Harlan Crow wanted to bring a piece of his beloved adirondack mountains to Dallas’ Oak Lawn area—a big piece, it turns out.
Crow, chairman and CEO of Dallas-based Crow Holdings, imported a team of Adirondack masons to build a 27-foot-tall granite fireplace as the focal point for a flagstone patio at the northwest corner of his firm’s new headquarters complex.
The outdoor patio and fireplace will serve as a “gathering place” for Crow Holdings’ ambitious restoration of the Old Parkland Hospital site and grounds into a 9.5-acre office park, with its headquarters in the expanded old hospital building.
A crew from Lamphere Contracting Co. put the fireplace, its flanking stone walls, and entry arch together like one giant jigsaw puzzle. After buying the rose and gray granite at quarries in New York, they built the entire structure there—then took it apart, labeling each stone and photographing them in place. The granite made its way to Dallas, in 20 flat-bed truckloads, for final assembly here in June and July.
Crow Holdings’ Parkland project involves preserving as much as possible of the old hospital and nurses buildings and the site’s trees, while adding new construction. The fireplace is a very personal touch by Crow, who owns a rustic estate called Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks in eastern New York state.
“During a late November day,” Crow says of the fireplace, “it’ll be fun.”
