BILL CHERRY'S GREATEST DALLAS PARK CITIES REAL ESTATE BLOG: April 2010

4524 BELCLAIRE AVENUE - HIGHLAND PARK

$1,995,900

MLS 11395920

Even though it seems to be becoming an oddity, some builders and home restorers remain committed to retaining the elegant architectural fabric of Dallas' premier neighborhood -- a city all in itself -- Highland Park. 

It's one I definitely support, having personally owned and adaptively restored more than seventy-five classic homes throughout my adult life.

When my clients bought this home, built in 1925, they did so because all of the homes of their neighbors had been kept in the charming character of Highland Park's French streets.  But as they more closely studied and surveyed the interior remodeling and the updating that would be required, they decided to take a giant leap of faith!

The tore the home down, leaving only the strong pier and beam foundation that had held the original structure for nearly eighty-five years.  And they saved every brick, all of the fine thick-plank hardwood flooring, and on and on, so they could put that newly created puzzle back together again.

Then with a bit of a redesign and the adding of several hundred additional square feet, they had prominent Park City's builder, Steve Hughes, get his crews out there to rebuild it. 

But this time with insulated walls, new wiring and plumbing, not to forget super-dooper heating and air conditioning, and fine double-pane windows with tight casings, a kitchen that would accommodate commercial range, warming drawer, and on and on.

I want you to see the results:

Four bedrooms, four and one-half baths, and lots of generous flowing living space make up the sum of 4,724 square feet.  And there's an over-sized detached two-car garage that's been structured so that a game room, servant's quarters, mother-in-law apartment, or whatever can be easily added on top.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

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MATT DOYLE

Citizen of the Year

This is Matthew Doyle, whose been confined to a wheelchair since his teen years when he dove into water that was more shallow that he had assessed it to be.

Matt's a member of Texas City's Chuck Doyle family.  The Doyles have been pillars of Texas City and Galveston County ever since Chuck and Mary Ellen brought them to Texas City where Chuck would work in the management of one of the chemical plants.

Matt has done everything imaginable.  He's an Eagle Scout, very active in the Catholic church, wheels and drives himself everywhere without assistance, and, like his daddy, can influence people to do "the right thing" for the community.

In his business life, Matt is vice-chairman of the Texas First Bank holding company that has about 15 branches throughout Galveston County.  He's also the mayor of Texas City. 

What is especially noteworthy is that even with the set backs of Hurricane Ike and the current economic problems the U.S. is trying to work its way through, Matt has made sure that Texas City was able to continue its building programs and that not one city employee was laid off.

So recently, the Galveston County Daily News appointed Matt the Citizen of the Year.  It was an honor well deserved.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

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Preface

My formative years as a Realtor involved listing and selling Galveston historic homes and renovating a number of them myself.  In addition, I was one of the most active participants in the adaptive restoration of the iron front buildings on Strand and Mechanic streets.

The real estate firm that I founded was called The Old House Company.

And for many years, my wife and I lived in one of those homes that we had restored.  It was at 1320 Ball. And we restored and owned a building on the southeast corner of 24th and Strand which we named Peter Gengler Market, after a famous grocery store that once operated in the city.

While we now live in Dallas and no longer own any real estate in Galveston, I continue to maintain an acute interest in the historical facet of the city.

The 1896 Smith-Rowley House is currently for sale through my friend of many yars, real estate agent, Andrea Sunseri (409 797-5537).  It is owned by the former rector of Trinity Episcopal Church and his wife, a prominent educator and accomplished artist.  In my view, it is one of the best home restorations in the city, and further, one of the best maintained.

Those planning to live on the Island should consider homes like the 1896 Smith-Rowley House that are a part of the Island's rich history.  Living in one will bring you closer to understanding and enjoying life in Galveston.

Mrs. Sunseri (409 797-5537) or any other Galveston Realtor will be happy to give you further details about the 1896 Smith-Rowley House.  Or, if you'd like, you may call or email me and I'll help your arrange an appointment to visit the 1896 Smith-Rowley House. 

 The 1896 Smith-Rowley House
3017 Avenue O ~ Galveston, Texas

Entry

Many of the original interior fixtures of the house have been maintained through the years.  Of particular interest are the carved mantles and the original brass light fixtures.    The paneling in the entry and the wainscoting throughout the house are made of longleaf pine and contribute s faint but distinct scent to the rooms.  Note that  the ceiling fixtures in the front parlor and dining room are gasoliers and were originally capable of providing light with either electricity or illuminating gas.

