designs FOR LIVING GREAT HOMES

By alL rights Mary Grace Eubank should dwell in a fairy-tale castle where gallant princes pursue the love of fair maidens amid turrets and drawbridges. That’s what her nationally recognised career as an illustrator of children’s books would seem to mandate, and that’s what her mane of burnished copper hair and her wall-to-wall smile would seem to deserve. She could be a character from fiction as easily as she lives in fact.

But visitors to Mary Grace’s real world face something of a shock. She and her husband, Ted, live not in a children’s dream land, but in an imagination-inspiring, dramatically imposing Spanish Colonial estate in the Bluffview section of North Dallas. In a setting reminiscent of Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, stone columns and stucco arches dictate patterns of light and shadow throughout high-ceilinged rooms that offer sweeping views of the grounds. Palm fronds sway in the breezes, and sprays of water splash into a reflecting pool beside the fountain in the courtyard. It’s quite a long leap from here to the old woman who lived in a shoe and the other residences that Mary Grace sometimes depicts in her illustrations.

“I never expected to be in this house, but from the first time i saw it, I’ve believed that this is my house,” Mary Grace says emphatically. “That’s not true at all, of course, It was actually built for John Higginbotham [a Dallas developer and landscaper] in the early ’80s. But I know that I am supposed to live here and die here, and that’s just what I plan to do.”

That sense of belonging was there from the start. “In 1993 Ted and I were living in a house in Preston Hollow, and we were looking for a Victorian house in the country,” remembers Mary Grace. “We just happened to be driving around one day, and we saw that the real estate agent had this house open on tour. One look, and I was hooked. From that day on 1 began practicing creative visualization-imagining the day when I actually would live in the house. I even took the real estate agent s handout, which contained a photograph of the house, and pasted photographs of my dogs onto it.”

The house met all the Eubanks’ requirements, says Mary Grace. It had enough space: two acres of grounds centered by the main house and a cabana, which the Eubanks remodeled and converted into her studio and quarters for their 12 Cavalier King Charles spaniels. “Plus it was close to family and friends,” Mary Grace adds. Both Mary Grace and Ted, an oil company president, relish the company of their grown children from previous marriages. (Maty Grace’s children are Ashley Interrante, a Dallas attorney, and Chad McCaskill, a college student. Ted’s children are Renee Morales of Dallas and Lane Eubank of Austin.)

Moving into the house with its oversized rooms and high ceilings, the Eubanks found that he furnishings from their previous home seemed lost. “1 had been collecting all of these Victorian pieces, and in this house, they seemed like doll furniture,’” explains Mary Grace, who called for assistance from her friend Harriett Adams, a Dallas interior designer.

“When they moved in, Ted and Mary Grace were shocked by the grand scale of the house,” Adams recalls. “So we began to acquire a different size of furnishings, ones that were upscale in both value and size. We wanted a look of weight and size in proportion to the size of the rooms, but we wanted to make the rooms inviting as well.”

Now, surrounded by the rooms full of grand furnishings, Mary Grace spends her days painting watercolor illustrations for such publishers as Golden Books and such manufacturers as Milton Bradley and Fisher-Price. It’s a career she’s successfully pursued for 25 years, resulting in the publication of about 50 books with her work.

Whatever her current assignment may be, Mary Grace never strays far from her constant companions, the pack of doe-eyed, tail-wagging spaniels. Six of the 12 are prize-winning show dogs, and all have won their mistress’ heart. “When some people get to a certain age, they take up golf or mah jong,” Mary Grace says. “Ted and I took up Cavaliers.”