When a historic Bishop Arts home was on the chopping block, Michelle Rogers and her father-in-law decided to save it.
Developer Alamo Manhattan wanted to demolish the cottage at 228 W. Seventh St., which was built in 1907, to make way for a temporary construction trailer and, eventually, a planned second phase of its Bishop Arts development.
The house was the first to receive a review under the city’s preservation rules that require a hearing before certain old properties can be demolished.
The house, which was at least 86 years old at the time, was included in the Historic District Demolition Overlay that the city created for part of Oak Cliff in 2016. The overlay requires a waiting period and review before certain buildings 50 years or older can be demolished.
A search of newspaper archives shows that the White family lived in the house during the 1940s. Three of the family’s sons served in World War II; one was captured by Nazis after his plane was shot down over Budapest. Another was “lost in action,” and a third was injured in the war.
After a couple of hearings, Alamo Manhattan offered up the house for free to anyone who could move it by Jan. 15.
West Dallas-based Rogers Jr. Housemoving decided to move the house to a property it owns at 4013 Peoria and preserve its history.
Michelle’s father-in-law ended up moving the house onto her property and renovated it. The plan for now is for Michelle’s oldest son to rent the home.
“It’s a little personal,” Rogers says. “We’re gonna rent it eventually, and it’ll go on the market. For now, we really want to take care of it, and we’re proud of it. I do take a little pride in the fact that we didn’t knock it down. We recycled the material as much as we could.”
When renovating the house, Rogers kept the integrity of the neighborhood in mind. It was a struggle to decide how true she wanted to stay to the original style of the house and how much she wanted to change.
“I think one of the things about redoing one of these homes is you try to kind of take in what else the neighborhood has,” Rogers says. “We try to stay a little bit true to more of a traditional home, but it’s modern at the same time. We want to enhance that for the neighborhood, for the community.”
Restoring the home was a long, tedious and expensive process, Rogers says.
“I’m not an expert, but it’s really expensive to restore homes, and it’s probably cheaper, believe it or not, to redo,” Rogers says. “Sometimes it’s cheaper to just knock it down and rebuild. We are huge on reusing. And to me, it is such a waste, because a lot of these homes have really good bones.”
The community feedback from moving the home instead of destroying it was positive, and many neighbors became invested in the whole process.
“They want to know, ‘Where did it go, or what did you do with it? Did it really get torn down?’ And a lot of people have asked us, ‘What did you guys do with it?’ We’re like, ‘Well, it’s standing, and it’s so pretty,’” Rogers says. “I’m happy I kept it because now it’s kind of something fun to talk about, and people are just so amazed. They’re like, ‘What do you mean? You moved it here?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, we physically moved the house here.’”