Upstairs

At the top of the front stairway are bedrooms.  Note the unusual configuration of the rooms due to the bows in both bedrooms and the additional bay window in the west bedroom.  The original bathtub, mirror, and marble vanity can be seen in the upstairs bathroom, which opens into the central hallway.  As you proceed toward the back of the house, the master bedroom opens off the hallway on the left.  The former upstairs back porch has been converted into a roomy bathroom with two lavatories, shower, and whirlpool tub.  The fourth bedroom is used today as a guestroom and has a staircase leading up to the attic, which is floored.

Downstairs

After descending the back staircase, you will enter the kitchen, which was modernized in the early 1970's.  Pass through the kitchen to the one-time back porch, which is not the den.  As you pass through the hallway toward the front of the house, you will note on the left the utility room (formerly the pantry and storeroom) and the small downstairs bathroom resulting from the conversion of an area that was originally a closet or staircase.  On the right are the dining room and the front parlor, each with its own coal burning fireplaces.  There are functional jib windows leading from these two rooms onto the verandah where fresh Gulf breezes are felt.  The house originally had nine jib windows, seven of them opening onto upstairs balconies.  The above ground basement is enclosed and has a concrete floor.

Recent

In 1894, R. Waverly Smith purchased land on Avenue O from Robert I. Cohen.  The present owners are in possession of the original title policy issued in that sale and signed by Maco Stewart, founder of Stewart Title Company.  R.W. Smith was a well-regarded young lawyer who became City Attorney and eventually became president of the First National Bank of Galveston.  He played an important role in the development of the commission form of government for Galveston following the disastrous hurricane of 1900.  In September 1896, he married Jennie Sealy, the daughter of John Sealy.

During that same year, construction was begun on this wood frame Queen Ann style house.  The house was designed and built by Galveston architect George B. Stowe.  During the construction, the Smiths lived with the bride's mother, Rebecca Sealy, on the corner of Tremont and Sealy.  When Rebecca Sealy died in 1897, the Smiths remained in the Sealy home, sharing it with the bride's brother, John Sealy II, and rented the home on Avenue O.

The house survived the 1900 Storm and in 1903, R. Waverly Smith sold it to Henry K. and Minerva Rowley.  As part of the grade raising after the 1900 Storm, the house was elevated an additional three and one-half feet and the carriage house was raised four and one-half feet.  Mr. Rowley was an employee of thee Union Pacific Railway.  Members of the Rowley family lived in the house for the next 51 years.  Mr. and Mrs. Rowley and their only son, William, died during the influenza epidemic of 1917-1918, leaving the home to their two daughters, Frances Rowley, a physician and specialist in diseases of the eyes, ears, nose, and throat, and Medora Rowley, an artist.

Upon the death of Medora Rowley in 1954, the house was left to trusted friends, Mrs. Robert Townsend and Mrs. E.P. Russell.  Mr. and Mrs. Townsend then purchased Mrs. Russell's interest in the property and made it their home.  Renovations by the Townsends included a new roof, closing in of the first and second story back porches to provide additional rooms, and the construction of a new three-car garage to replace the decrepit carriage house.

After several other owners, the house was purchased in 1979 by Dr. and Mrs. Edgar Ben Smith.  Dr. Smith was head of the Department of Determatology at U.T.M.B.  In 1999, at the time of his call to be rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, The Reverend and Mrs. Ronald D. Pogue purchased the house from the Smiths, who moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A photograph of the Pogue's Christmas Tree was featured in the December 2000 issue of Victorian Homes magazine.  In 2004, the Pogue's engaged Dale Thwing and Signature Design Group of Houston to assist them in restorations to the interior design of the house.  The pine floors were refinished and the downstairs woodwork was restored to its original natural finish.  Upstairs woodwork was painted with white enamel.  Window coverings and upholstery for most of the interior were created by Thwing.  These restoration and interior design improvements were completed in time for the 2005 Galveston Historic Homes Tour.  When Hurricane Ike struck Galveston in September of 2008, even though there was two feet of water in the yard surrounding the house, the living area sustained no damage and by the spring of 2009 the grass was green, the two live oak trees were putting out new leaves, and the gardens were in full bloom.

