Mary Kay Ash Home Bites the Dust, R.I.P.

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8915 Douglas ext 2

Say goodbye to another Dallas icon. The home of the late Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Dallas-based Mary Kay Inc., is being torn down as we speak, at 8915 Douglas Ave.

The 11,874-square-foot mansion, in the honeypot Old Preston Hollow, was built in 1984. The Dallas Central Appraisal District has the home valued at $1.91 million, interesting because it was sold for $1.85 million. Its condition is listed as “very poor.” And it’s obvious the house has not been loved in a long time.

Shrubbery is to be maintained so as to not to disturb the neighbors.

“It was dilapidated inside, and it’s really sad,” says someone who has been inside recently. “No one has lived there in years. The materials were not of high quality, and looks like water had gotten up through the foundation.”

The really valuable chandeliers and marble pieces are also gone.

Even the pink quartz bathroom commode is going.

8915 Douglas entrance

8915 Douglas foyer

A demolition permit was issued for the property on March 6, but the current owner has been planning to tear it down since last August. The home has six bedrooms, five full bathrooms, and four half-bathrooms, and sits on 1.05 primo acres that back up to the Dallas North Tollway. It was sold December 28, 2015, for $1.85 million.

Allie Beth Allman agent Karen Luter was the listing agent for the owner, Dr. Karen Gillum, who had been trying to sell the property for years. At one point the home was listed at $5.7 million with Myla Patton, back in 2007. Successive agents kept lowering the price until Karen did the magic.

Who is the new owner? We have been trying to find out for a long time. Dallas-based Pelicans Corp. Services LLC is listed as the property’s owner but…well, stay tuned.

Built in 1984, remodeled in 2000, the estate featured manicured lawns with fountains, pools, koi ponds, arboretum like gardens, Brazilian teakwood flooring, grand sweeping staircases (two or three), statues, arcades of Corinthian columns, a wine cellar, walls of beveled glass windows, hand painted murals, original pink quartz-marble hardware, indescribable mill work and that pink quartz commode. The lime green carpet on the stairs is the original that hosted many a top producer party. The kitchen has the original white Corian counters and Mary Kay’s own breakfast table (one of them) under the massive chandelier.

When I first saw the home years ago, right after Mary Kay had moved out, it held no oriental rugs. It has been listed by Myla Patton of Patton International Real Estate for $5.7 in 2007, then with Linda Jordan Hobbs over at Ebby for $4.995 million.

You know, Alex Rodriquez, or A-Rod, who used to live next door, still drives up Douglas every time he visits Dallas just to take a gander at the home he owned, right next door to Mary Kay’s pink castle. Sadly, he will have one less reminder of his days in Dallas on his next visit.

8915 Douglas family

8915 Douglas hallway

8915 Douglas kitchen

8915 Douglas kitchen 2

8915 Douglas kitchen 2

8915 Douglas breakfast

8915 Douglas family 2

8915 Douglas library

8915 Douglas master

8915 Douglas master bath

8915 Douglas landing

8915 Douglas landing 2

8915 Douglas guest

8915 Douglas bathtub

8915 Douglas walkway

8915 Douglas pool

8915 Douglas pool shot 2

8915 Douglas pool 3

 

 

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Candy Evans, founder and publisher of CandysDirt.com, is one of the nation’s leading real estate reporters.

28 Comments

  1. Blue Harris on March 14, 2017 at 6:38 pm

    The house looks so sad now. Back in the early 1990’s I did an upstairs bathroom (pink and green of course, which I had removed but had to replace back after the show), a long hallway and alcove for the Dallas Symphony Showhouse. All the designers had to restore it back to its original ‘grandure’…

    I still have a playful letter Dame Mary Kay wrote for me to place on a table in that alcove. First time I have thought of that letter in a long time.

    I think we all will be following the journey of this house, as it has winded it way into our Dallas lives for many a year.

  2. Beth Fitzgerald on March 14, 2017 at 7:38 pm

    Houses are just commodities these days. Not homes that are pass from family to family. Tear it down, build something bigger and taller and more opulent and more expensive. This is a disposable society.

  3. Blueeyemama on March 14, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    It’s very sad to hear that Mary Kay’s home is going to be destroyed. She was such a lovely lady and took such pride in her home and sharing it with everyone. She had her top people there each year to her home. She even baked cookies for everyone to enjoy while there. There will never be another woman like her and it’s sad to now think her home will be torn down. I can only hope someone will see it’s beauty and save it!

  4. Mette Holthe Eriksen on March 15, 2017 at 8:37 am

    Beautiful home. Just showed it to my American / Norwegian daughter, who is only 20 years old here in Oslo, Norway. Had so much fun with MARY KAY COSMETIC, both in Norway and the USA, where we lived for five years. <3

  5. Shannon on March 15, 2017 at 10:44 am

    I remember this house being built in the early 80s. One of the first new mansions in Preston Hollow. Our school bus took us down Douglas Ave. every morning on our way to ED Walker Middle School.

    Didn’t MKA sell this home to build a newer (pink) home in Highland Park?

    • Candy Evans on March 15, 2017 at 11:05 am

      No, she did not. She actually moved back into her home on the lake near Boedeker. While she loved the Douglas hone, it was huge and riddled with problems from the get go. (Watch who you hire to build your home!) She used it for many Mary Kay events but preferred her round house east of Preston. Never built a home in Park Cities as far as I know…

    • Mike on March 15, 2017 at 11:06 am

      I heard that she moved back to her previous home over by Northpark.

