A team working under the banner House of Vasari has set its sights on an aging Italian Renaissance villa off Lakeside Drive in Highland Park, determined to restore rather than raze a home that has shaped the block for more than a century. The house was designed by noted architect Anton Korn, and the team plans to keep its original architecture intact while giving it a cosmetic refresh, including new floors, kitchens, bathrooms and paint finishes.
Sources differ on exactly when the villa went up. According to CBS News, it's a 1924 Anton Korn home built in the Italian Renaissance style, while Candy's Dirt describes it as the historic 1923 Anton F. Korn Italian Renaissance villa at 4215 Lakeside Dr. Either way, the home has stood through decades of change in one of Dallas's most tightly watched neighborhoods for historic character.
Roman Piotrowski, part of the preservation effort, said the house's front is iconic in Dallas and that its facade, some crown molding, windows and doors remain original. The team has been explicit that it isn't gutting the place. We're planning to keep all the original architecture, the team said, framing the project as an alternative to the wrecking ball rather than a reinvention.
Why This Restoration Is Happening Now
The project comes as Highland Park has watched several architecturally significant homes disappear. Some of Highland Park's most cherished homes have been demolished in recent years, with new builds going up in their place, per the station's report. The House of Vasari team has pointed to two specific losses that crystallized the stakes: the Mushroom House and the Cox Mansion, both of which the team identified as demolished.
The Mushroom House, near the corner of Armstrong Parkway and Preston Road, came down in a January demolition, according to People Newspapers. The Cox Mansion, an Italian Renaissance-style mansion built in 1912 and designed by Hubbell & Greene Architects, had been sold to billionaire banker Andy Beal in 2021 before it, too, was lost. Those losses are part of what the House of Vasari team hopes to reverse by taking a different path with the Lakeside Drive villa.
A Wider Pattern Across the Park Cities
The teardown trend isn't confined to one address. Preservation Park Cities began cataloging historically significant homes in the area after noticing how many historic houses were being demolished, according to D Magazine, and by 2022 the group had already lost eight homes from its Top 100 list since starting the project in 2020. A separate check by NBC 5 found that all 11 addresses it verified out of 22 demolition permits Preservation Park Cities had posted for Highland Park had already been torn down.
Preservation Park Cities has since taken its push beyond cataloging, partnering with Preservation Dallas on realtor education events aimed at highlighting homes with architectural and historical significance, People Newspapers reports. Charlie White, connected to the preservation push, put the urgency in blunt terms: homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s are important to save because once they're gone, they're gone forever.
What Comes Next for the Lakeside Drive Villa
The restoration is expected to take about a year, according to CBS News. Rather than working quietly behind a construction fence, the House of Vasari team plans to share updates on social media and host open houses so the community can be part of the transformation as it unfolds.
The hope, as the team put it, is that it will inspire others to see the value in saving what already stands. Whether that message takes hold may depend on what happens to the next historic home to land on a demolition list in Highland Park.
