In the summer of 2023, neighbors on Fairfax Avenue gathered on a Sunday morning to say goodbye to a house. Handmade signs went up along the block. People passed out flyers explaining what the home had once been and what would happen to it that week. The house, once owned by the C.F. Hawn family, was landmarked, meaning it carried recognized historic status in a town built almost entirely on that kind of pedigree. It sold for roughly $2.5 million, never appeared on MLS, and closed on an all-cash offer with no contingencies. The buyers would not discuss their plans. Within days, the permit for demolition was filed.
Nothing in Highland Park's code stopped any of it. Nothing could.
That is the fact most buyers get wrong before they ever write an offer on an older estate here. Highland Park sells itself on a century of continuous architecture, tree-lined boulevards, and homes designed by names like Fooshee and Cheek that still line Beverly Drive. What the town's marketing does not say, and what its zoning code does not contain, is any mechanism that can stop an owner from tearing one of those homes down. As Newsweek put it while covering the town's most visible teardown fight, there's no laws around the protection of historic homes in Highland Park. The town treats demolition and renovation as the owner's call, full stop.
The Zoning Code Was Never Built to Preserve Anything
Highland Park's zoning ordinance dates back to July 3, 1929, and the version governing height limits in most single-family districts wasn't touched for the better part of six decades after that. That's not an accident of neglect. The code was written to control what gets built next, not to protect what's already standing. Setbacks, lot coverage, and height caps keep new construction from overwhelming a block. None of it asks whether the house being replaced has any architectural or historic value. A 1920s Mediterranean Revival estate on Armstrong Parkway and a stripped 1970s ranch carry exactly the same protection under the code: none, unless the owner decides otherwise. You can review the town's zoning ordinance yourself, and you will not find a preservation review board, a certificate-of-appropriateness requirement, or a demolition delay ordinance anywhere in it, because Highland Park never adopted one.
The Cox Mansion Made the Point at the Highest Level
If there were ever a house that should have been safe, it was the one at 4101 Beverly Drive. Built in 1912 in the Italian Renaissance style, it was widely referred to as "the single, most important house in all of the Park Cities," the residence that best captured the town's Gilded Age origins. Dallas oilman Edwin L. Cox owned it from the 1970s until 2020, preserving its exterior while adding a pool and an enclosed tennis court. Banker Andrew Beal bought the property in 2021 and initially pursued permits to restore it. By late 2023, according to Dallas Morning News reporting on the town's own permit records, that plan had changed. Beal pivoted to demolition, and the mansion came down in 2024.
There was no ordinance that required him to preserve it, notify a preservation board, or wait out a review period. There was only the property, the owner, and a permit application. That is the entire protective apparatus a landmark-caliber estate has in this town.
What the Cupola Fight Actually Proved
The story didn't end with the demolition. In January 2025, Beal's team went to the town's Zoning Commission asking to amend the height limit in the "A" zoning district, the first change to that district's height rules in 60 years, so his replacement home could include a glass-and-steel cupola reaching just under 65 feet, ten feet above the standing 55-foot cap. The commission approved it 3-2 after more than an hour of public comment in a packed chamber.
Preservation Park Cities, the nonprofit built around protecting the character of Highland Park and University Park, pushed back hard. Board member Larry Good told the room what many residents were thinking:
"That doesn't seem right that you demolish the most important historic home in Highland Park and in return you're granted greater permissions to build back a replacement house."
The Town Council hearing was set for February 4, 2025. Five days before it happened, Beal withdrew the request. The town's own announcement framed it as a decision meant to avoid setting a difficult precedent for future applicants. You can read the full arc of the story through KERA News's coverage.
Here's the part worth sitting with: the withdrawal is often cited as proof the system works. It isn't. Nothing legally required Beal to back down. Community pressure, a packed hearing room, and a nonprofit with a strong public voice changed the outcome this time. Next time, on a quieter block with fewer eyes on it, that pressure may not show up at all. Community sentiment is not a zoning ordinance, and it doesn't bind the next owner.
