By 1978 the Munger Renaissance was in full swing. Things had been improving since 1973 when Fred Longmore saw a bulldozer bearing down on one of the Junius Heights columns around the 5800 block of Tremont. The tall columns that were built around 1917 were an East Dallas landmark. Fred jumped out of his car and asked the operator what he was doing. He was told the columns were too costly to be removed piece by piece and were in the way of the new Columbia-Abrams connection.

Fred was able to halt the construction until help came from the East Dallas Community Design Committee and the Historic Preservation League. The columns were saved and moved a short distance to allow the path of the new thoroughfare. This was a real turnaround in Dallas where preservation usually lost in similar situations.

By the late ‘70s Munger Place gained support from many groups in Dallas. Students and faculty from SMU studied the area with help from the Texas Historical Commission. Preservation groups grew larger and stronger. Studies were made on renovating homes in Munger Place as well as other places in East Dallas.

Rob and Sharon Smith owned an antique shop on McKinney and Bowen. Rob’s mother lived in Europe for some time, was a dancer and loved the arts and antiques. Rob’s first antique was a Wilkerson Sword he bought in England. He and Sharon needed a large house for their 18th Century furniture and Persian rugs. After looking at some large homes on Junius near Peak they were attracted to the interest in Munger Place. Earlier, Rob had looked at the neighborhood when he saw the large entrance portals at Junius and at Swiss.

They first looked at the home of Paul and Barbara Crews at 5100 Victor. While there was a lot they liked about he house when they saw the 5003 Tremont house they liked it even better. It offered more space in addition to having a better layout of rooms. The open dining room and offset placement from the living room widens the look upon entrance. It was no doubt copied from Frank Lloyd Wright’s concept of ‘destroying the box.’ Many of the Munger Place homes are somewhat square in their layout.

 

In order to actually achieve more space as well as the feeling of more space, Wright sought a more pleasant arrangement of rooms rather than creating just a larger box. He worked to achieve this effect by greatly expanding the size and number of windows. In Munger Place the builders copied his style of grouping windows in pairs or in threes and fours. In the 5003 Tremont house, the wide French doors from the living room to the dining area and the double doors to the study were part of his influence. This was complemented by the open passage to the wide hall as well as the sliding door to the master bedroom. Further destroying the box effect, the dining room was offset from the living area and complemented by a door to the wide wraparound porch.

Paul Crews was somewhat innovative himself. In restoring the house he opened the wall of what became an adjoining study to the small west upstairs bedroom. The open space is refreshing not just to the room itself but to the stairs as well. The whole upstairs was an improvement to the original plan. This was done by using some of the second floor attic space. The 1954 restructuring, or better said ‘scourge’ of the house, opened attic space for various rooms that Crews was able to use.

Rob and Sharon Smith bought the 5003 Tremont house from Paul and Barbara Crews in 1978 and after twenty-eight years the house became a home once more. It was not yet finished; Rob and Sharon would work on the restoration as well as Paul. If ever restoration was due a house, this one was well-deserved. For almost three decades, all of the distinctive and unique features of the house had been destroyed. In the early Seventies the house itself was almost destroyed. This was more a resurrection than a restoration.

Once again there would be a wraparound porch with the bold banisters to enjoy. The harmonizing balance of the hall, dining and living room returned when Paul removed the intruding wall that separated them. The stairs returned to again join the two floors into one home. To me, the old house was back; I had hardly considered it the same house all those years before. Or if I had, it would have been more like a foreign occupation at best or the pillage of Rome at worst.

Paul painted and wallpapered some walls and Rob and Sharon picked paper for the dining room and bathroom. Later they repainted some rooms in more suitable colors. While working on the house, they accidentally walked across the buzzer the Schoellkopfs placed in the dining room, much like my family did in 1941. One night while this work was going on, Rob wanted to show a friend the house in progress. When they arrived at the house, Rob didn’t have his key so they pried open a window on the Collett Side. While climbing in, Marian Gibson appeared from across the street in her robe. Marian well might be called the matriarch of Munger Place and she was protecting the territory. She had already called the police who then arrived as well as her husband, Harry. The Smiths and the Gibsons have been close friends and neighbors ever since.

The reconstruction floor plan had a few changes from the original 1910 plan.

The 1910 back porch became a most needed breakfast room.

The door and window in the back hall were reversed in 1954 and remained the same in 1978.

The downstairs bedroom became a game room when the Smiths moved in.

On the west side some of the old cedars grew to be large trees and others joined them to offer most needed shade.

The picture above shows the backyard during the restoration in 1978. The former back porch was made into a breakfast room. The eave in the upper left corner of the picture belonged to a poorly placed garage that was soon removed. The garage set halfway over the fish pond that had been filled in. The concrete rim was partially visible.