  6. P.A. on March 15, 2017 at 11:27 am

    This house reminds me of a Las Vegas casino. I don’t know that it had a chance to survive beyond her original vision since it’s so very, very specific. Still – it’s shocking to think the max value is in the dirt (goodbye house!).

  7. Charlae CLiff on March 15, 2017 at 11:43 am

    That is a nice house. Dont take it please.

  8. Denise on March 15, 2017 at 12:15 pm

    The details in this home are stunning. The curved hallway and pillars, the wood ceiling and details. So sad to see this torn down. They should allow people to go in and remove the parts they want at no cost since they clearly see no value in keeping the home or the securing any of the beautiful elements.

  9. Jay Young on March 15, 2017 at 12:23 pm

    I used to maintain the swimming pool back in the 80’s era at Riviera Pools of Dallas, while going to college. I even got to take my girlfriend (now wife) on a tour inside the home, on the day before MK moved in. All of her furniture and belongings had been delivered. It was spectacular!

  10. Lyubov on March 15, 2017 at 11:58 pm

    Mary Kay was a one of the Great Woman . I had so much fun with Mary Kay Cosmetics as a Beauty Consultant and Directeur of sale. I can prouve absolutely that the slogan “Enriching women’s lives” works . My live and me personally was changed for the better. It’s a great university for the women .

  11. Spencer Michlin on March 16, 2017 at 8:18 pm

    A sacrilege! In epic tackiness, this house rivaled Graceland.

  12. Gayle Green on March 17, 2017 at 7:32 am

    So sad to see Mary Kay Ash home torn down- I felt it is a historical landmark that people would pay to tour! I know all of the MARY KAY women would love to tour it!

  13. Debbie on March 31, 2017 at 8:36 am

    As of this morning, it is rubble…. Sad.

  14. Mette Holthe Eriksen on August 18, 2017 at 12:23 am

    Love this house. Wish I could live there. <3 Hello from registered nurse / beauty consultant MISS Mette and Mary Kay Cosmetic in Norway. PS Lived in the US for five years and got to know MARY KAY COSMETIC in 1992 – already 25 years ago. <3

  15. riley higgins on September 11, 2017 at 11:53 am

    I believe it that the house was in disrepair. I just went to the auction house that was commissioned to liquidate all that furniture. All the pieces needed major work with signs of mold and water damage on nearly everything. That giant piece in the dinning room sold for a mere $2,100 the giant painting sold under $500.

  16. eduardo on April 3, 2019 at 9:48 am

    tell us more information

  17. Winifred on June 28, 2019 at 6:06 pm

    Oh no say it isn’t so!! Me and a few of my MARY KAY team members visited this home and when I walked into the home I I said Mary Kay’s home is my dream home. We thought they were having an open house or something so we started taking pictures when this frail little woman walked up and said, “may I help you?” Scared the you know what out of us. It was the owner, a precious lady recovering from brain surgery. She was a surgeon herself. She allowed us to go all over this lovely home and talk pictures. We offered words of prayer for her recovery upon leaving. Her husband said they still have the builders plans so I would love to have them because MARY KAY’S home is my dream home.

  18. […] Update: It was sold for $1.85 million and is slated for demolition. […]

  19. Margaret Jane Brady on August 14, 2019 at 7:42 am

    I was in Wyoming living at Yellowstone, when I had a dream of Mary Kay… I dreamed that I went to her
    house and asked her to teach me how to sell real
    Estate. Mary Kay told me to sell Mary Kay..
    I looked her house up on the internet & to my surprise
    her house was just like the dream..
    I am still trying to figure out why I dreamed that..

  20. Shane Jones on February 28, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    Another vision of Dallas iconography ripped apart for the sake of a Dallas rebuild, sort of like the Hard Rock Cafe. I am so sad to know of it’s being leveled to build another monstrosity which will be torn down in ten or twenty years.

  21. […] Dallas, including those long crunched by a bulldozer. She has listed many a millionaire’s estate including the now-scraped home of the late Mary Kay Ash, and the 10,500-square-foot White Rock Lake mansion built by oilman H.L. Hunt, now owned by a […]

  22. […] including those long crunched by a bulldozer. She has listed many a millionaire’s estate including the now-scraped home of the late Mary Kay Ash, and the 10,500-square-foot White Rock Lake mansion built by oilman H.L. Hunt, now owned by a […]

  23. Cassie Duncan on February 23, 2021 at 5:45 am

    I think I might have a lead for you.

  24. Paul Attwood on July 29, 2021 at 2:58 pm

    Buy it up, use it up, throw it away mentality that my friends talked about in early ’70’s.

  25. Kim Gillum on March 18, 2022 at 3:18 pm

    This home was purchased by my daughter’s great aunt (my ex-husbands aunt) Karen Gillum who was a surgeon. She was probably the surgeon/frail lady giving the previous women a tour of the home. This was in approx.1990. We went there for Christmas and other family occasions several times. Karen was so proud of it and Karen and her older brother, Randy Gillum, also a surgeon (my daughter’s grandfather) bought many of the furnishings when the house was purchased. It was beyond imagination and like walking through a museum. It never really felt like a home, though. Just a pretty picture. So sad it could not be preserved. Alot of history on this end. I could write a book! K.Gillum

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