Photography by Jessica Turner

When Judy Pollack went from 75225, Preston Hollow, to 75224, Oak Cliff, her friends assumed she was moving to Kessler Park.

Sign up for our newsletter!

* indicates required

Oak Park Estates is several miles south of that more famous neighborhood, and from Pollack’s sunny living room, it’s easy to imagine yourself in the Ouachita Mountains rather than a 15-minute drive away from Downtown Dallas.

She bought the house on Lost Creek Drive in 2009, and she knew before she stepped foot in it that she wanted to make an offer.

“As soon as I walked through the gate, I just had a feeling,” she says.

That was during a recession, but she still put in a bid well over the asking price on the first day it was listed.

This was the builder’s house. Developer Fred Partleton, who still lives in Oak Cliff, built many houses in the neighborhood, including this one, which he designed for himself in the 1960s.

Because of that, it has personal touches, like plugs on all of the eaves that are linked to a timer in the garage that can control Christmas lights.

Partleton came over a few years ago and gave Pollack his original plans.

When she bought it, the brick fireplace was painted bright orange, and one side of the garage had been used as a tattoo studio. It had good bones, but she renovated the entire house, starting with insulation, HVAC and plumbing, including moving the sewer line. She renovated the kitchen and bathrooms, but she left some of the original tile, fixtures and flooring.

The floorplan is part of what makes this house so special. It’s built into a cliff, and the front of the house — living room, dining room and kitchen — are connected to the bedrooms and bathrooms by a hallway that is actually a bridge.

“There’s nothing underneath it,” she says.

The bridge has windows and is an ideal place for some of the art Pollack has accumulated, first in her travels working as a fashion and home goods buyer, and later, as a fundraiser for and servant to the arts in Dallas.

There’s also a patio off the kitchen and a porch that wraps from the living room around to a screened-in porch at the back of the house. Pollack enlarged a terraced garden area, and in pre-covid times, she frequently held dinner parties on the patios.

The back half of the property drops off some 15 feet, toward the creek, and the lot is filled with old trees stretching to the creek. While the front yard is manicured, she has gardeners just keep the back yard free of heavy brush.

The back half of the house is built over a walk-out basement that includes a laundry room and two adjacent one-car garages. She parks her car in one and uses the other as a home gym.

Upstairs, Pollack uses the master bedroom, with its wall of windows facing the creek, as her office. She does store her clothes in its closets, and she gets ready the master bathroom. But she sleeps in one of the smaller bedrooms, where there are blackout shades and no electronics.

“All I do is sleep in here,” she says.

Buying a house anywhere in Dallas is a challenge right now, because of low inventory and high demand, but in this quiet neighborhood behind Bishop Dunne Catholic School, you’d really need luck and timing to score one of the mid-century homes.

Pollack says she has friends who beg her to sell this house to them, but she’s not going anywhere.

“Everyone on this street has been here 30 or 40 years,” she says. “People don’t move out once they’re here.”