This Highland Park Transitional Evolved From an Arts & Crafts Original

Seeing a home transition through the decades is fascinating. It gives us insight into architectural trends and offers historical snapshots.

It’s hard to imagine, but this Highland Park transitional was built in 1914 in the popular Arts & Crafts style, but over the years it has carried a French air that ultimately grew into this transitional style we see today.

The fact this home has not been torn down is a shining example of how you can continually adapt existing historic architecture to modern living.

A Classic Highland Park Transitional

I liken the evolution of this Highland Park transitional to the perfect little black designer dress inherited from a fashionable grandmother. You don’t toss it. You change the hemline and the neckline and maybe shorten the sleeves, but you make it work because the silhouette is classic.

Alberto Garza’s Instagram account Sidewalks of Dallas has an incredible history of this Highland Park transitional:

Completed in 1914, 3600 Armstrong Avenue in Highland Park was built for Edwin Burrus Doggett (1879-1939) and Lillian Smith Doggett (1886-1939). Edwin was the owner and operator of Doggett Grain Company. Both Edwin and Lillian tragically lost their lives on March 10, 1939, in an automobile accident when returning from visiting their daughter and only child, Margaret, who was attending The University of Texas at Austin. Fresh from the loss of her parents, Margaret would later that same year survive the sinking of the British passenger liner SS Athenia, the first British ship sunk by Nazi Germany during World War II. Several years later, in 1942, Margaret married real estate developer and mogul Trammell Crow and began raising their family in her childhood house before relocating to a larger residence a few blocks up the road in the early 1960s. 

Sidewalks of Dallas

As Featured in House Beautiful

In 1964 the property was featured in House Beautiful’s Gardening and Outdoor Living for the new design of the walkways and driveway. It goes to show that the property has always had beautiful care.

Really, What More Could You Want?

I don’t think any of the previous owners could have imagined the current incarnation, and I’m not sure it could get any better. This home has it all: 6,804 square feet, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a powder bath, a gym overlooking the pool, a media room, the most luxurious wine room I’ve seen in ages, and a two-story guest house. Oh, yes, and it’s all on a bit over half an acre with plenty of room for the kids to play soccer and enjoy the sports court and the in-ground trampoline.

“So many of the homes in Highland Park are overbuilt,” Allie Beth Allman listing agent Alex Perry said. “Because this was not overbuilt, you have the advantage of an enormous yard, which feels even larger because of the way the home was sited on the land. You have Preston Hollow yard space, and you are within walking distance of Knox street.”

You certainly have it all in this Highland Park transitional. History, tradition, modern luxury, and location. It’s the whole package.

Allie Beth Allman and Associates‘ Alex Perry has 3600 Armstrong Ave. available for $11.995 million.