Above is the dormer window that was most likely built by Paul Crews in 1978 to give light to a bathroom that was added in 1954 in the attic space. It now has a colorful stained glass window.

The view above is looking downward at the restored stairway and to the center back is the upstairs study that also was carved from the attic space. Notice the open space with only a railing to separate it from the stairs. The door in the background is to the remaining attic that still has a great deal of space.

The Smiths with their Persian rugs, antiques and 18th Century furniture moved in late in November 1979. 5003 Tremont was alive again with a family that loved it. The house, with its many Frank Lloyd Wright’s features, its furnishings and its owners complemented each other perfectly. It was a Prairie Style house on a former cotton field. This is what America’s greatest architect said his Prairie style was–a home with linear features complementing the wide, open prairie around it.

“An instinct for the beautiful is acquired when surrounded by it on a daily basis.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

As the Seventies gave way to the Eighties, Munger Place continued to attract young interesting people many of whom remodeled the homes themselves. Kevin and Kay Hall were restoring the house at 4909 Victor that was two doors from my old friend, Joe Wyatt’s former home. My wife, Leslie, knew them from IBM where they worked.

The versatile Travis Mayo returned from Louisiana where he had been a journalist, taught college and worked as a civil rights official. While he continued his lifelong writing practice, he repaired the home at 5115 Victor and built a rice paddy in the back yard.

As the decade ended, Travis, Leslie and I attended Kevin and Kay Hall’s New Year’s Eve party on a frigid cold night in their restored home. The house was like a gem out of the past. The lights and beautiful colors made me feel like I was in 1910 again. By that time it was apparent Munger Place was coming back; already many homes were nicer than when I lived there. At that time I could not fully grasp what the area was like in its first two decades although I did realize that many of the restorations captured the colors, furnishings and environs of the early homes.

Rob and Sharon’s elaborate furniture and brilliant colored walls created a home atmosphere that was both comfortable and luxurious. The deep green walls of the living room were complemented by vibrant potted plants that grew healthy with the light from the many large windows.

Later when I saw the house I was amazed at the difference from our house of the forties and fifties. The Smith’s home was full of art work and antiques while we may have had a picture or two from Woolworths. While the Schoellkopf’s must have had beautiful furniture and likely nice art work, the wall could not have been as brilliant as what the house now presented. When my family arrived in 1941, the walls were covered with the wallpaper that the Schoellkopfs left. While the Schoellkopfs’ walls were nice, they were nothing like the warm, comfortable elegance that was before my eyes at my first visit to the Smiths.

In every corner there was a beautiful lamp or a fine painting with a spectacular frame along with many interesting collections.

During the house’s long life it had grown older, faltered somewhat and came incredibly close to death but had been revived. I took great pleasure in its revival and now realized the house never had it so good.

The yard had a rebirth as well. Although Jessie Schoellkopf had created a magnificent landscape, her work was done ages ago. My neighbor, Olina Haeber, remembered the yard Jessie created and mentioned she removed many plantings that she took to her new home on Versailles in Highland Park in 1939. What was left was still the beautiful yard that I remember in 1941. Although drought and little upkeep caused a slow decline, the yard was in fair condition until around 1950. What was left was destroyed in the 1954 reconstruction or, better said, ‘deconstruction.’ Really no big improvement was made after the Schoellkopfs left in 1939; that is forty years of neglect.

While Rob and Sharon were starting from scratch, they produced a fantastic landscape. What was left from before were several cedar bushes that had grown into trees in their sixty years or so of life if they were planted around 1920. In 1979, in the front toward the Collett side, was a large pecan tree that was coming up through the hedge when I left for military service in 1953. Another tree was sprouting through the hedge on the east front.

The Smiths added a multitude of interesting plants including camellias, ,azaleas, crape myrtles, pyracantha, gardenias, and a Japanese maple. Other interesting plants were Texas-friendly plants like the Texas Mountain Laurel with purple blossoms that smell like the old Grapette soft drink popular years ago. In addition, they added a Mountain Cedar, a Bradford Pear with white spring blossoms and an Italian Cypress.

The Italian Cypress was planted on the front east side by their bedroom windows. It has grown in a straight narrow column beyond the roof of the house. Another interesting plant, a vitex, with an unusual fragrance is the same type of plant that Jessie Schoellkopf planted beside the porch on the west side. I recall the unusual aroma when jumping into them as a kid. A live oak and a cypress are also planted on the parkway.

In 1980, area residents persuaded the city of Dallas to create the Munger Place Historic District. The Historic District is now recognized by the United States National Register of Historic Places and represents over 250 households the largest collection of Prairie-Style homes in America.

