The office building on Kidwell at Richmond will have new life with Art House Dallas.

The office building on Kidwell at Richmond will have new life with Art House Dallas.

A group of artists and facilitators with some high-profile connections have taken up residence at the Kidwell building on the corner of Kidwell at Richmond recently. Art House Dallas seeks to bring creative together in a variety of forums with the mission statement “creating for the common good.”

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The “Art House” movement was started in 1991 by renowned musician Charlie Peacock and his wife, who sought a way to foster the arts community. Successful businessman Brad Reeves brought the movement to Dallas in 2010, originally setting up shop on Turtle Creek before moving to Lakewood late last year.

“(Lakewood) is probably one of the top two or three artistic communities in all of Dallas-Fort Worth,” executive director Cary Pierce says in a video about the move.

It took an off-market transaction to secure the 11,600-square-foot office building built in 1955. The current tenants, which include a chiropractor and massage therapist, will stay in place.

Artist rendering of the renovations Art House Dallas hopes to make at the Kidwell Building.

Artist rendering of the renovations Art House Dallas hopes to make at the Kidwell Building.

“Our work only takes up 3 offices,” says Marissa Delcambre, program director.

Most of their events take place out in the community, where songwriters, playwrights, painters and media artists mix and mingle over shared ideas. However, Art House Dallas is planning an extensive overhaul of the Kidwell space to make the somewhat dull space more inviting with conference rooms, a music venue and recording studio and gallery space, among other upgrades.

“We run about 30 programs a year with offerings for writers, songwriters, designers, musicians, and more. Any given give year, we have about 1,500 people come through our doors — whether that’s a fundraiser, songwriters dinner, visual artist painters group, or pub gathering for creative,” Delcambre says.

See the full vision for the new Lakewood location in this video: