrete foundations. And that’s bad.”
Council lives in his home, but many investors like Pham are buying and renovating in order to sell their homes for profit or to rent them out. In some cases, this involves repurposing the building, sometimes for radically different uses.
“By the time I bought it, the congregation had dwindled to about five people,” says Robert Fragoso of another tour stop, the former St. John’s Church, which he’s converting into a spacious, stained-glass adorned duplex. “They weren’t even meeting in the main sanctuary. They’d boarded it up, it’d fallen into such disrepair. They were holding their meetings in the basement.”
Fragoso, who splits his time between California and Texas, is typically on the financing side of such ventures, as opposed to the hands-on renovation side. But he and members of his extended family decided to apply considerable effort to reform the dilapidated church, which he calls his “passion project.”
“This type of structure doesn’t come up in the market often,” he says. “It’s like the whole area. Now that it has become historic, it’s really ripe for transition.”
Junius Heights Historic Home Tour
what/ six historic homes and a renovated church
when/ Sunday, Nov. 11, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
where/ meeting at Garden Cafe, 5310 Junius, before tour
cost/ $10 before Nov. 1; $15 afterward
for tickets/ call Tam Pham at 214.578.1331 or visit juniusheights.org
