Is This Kessler Park Midcentury More Mamie Eisenhower or Priscilla Presley?
Share News:
This 1959 Kessler Park Ranch makes a pretty convincing case that not all midcentury pink was created equal. This week’s Highlight Home, sponsored by Lisa Peters, Senior Loan Officer with First Horizon, swings between the pale, polite pink that First Lady Mamie Eisenhower helped turn into a home decor phenomenon and the plush, unapologetic pink that gives off unmistakable Priscilla Presley vibes.
Please tell me you see it, too.
At 925 Knott Place, pink changes character depending on the room. Pale pinks and lilacs in the primary suite contrast with something much bolder in the formal living room.
The formal living room is where the Priscilla comparison really lands, with plush, wall-to-wall coral-pink carpet and metallic wallpaper that pushes the room toward Regency glam. The primary suite is more Mamie, with pale pink carpeting and curtains, lilac closet walls, and broad panes of glass that bathe the room in soft, filtered light. Those choices make a lot more sense once you know a little about the woman who chose them.
Rita Clare Wooley Jamison, a New Orleans native, clearly wasn’t afraid of color.
“She loved purple and red,” said listing agent Robert Kucharski of David Griffin & Company Realtors, sharing what Jamison’s daughter told him.
Rita and her husband, Dr. Jack Jamison, built the Knott Place house in 1959, shortly after they settled in Oak Cliff. They would go on to raise three sons and a daughter there. Jamison was only about 30 when he began practicing OB/GYN at nearby Methodist Medical Center in 1958. He later taught gynecologic surgery at Parkland and became one of Methodist’s early laparoscopic and gynecologic microsurgeons.
The hills behind Methodist Hospital became known as “Pill Hill” for the concentration of physicians who lived nearby. East Kessler’s rolling terrain, winding streets, and wooded lots gave those doctors room to build custom midcentury homes just minutes from the hospital.
The Jamisons built a 2,641-square-foot house with four bedrooms and 3.5 baths, two fireplaces, formal and informal living areas, distinctive Roman brick, and a backyard that steps down toward the pool.
As the children grew, the Jamisons adapted the house with them. A circular driveway was added when they became teenagers.
“The neighbors were growing tired of the teens’ cars parked along Knott Place,” Kucharski said.
Later came the swimming pool — the original diving board is still intact — giving the backyard another gathering place as the children got older.
The home kept evolving, too. After Dr. Jamison retired, he took to woodworking in his garage shop, making furniture and eventually putting those skills to work inside the house.
“His daughter told me when they were children, one area was their playroom,” Kucharski said. “But once they grew up, their dad built the bar with custom storage and a wine rack.”
There are other craftsmanship details you just don’t see much anymore, like real wood parquet floors laid in an intricate basketweave pattern, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle.
A mature cedar tree was already part of the landscape when the house was built, so the Jamisons simply built around it. The trunk still rises straight through the covered patio roof today.
The nearly 70-year-old house has also had some decidedly non-1959 updates where they matter. According to Kucharski, the roof, HVAC system, and water heater have all been replaced.
Aesthetically, though, this is still very much the Jamisons’ house.
That’s what makes it fun.
There are plenty of buyers who will look at a dated kitchen, coral-pink carpet, and metallic wallpaper and immediately start mentally pricing demolition. Someone else is going to walk into that living room and see Rita Jamison’s color choices still holding their ground.
Like I said, Mamie in one room. Priscilla in the next.
Robert Kucharski of David Griffin & Company Realtors has listed 925 Knott Place for $898,000.
Open House: Sept 6 from 2-4 p.m.
