Dallas CASA Fundraiser Provides Construction Lessons
A new group of students (and one recent alumnus) in Yvette Hightower’s Highland Park High School Moody Advanced Professional Studies (MAPS) class designed and helped build a playhouse inspired by a historic home in the Park Cities.
Hightower said the students opted to model their playhouse after a French Norman-style home in the 4100 block of Shenandoah Street in University Park designed by noted architect Charles Dilbeck and built in 1934.
The home, now owned by Natalie and Jon Alexis, was landmarked by Preservation Park Cities in 1986 and is included in the organization’s list of the top 100 most historically and architecturally significant homes in the Park Cities. It’s featured in the book Great American Suburbs: The Homes of the Park Cities.
After they selected the home, Hightower said the students paired up in groups to come up with playhouse designs based on the house using the computer-aided design program SketchUp, then presented their plans to a panel that included Moody Innovation Institute executive director Geoffrey Orsak, MAPS business development administrator Polly McKeithen, architect Miranda Davis, and architect and former University Park city council member Taylor Armstrong. The panel chose the design the students ultimately built with the help of Lee Lewis Construction.
During the build, seniors Claire Romo, Savannah Hail, and Luke Duncan, with help from 2023 alumnus Sebastien Vongkaseum, who’s heading to Texas A&M in the fall, worked on everything from painting to cutting plywood for use in the playhouse.
“All the plywood was basically left over from the engineering department; the glass was the (plexiglass) COVID panels that we cut,” Hightower said. “And then the fireplace mantel was made out of a birdhouse that we disassembled.”
Romo said she became interested in architecture through her grandfather’s work as a landscape architect.
“I’ve had some sort of experience in the field of architecture with seeing his work, and I thought maybe building houses and doing that would be something I’d be interested in,” she said.
This is the second time Hightower’s students have partnered with Lee Lewis to build a playhouse modeled after a historic Park Cities home for Parade of Playhouses, the signature fundraiser for Dallas CASA.
Last year, their first year participating, Hightower’s class designed a playhouse replica of the Elbert Williams house, dubbed “the most important house in Texas.”
The Elbert Williams house is a Texas Regional-style home at 3805 McFarlin Blvd. designed by architect David R. Williams and built in 1933 for then University Park Mayor Elbert Williams.