As more homes were restored, Munger Place became an ideal place for filming movies and television shows. Often scripts for Walker Texas Ranger were filmed inside the homes as period settings.

In the spring of 1996 I was driving through the district when I noticed trucks with big lighting equipment and reflectors on Collett near Victor Street. The pavement on Victor was covered with sand and the street signs were hidden with fake ivy. All of this was to create a 1910 image for the movie Lily Dale by Horton Foote with Mary Stuart Masterson, Sam Shepard, Stockard Channing and Jean Stapleton in the cast. Since I always carried my camera when driving to Munger Place, I was able to shoot pictures of some of the props.

 

When the Smiths moved in, they were a part of the energetic numbers restoring and developing the reviving community. Sharon loved to give big dinner parties that included a wide number of intelligent, active people who were their friends from throughout the city as well as her neighbors. New Year’s and Halloween are big annual parties.

One Saturday morning, sometime in the eighties, I was taking a picture of the east part of the Tremont block from the Smith’s front yard when Rob came out to pick up his paper. I had never met the Smiths at that time. I picked up his paper and introduced myself as I handed the paper to him. He recognized my name from the brochure that I had given Paul Crews which was passed on to him when he purchased the house. It was most interesting to me to meet the owner of the house who had made a home of it again.

What Rob and I did not know at that time was that we had a mutual friend, Mark McDonald, who worked with Rob. Mark had a son, John, who was a friend of my son, Andrew. A short time later, Rob, Mark and another friend, Scott Griffith, were talking at work. Scott mentioned that he was teaching part time –as it turned out, Scott was working at the school where I taught. When Scott told Mark he was teaching there, Mark told him he had a friend, Bill Densmore, who also taught there. When Scott said, “I know Bill Densmore.”, Rob, who was quietly listening, calmly said, “I live in Bill Densmore’s house.” Soon Leslie and I were invited to one of Sharon’s dinner parties and a wonderful friendship developed.

Rob’s nephew, Trad, grew up in the Tremont house with them. I enjoyed discussions with him on growing up in the same house. We both had played in the huge attic. His room was the big upstairs central bedroom. He would sometime climb out the window and crawl along the narrow part of the roof and drop off somewhere to the ground. I too had sometime climbed out of the east bedroom onto the slanted part of the chimney that was like a couple of steps.

To be in the house again is incredibly satisfying. Most enjoyable are the dinner parties Leslie and I attend with the interesting friends of the Smiths. I had long looked forward to the turn of the century and wanted it to be especially noteworthy. I had no desire to go to a nightclub but wanted it to be with people that were interesting and intellectual. Rob and Sharon’s home offered just that and more because it was the house I still loved. I asked Sharon if I could bring my friend, Travis Mayo; that made it a perfect New Year’s Eve and the beginning of a new century for me.

Rob and Sharon had often looked at the brochure that had pictures of the house in the forties and fifties. Most all of the indoor prints were of my sister Nita’s wedding. Sometime in late 1999, Sharon and Rob asked me if Nita might want to have an anniversary party of her reception in their house. Although I was eager to do so ,I thought it would be terribly intrusive on Sharon and Rob.

I waited until they asked again. Sharon, knowing Nita and Ted’s age said, “Bill don’t wait too long.” By then Leslie and I had talked it over and elatedly accepted. Leslie had a caterer that served her briefing center that was exceptional but we still had fears of bringing such a crowd into their home.

Nita and Ted were excited; Nita could still wear her wedding dress and almost all of the wedding party were still living.

In planning, Rob said we might get newspaper coverage. I called and talked to a male reporter who never called back. Rob called as well and a neighborhood friend of his made contact with Channel 8 TV. Then a female reporter at the Dallas News became interested.

Things then began to snowball; some how the information went all the way to the program ‘If Walls Could Talk’ on HGTV. When they called, we wondered how this all had come in motion and we still don’t understand the steps taken.

WOW! After 52 years Nita’s reception would be re-enacted and the house that less than fifteen years earlier was about to collapse would be on national television.

I treasured the close relationship we had with Rob and Sharon and the excitement we shared in planning the reception. Sharon was up to her neck in an algebra class she was taking but we were ready for Saturday, January 29, 2000. The 1948 wedding also was on the last Saturday of January but that date was the 31st.

With the date as close as we could make it to the original, the weather obliged us with another ice storm like the one at the 1948 wedding to complement the occasion. This disturbed me a bit as I remembered the icy bat that slipped through my hands the day of Nita’s wedding.

While I made sure not to even touch a bat, we got through the reception without me breaking any windows. However, when the newspaper coverage of the reception came out, the 1948 incident of the icy bat and broken window was revived.