Preservation Dallas Receives a Prestigious National Award
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Preservation Dallas recently received The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Trustees’ Award of Organizational Excellence. To be recognized on a national level is an enormous accomplishment.
The Trustees’ Award for Organizational Excellence recognizes a nonprofit organization, large or small, that has demonstrated sustained and superlative achievement in historic preservation.
The Cocktails for Preservation event was started by Preservation Dallas as a way to entice higher-level donors with exclusive tours of historic houses in Dallas to support Preservation Dallas. The 1964 Beck House designed by Philip Johnson was featured at one of the events with Mark Lamster, the Dallas Morning News architecture critic, talking about the house and Johnson’s work after his book on the home’s architect came out.
It’s a testament to the fact a dedicated group of preservationists helps to keep our historic residences and buildings intact and also provides a depth of education about why this is important and how to do it.
Preservation Dallas hosted a walking tour with Heritage Oak Cliff of the historic Jefferson Street in Dallas. Preservation Dallas Executive Director David Preziosi led the tour and included such sites at the Texas theater, where Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended.
The National Preservation Awards are bestowed upon distinguished individuals, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and corporations whose skill and determination have given new meaning to their communities through preservation of this country’s architectural and cultural heritage.
Preservation Dallas created InTown Outings once a month as a membership benefit giving members access to historic projects before, during, or after renovation, or just cool old historic places. Attendees learn a little bit about the project or the place and then get to tour the site. The popular outings can get up to 200 people. Pictured are people waiting to see the Schoellkopf House, a 1924 Tudor style mansion.
Preservation Dallas was founded as the Historic Preservation League in 1972 with a mission “to preserve and revitalize Dallas’ buildings, neighborhoods and other historical, architectural and cultural resources.” Within a year, they had a preservation ordinance in place with the city, and without their efforts, Swiss Avenue would not exist.
Virginia Savage McAlester at the dedication of the Preservation Dallas InTown Living Center in 1995 with Ebby Halliday and several Dallas businesswomen. Virginia raised funds for the project and was instrumental in developing a center at the Preservation Dallas headquarters where people could come learn about historic neighborhoods in Dallas and historic preservation.
The award was received for a body of their advocacy work. It included some accomplishments you might not realize were ahead of their time and set national precedents. Their innovative outreach and educational programs provide inspiration to other preservation organizations nation-wide. So when it came time to figure out just what to include in the application, it had to be a hard call.
It’s hard to squeeze everything this wonderful organization does into an application with a word count, but Preservation Dallas Executive Director David Preziosi managed!
Preservation Dallas partnered with the Dallas Heritage Village to conduct a hands-on Windows Workshop where participants learned about wood window repair and were able to work on actual windows and see how they can be taken apart and repaired. Pictured is Ron Siebler, owner of a historic preservation contracting firm, teaching the class.
“We noted the revolving fund program we had in the late 70s created by Virginia McAlester, Preziosi said. “You were not able to easily get loans for historic homes at that time, so Virginia worked locally with banks and on a federal level with Fannie Mae to set up assistance for homeowners to access money to purchase these homes. It was the basis Community Revitalization Act that is a national program.”
Virginia McAlester at a book signing for the release of the newly expanded A Field Guide to American Houses.
The grant application also included the creation of the demolition delay overlay, which has helped thousands of historic structures from being razed. The Historic Styles Booklet was produced internally, and the Historic House Specialist designation initiated for real estate professionals were also part of the package.
Preservation Dallas advocated for the saving of the Knights of Pythias lodge, an important African American fraternal organization. The building was designed by William Sydney Pittman, Texas’ first black architect and son-in-law of Booker T. Washington. The building is now a hotel that opened in August.
This is a well-deserved and long overdue award, in our opinion, and we are so proud to support Preservation Dallas at CandysDirt.com. We encourage you to check out their website, learn something about our historic heritage, and get involved in preservation!
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What a great article. Thanks for sharing the story and pictures.