Local real estate aficionados have been whispering it for a few years now: “The best real estate values in the city are in Oak Cliff.” Now it’s time to be a little more specific: Keep your eyes on Winnetka Heights. In 1975, this old Oak Cliff neighborhood began planned development zoning; since then, property values have doubled. It now appears that Winnetka Heights will benefit from an even more significant boost.
Winnetka Heights has one of the largest concentrations of Victorian and Prairie Style houses in the city, most dating from 1890 to 1910. Alan Mason, a former Dallas city planner, is currently undertaking a structure-by-structure survey of Winnetka Heights (as well as several other smaller areas scattered through Oak Cliff) with an eye to their eventually being included in the National Register, and possibly later given landmark designation. The survey is being funded by an $8600 matching grant from the Texas Historical Commission, the only one awarded this year for a neighborhood survey and the first ever for Oak Cliff.
The advantages of historical designation include increased property values, additional local reinvestment, and prestige for a part of the city that has been pretty much ignored by folks on the other side of the Trinity.
But the most important effect of the survey, say supporters, is that it will help stabilize a neighborhood that was once one of the most elegant and ar-chitecturally impressive in Dallas.
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