Spirit of Preservation Award: Preservation Dallas to Honor This Queen Anne Victorian in Peak’s Addition

Preservation Dallas celebrates our city’s historic wins on May 7 at the Longhorn Ballroom, honoring those dedicated to preserving our built heritage. Among those receiving awards are Mike Grable and Ben Garner, who restored and updated the Henrietta Robinson Eidt House, a Queen Anne Victorian cottage in Peaks Addition.

In the early days of the pandemic, Grable and Garner biked over to the neighborhood which held special meaning for Grable.

“My grandmother spent her early life in Peak’s Suburban Addition. Her father and great-grandfather —Clarence C. Bulger and C.W. Bulger — were prominent architects responsible for many 1900-1925 Dallas projects. I liked the idea of possibly returning to the neighborhood.”

The pair had considered moving because pandemic demand for homes like theirs, with pools and extra square footage, was high. They visited the historic Queen Anne Victorian, expecting it to be in dire condition, but were pleasantly surprised.  

“You don’t get old-growth wood and 11-and-a-half-foot ceilings in new construction,” Grable noted. They decided immediately that it was a project they could take on.

When you buy a home from this era, you want to know its past. The duo couldn’t have asked for a more knowledgeable neighbor than Jim Anderson, a former City of Dallas Historic Preservation Officer for 26 years, who is now one of the most sought-after preservation consultants in the city. He lives next door to Grable and Garner in Peak’s Suburban Addition and was great friends with the former owner, Henrietta Robinson Eidt.

Anderson let the new owners know that 4702 Swiss Ave. was built in 1906 for J. Waller Cole. In 1908, the house was sold to Thomas B. Trotman, whose family lived there for 86 years until 1994. His daughters Henrietta and Bee Trotman continued to live there, and when Henrietta married, she raised her own daughter, also called Henrietta, known as Henny in her youth, and Nuffie when she became a grandmother. The family name was Robinson, so, of course, they were known as the Swiss Family Robinson.  

“The family had a small chicken farm along Annex Street,” Anderson said.  “Henny went to SMU on chicken profits and became a teacher.

Henny/Nuffie married Robert Eidt, and they raised their three children in the house.

“Nuffie was a great neighbor who told stories of horse-drawn vegetable wagons, the ice wagon, and when they paved the streets, she got roller skates, “Anderson said. “She still had the horse hitching post in the front yard.”

Between 1994 and 2021, there were multiple owners who had not shown quite the amount of stewardship Henrietta Robinson Eidt did, so despite the great bones of the home, there was still quite a lot of work to be done. Grable and Garner worked with Homesmith Custom Builders to whip their home back into shape.

“We started with the foundation, leveling it and repairing windows and floors,” Grable said. “The chimney cap was off, there was significant wood rot, and the original two-story horse barn was gone. The garage was falling over and not historic. We got approval in 2023 to tear it down and build a structure to approximate the original two-story horse barn, and added a guest room above the garage.”

“The project was fun,” Grable said. “We did some unique things. During the attic’s conversion, we built an 8-foot doorway in the study, paneled it, and added a hidden door for the attic stairs so the ground floor felt whole. We also installed a dumbwaiter to make getting things up the steep stairs easy.”

Garner did the design work and created the landscape plan, ensuring the home’s 109-year-old crape myrtle continued to hold pride of place on the side of the home. 

The result is, of course,award-worthy, but it is also inspirational and encouraging, demonstrating just how rewarding historic preservation can be.

Celebrate outstanding preservation, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse projects in Dallas on May 7 at the legendary Longhorn Ballroom. Tickets for the Preservation Achievement Awards are available at Preservation Dallas.