Pioneer Spirit

PAMELA AND BlLL NELSON never intentionally cast themselves as urban pioneers.

Funny, though, the labels that come with buying an old commercial building on the eastern edge of downtown and converting the second floor into a loft apartment.

If some saw the move as midlife crazy, the Nelsons saw it as part of a “midlife reassessment.”

Their two sons were grown and on their own. Bill had shut down his computer business of many years to follow a less traditional course as a monorail driver at the Dallas Zoo. Pamela, too, was changing mediums.

An artist whose work is included in the corporate collections of MTV, Marcus Cable and A.H. Belo, as well as the private collections of Laura and George W. Bush, Nancy O’Boyle, Julia Child and Susan and Claude Albritton, Pamela was making the switch from three-dimensional sculpture to painting.

It all began in 1993 with “La Pausita.”

Pamela mounted the installation at the old Artisana Gallery as a spoof of the Dallas Museum of Art’s replica of Wendy Reves’ Villa la Pausa. The exhibition followed the room-by-room layout of the Reves villa, but instead of outfitting the rooms in antiques and French impressionist paintings, La Pausita was filled with 15 years1 worth of Pamela’s paintings, sculpture and decorative objects.

“I had been wanting to simplify my life and that exhibit made me realize I didn’t want to live around so much stuff anymore,” says Pamela. “I had filled up the vessel and h couldn’t receive any more. “

By year’s end, the Nelsons had sold half their possessions through an estate sale, shed their University Park home of 23 years and begun their search for a new apartment, a new way of life. Their search led them, initially, to the high-rises along Turtle Creek ( ” I felt like I was on a cruise ship,” says Pamela.) and then to the warehouses in Deep Ellum (“Too much action.”). Downtown didn’t even dawn on them until Bill happened upon the old Film Exchange Building located a few blocks from the Farmers Market.

The empty building-built in 1926 as a United Artists film distribution center-had fallen into disrepair. The Nelsons emptied their life savings into the project with the intention of converting the second floor into an apartment and studio, and then leasing the rest of the space to tenants willing to make improvements in exchange for two years of free rent.

“I grew up in Dallas,” says Pamela. “The biggest event was to dress up in the lull hat and gloves and go downtown to Neiman Marcus, buy your Easter dress and have lunch at the Zodiac Room. Downtown thrilled me.”

Initially-and unrealistically-they planned to live there during construction. Once they realized a bulldozer would he a semi-permanent fixture for a good part of the six months it took to gut the second-floor space, they leased an apartment worlds away-in the Village.

“We had this finite amount of money to complete the project and it was very tight,” says Pamela. “That was my husband’s fear, that we would have to live in the Village Apartments for the rest of our lives.”

By the time the space was gutted and ready for what would be a year-long renovation , 40 truckloads of debris had been delivered to the dump. With an eye on preserving the past, they saved the paneled doors, glass bricks and some of the copper plumbing to use as cabinet handles. Even in Pamela’s adjoining studio, designed around an imposing column once used to test color combinations for movie posters, there are reminders of the past.

Since the building is part of a historic district, the Nelsons had to get all changes to the exterior approved by the landmark commission. “This took a lot of perseverance,” says Pamela.

In the year since they moved downtown, the Nelsons have come to view the neighborhood as a small town. Pamela walks to the YMCA at Akard and Ross, where she teaches yoga once a week. Bill rides his bicycle to the zoo each day. They walk to the Majestic for concerts and to the DMA for exhibits.

“I like living in the heart of things,” says Pamela. “The heart of the city is where the beat is. It’s not out in the suburbs-at the legs and the feet. If we disregard the ticker, the extremities have no life, either.”