For an appointment to see the 1896 Smith-Rowley Home, call the listing agent, Andrea Sunseri (409 696-5537) or any Galveston Realtor.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

web

The Great Foondini has been amazing clients, lenders and competitors with his home selling prestidigitations for 45 years.

Need real estate magic at your house?  Call the Great Foondini at 214 503-8563 right now while it's on your mind.

(The Great Foondini's stage name is Bill Cherry.)

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Since 1964

214 503-8563

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I drove by a relatively new strip center the other day.  It is surrounded by upscale garden apartments and it's on a Dallas freeway to Somewhere.

Here's the list of tenants:  Palm reader, tattoo parlor, Condoms to Go, nail shop, head shop, liquor store with bars on the windows and doors, and a Big Lots.

I can't tell you how glad I am 1) this piece of real estate isn't in my portfolio 2) that I'm not the guy who leased it out and 3) that I'm not the property manager.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

While in recent years I've lived in Dallas, and at several other times in my life I've lived other places -- Denton, New Orleans and St. Louis -- in my mind I've always lived in Galveston.  Galveston is where I was born and where I was the most successful in my business career. 

It's where my mom and dad and so many of my friends are buried and where I will be buried someday

Galveston is a barrier island of about 50,000 residents that is located to Houston's south by about fifty miles.

Even if you've never been there, much less lived there yourself, you can't help but be familiar with how hurricanes come there.  Some of them throw everything into turmoil.  One of them was the 1900 Storm that killed at least 6,000 people.  The most recent was Hurricane Ike that turned island life upside down for everyone, regardless of the size of their bank account.

Unlike the forced compassion the federal government "felt" for the seriousness of the damage caused New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina side-swiped it a couple of years before, it appears to all that the same federal government has done everything it can to stand in the way of Galveston recovery from Ike.

The State of Texas has been no better, and it is the very reason I'm ready for its governor, Rick Perry, to go back to ranching.  This time I'll vote for former Houston mayor, Bill White, who showed dynamic leadership for his city throughout that same hurricane.

What should scare every citizen, whether they live on the gulf coast or not, is that the U.S. Government -- "of the people, by the people and for the people" -- has eroded to the point where it no longer is.  So put on your selfish cap for just a moment and realize that something like this in the future could be directed at you and those you know and love.

Here's an editorial written by Michael Smith that is in the April 23, 2010 edition of the Galveston County Daily News, Texas oldest newspaper.  It is printed here with the paper's permission.

No Compelling Reason to Evict Animal Shelter
By Michael A. Smith
The Daily News

Whatever it turns out to have been in the long run, the governmental response to Hurricane Ike already has been a steady source of bafflement and consternation.

The latest shipment arrived this week when we learned the U.S. Department of the Army intended to evict the Galveston Island Humane Society from a building at 5301 Ave. S.

The society, which cares for abandoned animals and those picked up by the city, has been using the building, which the Army owns but leases to the city, since Hurricane Ike flooded its shelter on 76th Street and Interstate 45 more than 18 months ago.

A new shelter is under construction but won't be ready for as long as a year.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the lease, apparently contends the city violated the lease by allowing the humane society to use the building instead of operating it as a police substation, as it had in the past, or as a mostly vacant storage facility, as it had in recent years. The corps wants the shelter out by May 1.

It could be that the shelter never should have been put in that building in the first place. It ended up there during a crisis in an effort to meet a compelling public need. Not the least of which was dealing with hundreds of pets left behind by people who evacuated from the hurricane and couldn't get home for almost two weeks.

The fact, however, is the shelter is there, is still fulfilling a vital public need and has no place else to go.

The fact is, the shelter has been there for almost two years without, we're willing to bet, undermining the U.S. Army or its various missions.

The fact is, the shelter need not be there forever; it needs nine months to a year.

The city claims it has tried to reach some sort of compromise since February, but the corps won't budge.

It could be the corps has a good reason for entrenching at May 1 and refusing to give, although it's hard to imagine what it could be.

It's especially hard to image in the context of what the federal government has done and allowed to be done since Ike.

For example:

· It dumped millions of dollars into hiring case managers to do nothing but refer people to local agencies that had no money to help.

· It spent millions buying West End beach houses for no good reason at all.

· It will, you can bet, let millions of federal tax dollars disappear into the pockets of consultants and never determine whether the public got its money's worth.

And yet it wants to play hardball with the humane society over a building that would be vacant and rotting were it not housing an animal shelter.

