One of Dallas' Oldest Homes, Built in the Cedars in the 1880s, Ready for Its New Life on a New Lot

It should have been gone by now, torn down and paved over -- a cable company's parking lot where, for more than a century, stood one of Dallas' most deluxe homes. Had it been rendered rubble, it would have been mourned for a moment, lamented as a victim of a city that can't or won't protect its past. Then, it would have been forgotten, like every other architectural landmark and meaningful footnote swallowed up by sprawl and disregard.That it survived into the 21st century was a monumental accomplishment -- this blue-hued Victorian mansion constructed in the 1880s perched atop a highway across from a neon skyline. One of Dallas' oldest surviving homes, its history tethered to the Sanger Bros. and the Jewish community that helped build this city and the Cedars neighborhood, it has borne witness to the city's evolution from way station to metropolis. It has housed a handful of families, among them the pioneering family of this newspaper's long-ago arts critic John Rosenfield, and a couple who bought it shortly before the outbreak of World War II and owned it until the early 1980s.   Continue reading...