Over in East Dallas, Hollywood-Santa Monica, which is celebrating its centennial this year, is a bit of a “cult neighborhood,” real estate agent John Weber says. “Everybody who lives in Hollywood-Santa Monica wants everybody to live in Hollywood-Santa Monica with them.”
In 1924, developer J.B. Salmon launched the Hollywood Company to subdivide and build out a new neighborhood on an old dairy farm just southeast of the relatively new White Rock Lake. A year later, Bert Blair & Co established Santa Monica just north of Salmon’s Hollywood Heights.
The two neighborhoods developed simultaneously. Tudor Revival–style houses were popular, as were craftsman and Monterrey styles. The original deed restrictions, which protected the look and style of the neighborhoods, began expiring in the 1970s. By the late ’80s neighbors were anxious to preserve the area’s historic integrity. So in 1993, they combined the two neighborhoods, Hollywood Heights and Santa Monica, into one conservation district.
Nowadays, Hollywood-Santa Monica has one of the largest collections of Tudor Revival houses in the American South, Weber says. And 6915 Vivian Ave. is “actually a beautiful example of a quintessential Hollywood Heights-Santa Monica Tudor.”
Sitting up on a hill, the blond-brick home—which was built in 1935—has a “great street presence,” Weber says. It has the signature high pitches of the Tudor style, as well as an arch motif throughout. Inside, it has several original details, like the oak hardwood floors, the blue tiles in the hall bathroom, and the fireplace.
Some things have been updated over the years, of course. Previous owners renovated the kitchen, and the current owner completely transformed the primary bathroom ensuite for modern living. And, says Weber, at some point in the house’s history, the front porch was filled in to create an office.
But “the front porches and the front yards in that neighborhood are very important,” so a little front patio was built out, Weber says. Each night, the homeowner sits out on her porch and chats with neighbors while the local kids play in their yards.
A neighborhood and a house like this, Weber says, are “hard to replicate.”
Scroll through the gallery to learn more about the home. And peek into more Hollywood-Santa Monica homes during the centennial home tour May 3–4. Get tickets here.
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