That is nuts.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

web

I'm inclined to wonder if the reason the U.S. can't seem to control the border we share with Mexico is because business lobbies against it.

After all, the United States has figured out how to have some sort of slave labor from inception.  There were the imported black slaves, the underage children, the sweat shops and probably others I have overlooked. Management always hated labor unions, but like it or not, management's untenable employee practices were the reason labor unions were born.

While business is thought of as leaning toward being moral because it is run by our neighbors, friends, and those who profess to share our ideals, in reality business has no soul and those who run them oft times see no correlation in the need for the business to behave as society expects the owners and management to.

A friend sent me this picture.  Whether purposely posed or not, the circumstances are often a reality, and that reality makes me sad.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year!

214 503-8563

WEB

You've often read my posts about Dallas' great jazz orchestra that plays most Sunday evenings at the Village Country Club.  It's lead by my friend, superb trumpet player, Galen Jeter, whose been fronting big bands for more than 30 years.

Galen and his orchestra also have charts and arrangements of the famous Big Bands of the past -- Miller, Dorsey, Elgart, James, McCoy, Lombardo, Neighbors, Monroe and on and on.  Every now and then they take a big dance gig, and all 18 or so members bring tears to the eyes of those who danced to those original bands AND to those who are doing it for the first time.

KAAM Radio - "Legends 77" - sponsors a handful of dances for its listeners every year.  Perhaps their most famous is the New Year's Eve get together.

This time, Saturday, May 8th, the dance will honor the men and women in uniform, past and present, and will be at the Frontiers Flight Museum on Lemon Avenue near Love Field.

If you love and yearn for live Big Band music, honest to goodness, this is your chance to hear and dance to the real stuff played by real professional musicians -- a band heavy with tenor saxes and the rumble of the alto sax, plus the screaming of a great trumpet section.  (Galen, by the way, I think, plays trumpet better than Maynard Ferguson did.  See if you agree.)

And you can be sure I'll get Galen to let me sit in at the piano for a number or two.  I'm think about playing "Midnight Sun" and "That's All."

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB
                   

THE PRIME EXAMPLE OF CURB APPEAL

This home sold the other day for more than 3/4 of a million dollars, and it did it in a neighborhood where there is currently more than a two year supply of listings.

The home was not my listing and I wasn't the selling agent.  Where it is or whose listing it is or who sold it isn't the reason I'm showing you this photo.

Throughout my many decades as a Realtor, and the marketing of several thousand homes, the one issue I've never been able to successfully impress on most homeowners is how important curb appeal is. 

If you removed the front flower bed with its spray of great colors, stuck silly little new Home Depot shrubs in beds near the porch, put 10 buck plastic chairs and a table or two on the porch, and painted the front door gray, you would have reduced the curb appeal by at least 80%.

Yet, if you add up the cost of the "curb appeal" in this photo, it's got to be less than $1,500.

So $1,500 caused a frame home to sell in a market full of competition, to do so in almost a split second, and to bring a very serious price.  This is genius.

I'm going to keep this photo in among my listing presentation things, and show it over and over.  Maybe I'll be able to increase my ability to get my clients to understand this concept.  You might want to, too.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

Dallas - Park Cities

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

The MetroTex Association of Realtors services the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, and the last time I asked, there were about 14,000 members.

Recently the Association conducted an on-line survey of its members.  And while I don't know the size of the sample or the calculated margin of error, I suspect the results are reasonably accurate.

Here are some of the questions and answers:

Do you have a professional designation or certification recognized by the National Association of Realtors (NAR)?

49% said no

41% said yes

10% weren't sure if they did or didn't.

Is being a Realtor a full-time occupation for you?

79% said yes

15% said no

5%   weren't sure

How long have you been a Realtor in Texas or any other state?

31% said 10 years or more

18% said 3 to 4 years

14% said 1 to 2 years

12% said less than 1 year

7%  said 21 to 25 years

3%  said does not apply

================================

I'm in the "does not apply catagory." I've been a Realtor for more than 45 years.  I wonder how many of that 14,000 members have an equal or greater tenure?

With respect to professional designations, I have one, but it's my doctorate in business that I believe is more beneficial to me.

So does experience have any value in the brokerage of real estate?  If it does, how long does it take before an agent or broker can be termed an experienced professional?

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

214 503-8563

WEB