Street TALK

Hot How

The dirt has been flying in Highland Park. Texas Rangers’ ca-owner Rusty Rose and wife, DeeDIE, have built a museum-like structure on the bosky hillside overlooking Turtle Creek and Lakeside Boulevard. Extremely modern, the house has been described as “mythical” by former Dallas Museum of Art director Rick brettell and “visually demanding” by Deedie Rose. Designed by prominent Santa Fe architect Antoine Predock, it has interiors by Dallas’ Mil booron and Emily! Summers, who used modernist furnishings from the 1930s and ’40s. When landscaping is complete this summer, the property will feature lots of native plants, especially those that attract avians. That long, elevated ramp that projects from the house is a viewing perch for bird watcher Rusty.



Hedging Their Bets

Over on Highland Park’s Euclid Street, where it seems every other lot sports a new, extra-large, extra-Georgian home, folks are eyeballing the starkly modern residence lof an architect and an oil producer. The house near the fire station features distinctive narrow metal chimney si-one made from an oilfield drill casing-and was designed by Joe McCall at The Oglesby Group, with warm, contemporary interiors by Cyndy Severson. Neighbors have received the house well, says the owner, noting that it’s not the only contemporary home on the block. Nonetheless, she says, “in the Highland Park trad don, if it’s modem, you put it behind bushes.”



Talking Out of School

It may have been too subtle for most viewers, but few political insiders missed die semi-subliminal messages in [the TV spots run by U.S. Rep. Joe barton in his Senate bid. In the ads. Barton, wife at his side, told voters that he’d married his high-school sweetheart. Then Mils. Barton brandished the Ennis congressman’s college diploma from Texas A&M. It was an obvious reference to the Aggie’s GOP rival, state treasurer Kay bailey Hutchison, who revealed in the wake of the Lena Guerrero scandal that Kay herself was one Spanish-language hour short of her undergrad degree at UT. (Hutchison, who has a law degree, finished her bachelor’s via|correspondence course last year.)

Ancient Voices

Eight archaeologists working full time on the exhumation of the old Freedman’s Cemetery to make way for the widening of Central Expressway are discovering a wealth of artifacts. Although the wooden coffins, dating to the 1860s, have crumbled, diggers have found buttons, children’s books and other 19th-century items at the grave sites, which were paved over in the 1940s when Central was built. In addition, cowrie shells and broken china designs indicate West African burial traditions. To honor those buried there before their reinterment on land south of the cemetery, a memorial service will be held at Freedman’s on May 31 by Black Dallas Remembered. Dr. Mamie McKnight, head of this historical organization, says, “This project has taught us not to wait 50 or 60 years until something is destroyed before we do something about il.”

Road Trip

Mexico’s Carrera Panameri-cana car race is like something from the old movie It’s a Mad, Mad. Mad, Mad World. The seven-day classic-car road rally curls and twists through Mexico’s deserts, mountains and tropical rain forests, beginning in Tuxtla Gutierrez and winding up in Nuevo Laredo. Several Dallas drivers are betting their chassis on the outcome. For the third year in a row, ex-State Bar owner Thomas Freylack will try his luck behind the wheel of a 1953 Holliday 88 Oldsmobile. This time he’s taking along local photographer Neal Farris to co-pilot the Olds and also document the trip. For the third year in a row, Dallas car collector John Jung will drive a red 1954 Corvette convertible in the race.



Kinda Makes You Want To Move to Guam

Take a wild guess. Out of 56 American states and territories, where does Texas rank in spending on the arts’? How about number 55? At 19 cents per person the Lone Star State is barely ahead of Mississippi. That’s what shocked Dallas-area panelists attending the recent meeting of the music advisory panel for the Texas Commission on the Arts in Austin. “We were appalled that we rank so low,” says panelist JO BOATRIGHT, artistic director of Dallas’ Voices of Change. “We were frustrated because the level of music in Texas is worthy of so much more than we have to give.” This year TCA had over 1,000 applicants in music and art-for $3.3 million in state grants.

A Case of the Cutes

Next hot young thing to keep your eyes on: LEANN RIMES, squeak y-voiced, 10-year-old Garland schoolgirl by day, deep-voiced song belter by night. LeAnn, whose style is similar to Tanya Tucker’s, has been stealing the show at gigs all over town, from the Troy Aikman Foundation gala to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. She first stepped into the limelight when she blew away the judges on TV’s “Star Search” two years ago.



The Worm Tunis

Citi Development’s DAVID LEVINE is teaming Up with PHIL PATTERSON, formerly of St. Martins and San Francisco Rose, to open Lou’s Bait Shop this month in Deep Ellum, across from Eduardo’s Aca y Alla. Levine says the bar/restaurant’s ambiance will be “shabby with style,” including a tacky postcard collection and sandwiches served in brown paper bags. There will be seafood on the menu, of course, but don’t look for catfish-check out the sushi instead.