I Love My Old Preston Hollow, But That’s Why Kips Bay (And Everyone Else) is Here Too

As the 2023 Kips Bay Decorator Show House kicks off in Old Preston Hollow this weekend, I’m reminded why this is one of my absolute favorite neighborhoods in Dallas and why others would love it, too.

Fond Memories

I lived here for more than 10 years near the corner of Park Lane and Hollow Way, an exclusive section of Preston Hollow known as the “honeypot.” True story: When we lived at 5511 Park Lane, I actually tried to get our address changed to a Hollow Way address because I loved the street name so much.

We had a gorgeous — and I mean gorgeous — garden room with glossy Zellige floor tiles in Vert Mousse. Horchow used to lease my garden room for photo shoots. Often, I wish we had never left, though our home was like a crumbling movie star from the 1930s — beautiful in her heyday, but muddled over the years to a confusing mess.

Ultimately, my old home was razed and became a beautiful 9,800-square-foot estate.

I Get It

Now when I heard the controversy between the Kips Bay Dallas Show House and the neighborhood resisting a show house in their midst, I felt a twinge of, “I get it.”

People buy homes in the honeypot of Preston Hollow because they want two things: an acre or more of verdant foliage, and privacy. To have a show house next door could mean tire skids on the curb of your lawn destroying sprinkler heads and well-meaning patrons trooping through your gravel or lawn after a rainstorm like the ones we had last weekend.

Yeah, no one wants that no matter who it benefits.

But I Don’t Get It

But these spectacular neighborhoods are why Kips Bay selected Dallas a few years ago. Patrons want a peek at this exclusivity. These tree-lined streets and neighborhoods that absolutely stun the senses with class and elegance and beauty. That’s why people buy homes here in the honeypot.

It’s not like the tour is a free-for-all. Tickets start at $50 and go up to $1,000. For designers, designing a Kips Bay showcase puts you in an exclusive club of professionals and that kind of home belongs in Dallas’ most exclusive places like Beverly Drive or Old Preston Hollow. Sorry neighbors, it’s a perfect place for a show house.

Besides, parking is so enforced you’d think this was the White House. The show has a special use permit for 11 days, so Kips Bay patrons must park 2 miles north and then be shuttled to the home.

Who’s Who

Who lives in Preston Hollow now? Mark Cuban, of course. Dirk Nowitzki is moving west to the Strait Lane area after he bought, then sold the former Wyly estate at 5906 DeLoache. Jose Reyes is next door. Jim and Julie Turner, Rob and Monica Allyn, Elaine Pearlman, Laura Miller and Steve Wolens, Kimberly Whitman, Lisa K. Simmons, super lawyer Angel Reyes III, Randall Stephenson and family, commercial real estate maven Shula Netzer, attorney Windle Turley, Nancy Halbreich, Roger Staubach (Jennifer Gates’ dad), Richard Strauss, and a whole lot of trust fund recipients.

This year’s show house, 9446 Hathaway, was owned by Bard and Traci Hummel when we lived in Preston Hollow; They divorced in about 2001. In 2003, John and Melissa Desaloms bought the home, Dr. Desaloms being a prominent neurosurgeon. In 2015, the home was traded to Robert Rhys Heinsch and Zoe Larose, listed as current owners. Zoe is the owner of Mine Boutique near SMU. They “stole” it in 2015 for about $2.5.

Oh, and the property value of this home today? DCAD says $3.52 million (take that as you will.) It was built in 1940 and remodeled in 1980. The five-bedroom home has 7,992 square feet on a lush 1.75 acres.

Old Preston Hollow History

The home backs to the Dallas North Tollway, which you would never know because of the foliage. Fun Fact: Up until the mid-1960s, the Dallas North Tollway was the Cotton Belt track. If you lived west of Preston Road you heard daily blasts of Cotton Belt train horns. A St. Louis Southwestern Railway line ran parallel to Preston coming north out of downtown and the train sounded its horn at every street crossing.

My older neighbors told me that often handymen would hop a ride on the train, sometimes getting off in Preston Hollow to look for work during the Great Depression. Many homes in this neighborhood had backhouses for household help and also places where these folks could crash after a good meal. The Cotton Belt train tracks were pulled up in the mid-1960s and the right-of-way became the Dallas North Tollway. 

Home Transformation

Every inch of the 8,000-square-foot Hathaway mansion has been uniquely transformed by 22 notable creatives. The powder room, master bedroom/primary closet, and enchanting pool pavilion have all been decked, inspiration drawn from Marrakech, Bunny Mellon, Parisian chateaus, and even a teen girl’s bedroom from the 1980s.

Note: in an interview with builder extraordinaire John Sebastian, we learn that primary closets very similar to the one you will see in this show home are de rigeur: everyone wants a closet that is more like a room where you can have your collectibles — shoes, handbags — on display. Makes sense: those handbags start at about $2,500, and the last pair of Valentino’s I drooled over were $1,150. Who can afford art after that?

This year’s Kips Bay Decorator Show House Dallas co-chairs are Jean Liu and Chad Dorsey; Laura Lee Clark and Trish Sheats are vice chairs. Honorary chairs are Jamie Drake, Jan Showers, and Veranda Editor-in-Chief Steele Marcoux. Paper City Publisher Holly Moore was beautifully honored at the Kips Bay President’s Dinner on October 5 at Brook Hollow Country Club. The lushly attended event was an enormous success and beautifully crafted.

And it’s finally here, free from angry neighbors (2022) and the constraints of Covid (2021). NO PARKING on the street is taken very seriously: patrons will park (close to where I live!) at the Northaven United Methodist Church, 11211 Preston Road. They will jump into a taupe-toned bus to transport about 2 miles to the show house, leaving the right of way in front of the home clear from vehicles except for security and Dallas PD. For more information, check here. The show house is trying very, very hard to be unobtrusive in this eden of tranquility.

The Kips Bay Show House marks the biggest design event of the year in Dallas (or anywhere in the country for that matter) and serves as the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club’s top fundraiser. And sorry neighbors, like I said, I get it but I don’t get it. Preston Hollow really IS the perfect neighborhood for it.