What Does Andy Beal Want Now That He’s Demolished the Cox Mansion?
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When the beautiful 1916 Beaux Arts Cox mansion, one of the most architecturally significant residences in Dallas, was demolished on August 23, social media erupted. WTF? Why would anyone do this? The question remains because billionaire owner Andy Beal doesn’t often talk to the press and frankly owes no one an explanation.
After spending months renovating and updating the Cox mansion, he suddenly pulled the plug, and on August 1, he applied for a demolition permit. The house came down, and just like that, a huge piece of our history was rubble. Who knows what happened because Beal, as we know, is not talking. Why should he? It’s his property, and this is Texas, where property rights are sacrosanct. Or are they?
I mean, there are limits, right? Or do those limits only apply to non-billionaires? Beal is going to rebuild and has applied for a zoning change, and it’s a whopper. Right now, in the City of Highland Park, you can build a home to a height of 45 feet. If you want to add a fancy architectural feature like a bell tower, a spire, or a cupola, you can have another ten feet to do so.
Well, it appears that 10 feet is just not enough for Beal. The architectural vision for his new home includes his desire for an extension of an ornamental architectural feature to 20 feet. It’s a big ask.
It’s not just a zoning change for Beal’s property. The proposal includes a change to every property within the “A” zoning district of Highland Park. For those of you unfamiliar, this is basically billionaires’ row, with Jerry Jones’ massive estate at one end. If approved, all five residences could build an architectural feature 65 feet on top of their homes.
When is enough enough?
Preservation Park Cities Advisory member, Joan Clark
Unsurprisingly, many neighbors are upset because the zoning staff has recommended approval.
“The rationale is these are large lots, and the rule that goes along with the 20 feet additional is that they would be limited,” Preservation Park Cities member Larry Good said. He is also a founding principal of GFF and the Chairman of Save the Top 100, an effort to preserve the most architecturally significant homes in the Park Cities.
“The setback would be controlled, so you could not put the feature on the edge of the property. It would have to be more central and limited to 20% of the footprint of the house. Their rationale is this limits the structure’s impact on adjacent property owners,” Good said.
This is not sitting well with the neighbors as Highland Park already has a generous roof height allowance. Good compared it to the height of a five-story commercial building or a six-story residential apartment building.
“I did some research to see who else had a 45-foot height limit, and no one does,” Good said. “University Park is 30 feet and Southlake is 35 feet. We have the most permissive zoning district for single-family houses anywhere in Dallas already. Adding another 10 feet is not proper scale.”
This has certainly hit the preservation community hard. Preservation Park Cities, while it does a great deal of work, has its hands tied. There are no protections for significant homes here. Despite the cultural, historic, and environmental impact, as I mentioned, property rights are essentially sacred in Texas.
“There is no basis for saying it’s wrong without seeing what he is proposing,” architect Lloyd Lumpkins said. “I don’t think that changing the height for an architectural feature will have that much of an impact. Don’t judge architecture without seeing the architecture.”
As for height, remember that Mar-a-Lago, a National Historic Landmark, was built in 1924. A 75-foot tower tops the structure.
Plans are supposed to go to the Highland Park Zoning Commission in January, although no date has been announced.
I’m trying hard to imagine what Beal has in mind, and I would love your ideas and comments. Please let us know how you envision his dream home.
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It is time to let Andy Beale create new memories .
Caren,I agree. He will either get tired of it and sell it like he did with the last one, or perhaps build something absolutely phenomenal.
It appears to me, something went terribly wrong during the renovation construction. I believe like others the structure gave way to that heavy metal buttress and I suspect there’s a lot of law suits in the works about this. Beal clearly had plans to keep and renovate this house. And to Karen’s point in one of her comments “ego” I believe played a part of this catastrophe. It can be the death nail for a very old structure that really needed limited renovations, just gentle preservation.
Tim I agree. It seems something must have gone wrong. You do not spend that kind of time and money on a project to just demo it. Pretty much every huge home is a monument to ego. Biltmore, Vizcaya and the Vanderbilt top my list. And I think that’s ok, becuase without ego we would not have these incredible homes. Who knows? He might build something we all love : )
Losing the 1916 ” Rose Lloyd house” is indeed sad, it was the largest home built in the early days of Highland Park. At 12,000 feet, the Lloyd house was the largest house in HP for at least 80-90 years. There are remnants of the grand estate that still remain. Originally the estate was fenced with brick columns, with ironwork in between. When Ed Cox bought the property in 1975 for 975K, he built a new wall, he thoughtfully integrated pieces of the original iron fencing into the brick. As of now the wall remains, lets hope it does not go away. Maybe Mr. Beal has found the final spot to make his house dreams come true. Mr Beal has owned a trifecta of historic homes, The Crespi estate, the Trammel Crow estate, and now the crown jewell of Highland Park. I have confidence his grand new structure will be something the people of the Park Cities will be proud of.
It would be nice to see a replica of the original built on site – though that’s unlikely to happen.
TXinCA that’s a lovely thought but I think we will see something quite different if and when Beal chooses to rebuild. There is every chance he will just sell the property like he did after demolishing the historic Crow estate.
Beal’s approach to the acquisition, renovation and/or demolition and resale of landmark Dallas Mansions is so bewildering. I had two homes built for my family and myself over my lifetime and now live in the smallest and most efficient of them all and still building a house of any size takes time away from your day job and requires regular visits and inspection. Amazing Beal would want to have the distraction of building a show place when he already had it in the Cox Mansion, and the Crespi Estate and the Crow mansion (granted that house needed a lot of work and tearing it down might have been the better decision).
You know Timothy, this is always the question. As outsiders we don’t truly know what shape any of these residences were in. I think at this level, you have “people” that do those visits and inspections. I don’t see building a house as a distraction for him lol.