I was surprised to receive an invitation to a reception prior to this year’s Swiss Avenue Home Tour, honoring the 10 founders of the Tour, the Swiss Avenue Historic District and the Historic Preservation League.
The postcard informed me that it was the 20th anniversary of the groups. It didn’t seem possible.
“How did the idea begin?” people have asked me. Well, the day I knew something had to be done was when a 10-year-old resident of the house next door rang my doorbell to use the phone.
Her explanation was simple: “I think Daddy broke Mommy’s jaw last night, and I need to call the doctor.”
This came on top of refrigerators stored on the front porch, cars parked on the front lawn, and a general level of rowdiness that seemed to result from a single-family house divided into five apartments.
But what to do?
Well, my husband Wallace and I bought the house and restored it, but no one would buy it. The problem was larger than just redoing one house.
The real answer came during a phone call from the City’s new Urban Design Department: “Can we come talk with you? We’re interested in creating a Historic District.”
In the late 1960s, Dallas was experiencing rapid growth and then-City Manager George Schrader recognized a need to create an Urban Design division for the City. Nationally known planner Weiming Lu was brought in to create this new division within the Department of Planning and Zoning.
From both training and experience, Lu knew how successful historic preservation could be in residential and neighborhood rejuvenation. He soon sent a young planner named Robin McCaffrey out to talk with Swiss Avenue residents.
McCaffrey told us the neighborhood was a prime candidate for historic designation because it was one of the largest, most-intact and best-preserved concentrations of early 20th century architecture in the country.
As a first step, Lu and McCaffrey suggested a survey of all area property owners to measure support for the plan. Nineteen percent (considered a good reply number) returned their forms, and 52% of those responding favored the designation.
The City was thrilled by the positive response. We residents were not. We had urged, encouraged, even strong-armed every single resident we thought might favor a designation. That left 90% of the district either opposed or neutral.
Our work was cut out for us. After a newspaper article referred to our group of 10 as an “unnamed group”, we officially incorporated into the Historic Preservation League. We started going door to door with brochures and petitions, telling people about the “wonders” of historic designation.
About this time, we got our first real media break – a spot on Suzy Humphries’ television talk show. When Ms. Humphries asked my husband to what he attributed the group’s success, he replied: “It is all due to the ladies of the street. They are probably out there walking the streets right now.”
Sightseeing traffic and cruising cars on Swiss Avenue immediately picked up. And we learned one lesson – the power of the press.
Besides greatly improving East Dallas as a place to do business, the Swiss Avenue District served as the catalyst for a rash of other designations. If this first district hadn’t been successful, it would have been extremely difficult to create more.
A fact sheet prepared by the league in 1978 quantified results of the designation during the six-year period following 1972:
• $8 million in construction activity
• Increase in property values from $5 million to $25 million
• 178 of 190 houses renovated
• New construction and move-ins for the first time in 40 years
As the 20th anniversary year continues, we’ll explore more of the early East Dallas preservation projects and what they have done for our part of the City.
