Opinion: Future of Aldredge House Decided at Wednesday’s Dallas City Council Meeting!
Share News:
Located in the city’s first residential historic district, the Aldredge House made the 2015 list for endangered places in Dallas. All photos: Preservation Dallas
[Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and should not be interpreted as the editorial opinion of CandysDirt.com.]
A public hearing will be held at the City Council meeting on Wednesday, January 24, in the afternoon on the proposed PD and SUP for the Aldredge House, located on Swiss Avenue in the Swiss Avenue Historic District.
The Council will hear the request for the Aldredge House to permanently become a museum home and education center for non-profit use.
Support is needed to help the house as its future and use will be determined at the meeting!
As you may know, my beloved Aldredge House has had some unfortunate issues in the past. In a nutshell, a catering company (don’t ever use them) got the Medical Alliance, of which I am a member, in hot water with neighbors over wild weddings at the house. Naturally, neighbors were disturbed and complained, threatening to shut down Aldredge House. There was fear the house would be sold, which would obliterate its historic status. The City Plan Commission voted last year to recommend the creation of a Planned Development District (PD) and a Specific Use Permit (SUP) to allow the house to operate as a Historic House Museum and Meeting Space.
Wedding rentals and other commercial events are not allowed as part of the PD. With the PD there could be meetings and programs between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
However, a SUP was recommended to restrict activities at the house between 5 and 9 p.m. to only three non-consecutive meetings a month, or 36 a year. Even a small meeting of a handful of people would constitute an event and count toward the total.
The Dallas County Medical Society Alliance, owners of the Aldredge House, believe the SUP as recommended is too limiting and will unduly limit the use of the house after 5 p.m. for meetings and educational programs. They are asking the City Council to modify the hours and number of meetings to allow for more flexible and reasonable use of the home for educational programs and meetings with the non-consecutive clause removed. I mean, would you like the City Council to tell you how late you could have guests to your house?
Join me in supporting the future of the Aldredge House as a publicly accessible historic house museum and meeting space in Dallas, one of the few we have that have not been torn down. The House and the Alliance want to be good neighbors, but they also want to enjoy their home in the most reasonable way.
What you can do:
1. Send an email to City Council and ask them to support the PD – with appropriate conditions for the new house museum use. Please click here for a sample letter you can send to City Council members to support the Foundation.
Please email your support by clicking here.
2. Attend the January 24 City Council public hearing and wear green to support the Aldredge House. This item will be on the afternoon agenda for City Council which begins at 1:00 pm in the Council Chamber at Dallas City Hall – 1500 Marilla Street. (Parking is in the back.) The case is number 52 and you can click here to view the agenda for the meeting. After going through security at the front entrance take the red or green elevators to the 6th floor to access the Council Chamber.
As the Founder and Publisher of CandysDirt.com, this is my heart asking you for support. Thank you for your assistance in supporting the future of beautiful, historic Aldredge House!
7 Comments
Leave a Comment
Come on, Candy, Aldredge House does not have guests. It’s a profit making venture that involves many more people than just having someone has over to their house as guests! Of course, I am talking about that average wage earning family who makes $45,000 as Jon wrote about. And how many of us have neighbors who host weddings every weekend at their house, logging up the street with parked cars, trash and noise. To be fair, your “house” was a profit earning venture for years before this recent problem and the neighbors who bought after you all started knew what was what. If your organization didn’t know what the caterer was doing, then shame on you guys. My husband says this is a business being operated by a non-profit in a residential neighborhood and it doesn’t belong. How’s the parking for these events? Do you infringe on the neighborhood with cars parked all up and down the street every weekend for these events? I don’t really care what happens but your story here is so one sided and self-serving I had to write. Buy the houses adjacent and make the problem go away. It’s easy to not care when you don’t suffer with these parties next door every weekend but live far away. I do not live in the Swiss Avenue area but I have empathy for the people who do. It sounds like you do not.
KAS I agree the weddings got out of hand I only wish I had known about it sooner, and that catering company was taking full advantage of an organization run by volunteers. Weddings in general are getting way out of control. I for one am glad there are no more weddings at AH: it was too hard on the house, and of course the neighborhood! But if I, as a member of the Alliance, wished to have a small shower or birthday party that ran over 9 pm, I think we should have that right.
Candy Evans, I see your point about the small shower or birthday party, but I totally understand the VERY well-stated points of KAS. I think we’d all sing a different tune if we had to live next door to it.
Shame on you Candy. This is the most narcissistic and self serving post you have ever written. As it has been operated, Aldredge House has been an obnoxious nuisance in the neighborhood and should be dealt with accordingly. I don’t believe the city Council restrictions are strong enough.
Brad, have you never felt passionately about an institution in your life? I feel passionate about keeping Aldredge House in the Alliance and as an historical, approachable house the likes of which we are not seeing with new construction. And Aldredge House USED to get along with its neighbors, and used to be a good neighbor. I believe they still will be. I apologize for the nuisance you have endured.
KAS – As it says in bold letters in the article “Wedding rentals and other commercial events are not allowed as part of the PD.”
Thre has not been a nighttime wedding there in more than two years. There was a small family wedding there in October in the afternoon because the bride lived all her life to that date in the Swiss Avenue Historic District. No tent, no amplified music, no outdoor lights because it was daytime. It has not been a commercial operation in more than two years. Now Friends of Aldredge House can proceed with plans to make it a museum house circa 1920 and develop educational programming. Thank you, Candy, very much for your support of Aldredge House. Your speaking up made a difference in the outcome.