A historic home owned by a Dallas billionaire in Highland Park was demolished this week, prompting town preservationists to question whether certain buildings should get historical designations.
Currently the town of Highland Park does not give historical designations to buildings. But Larry Good, Preservation Park Cities board member, said the demolition of the Cox Mansion could be the straw that broke the camel's back.
"This house is arguably the single most important house in all of the Park Cities," Good said.
The Cox Mansion, located at 4101 Beverly Dr., was built in 1912 and originally the home of Park Cities socialite Susie Rose Youree Lloyd before it was sold to Dallas oilman Edwin L. Cox Sr. in the 1970s.
The mansion was later sold to Dallas banker Andrew Beal in 2021. According to a report by the Dallas Morning News, deed records showed Beal made a $41 million loan for the property.
Beal previously purchased another historic landmark, the Trammell Crow estate at 4500 Preston Road, and later tore it down.
KERA reached out to Beal for comment but did not receive a response Friday afternoon.
Good recently released a book called "The Houses of the Park Cities" which features the Cox Mansion. He called it a guidebook to the 170 most important, architecturally significant houses in Highland Park and University Park.
It's significance is due to its construction date, its architectural firm Hubbell & Greene, and its location overlooking Lakeside Park, Good said.
Initially the Cox Mansion underwent renovations before it was ultimately torn down. Good said the substantive changes made during renovations had already destroyed the character of the house.
Good said the Highland Park Town Council is protective of individual's property rights and has maintained that demolition or renovations should be left to the owners' discretion.
"There are no historic protections, there's no historic district, there's no register of historic properties," he said. "So unfortunately, there were no tools to use to try to save this house."
In a statement, Highland Park officials said the town has a longstanding commitment to upholding individual property rights.
"It’s the Towns desire to keep historically established homes intact but decisions regarding property preservation remain at the discretion of the property owner," town officials said.
About three years ago, Preservation Park Cities approached some town council members about options for creating a landmark commission or delaying demolition of historic homes, but nothing came of those conversations, Good said.
Now that yet another historic home has been demolished, it could be an eye opener for the town, he added.
"To see those houses from the teens and the 20's and the craft and the care that went into their design and stuff, it's meaningful to people and it's the legacy, it's the visible history," he said regarding homes in Highland Park and University Park. "To have more and more of those houses demolished, it just leaves us with fewer and fewer of the representative homes of the whole history of those two communities, so it's important."
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