The Only Real Protection Is One an Owner Writes Themselves
Because the town offers nothing automatic, the only durable protection for an older Highland Park home comes from the owner choosing to create it. Preservation Park Cities runs a landmarking program that recognizes architecturally and historically significant properties, and the organization has separately encouraged homeowners to write architectural deed restrictions and easements directly into their estate planning. You can review the landmarking application process directly. Recognition through the program carries reputational weight, but a recorded deed restriction is the piece that actually travels with the title and binds future owners. Without one, landmark status is a designation, not a lock on the front door.
Most homes in Highland Park do not have this in place. That's the gap a buyer or seller needs to understand before assuming a house's age or architectural pedigree means anything is guaranteed to survive a future sale.
What This Means If You're Buying
If you're looking at an older estate, three things are worth confirming before you get emotionally attached to the architecture:
- Check the title for recorded deed restrictions or easements. A landmark plaque from Preservation Park Cities is not the same as a binding covenant. Ask your title company specifically whether any architectural preservation language is recorded against the property.
- Understand your own rebuild rights under current code. If you're buying with plans to renovate or rebuild, know that Highland Park's 2024 International Codes package, effective January 6, 2025, requires builders to engage a certified third-party energy inspector on residential permits, with one compliance form due at permit submission and a second due before final inspection. You can find the specifics on the town's Forms and Applications page. This applies regardless of whether the home you're replacing has any historic significance at all.
- Don't assume the house next door is untouchable. If your decision to buy hinges partly on the character of a neighboring landmark estate, know that its protection is exactly as strong as its current owner's intentions and nothing more. A change of ownership can change everything about that block within a matter of months, as it did on both Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Drive.
What This Means If You're Selling an Older Estate
The Fairfax Avenue sale is the clearest evidence of a pattern that runs against what most sellers assume. That home sold for around $2.5 million, went straight to an all-cash, no-contingency buyer, and was never marketed on MLS. Whoever wrote that offer wasn't paying for the architecture. They were paying for the lot, and they moved fast and quietly specifically because open marketing invites scrutiny and slows down a teardown purchase.
That means historic character in Highland Park doesn't function as an automatic price premium the way it might in a district with binding preservation rules. Sometimes the land underneath is worth more to a builder than the house is worth to a preservationist, and pricing an older estate without separating land value from structure value can leave real money on the table, in either direction. Before listing, get a clear-eyed opinion on both numbers, decide whether you're marketing a home or a buildable lot, and think through whether a recorded deed restriction helps your sale by attracting a preservation-minded buyer or narrows your pool by ruling out the builders who'd pay the most for unrestricted land.
FAQ
Does Highland Park have a historic district like Dallas's Swiss Avenue? No. Highland Park has architectural review tied to its zoning ordinance and a form-based overlay district focused on new development standards, but no historic district ordinance that restricts demolition of existing homes based on age or significance.
Can I protect my own home from being torn down after I sell it? The most reliable route is a recorded deed restriction or architectural easement written into the property's title, not just a landmark designation. Preservation Park Cities can help identify and pursue landmark status, but the binding protection comes from the legal instrument attached to the deed itself.
Is Highland Park likely to pass a preservation ordinance? There's no indication of one on the horizon as of this writing. Preservation Park Cities continues to track demolitions and advocate publicly, and that advocacy has occasionally changed outcomes, as it did with the Cox Mansion's zoning request, but advocacy is not law.
Buying or selling a piece of Highland Park's history takes more than an appreciation for the architecture. It takes a clear read on what's actually enforceable, what's just goodwill, and what a specific lot is worth with the house on it versus without. If you're weighing a purchase near a landmark estate, considering what to do with one you already own, or trying to price a rebuild-ready lot correctly, Alex Maloney works through exactly these questions with clients across the Park Cities and greater North Texas. Let's Connect.
