Author Illuminates Architectural Gems

History down the street with Preservation Park Cities’ book

Leave the newest book from Preservation Park Cities sitting on a shelf, and you won’t crease its pages, but you’ll miss its fun.

The Houses of the Park Cities is a guidebook that’s meant to accompany readers as they travel on foot or by car around the neighborhood. Flipping through it means finding hidden gems right down the street.

“The book is not large, and that was on purpose because I wanted it to be portable,” author R. Lawrence “Larry” Good said. “I wanted people to not mind throwing it in their car and having it with them as they’re moving around the Park Cities.”

Good experienced that fun himself while taking many of the book’s photos, sometimes while out on walks with his wife, Barbara, and their labrador retriever, Lucy.

“I’d say, ‘Wait a minute. Hold on. Can you take the dog’s leash? I’ve got to photograph this house,’” he said.

But the book isn’t just about fun. It’s also intended to educate the public on the most architecturally significant homes in the Park Cities in the hopes that they can be saved from demolition.

“When you walk the streets of Highland Park or University Park and realize how few of the original houses we still have, it’s troubling,” Good said. “You don’t want to lose (them), especially when they’re beautiful, beautiful work of really revered architects. They’re irreplaceable. And most people feel that way.”

Good and Preservation Park Cities’ Saving the Top 100 Committee started the research that became the book in the winter of 2021, a time when the Park Cities was quickly losing important houses to demolition. Between the winter of 2020 and mid-2022, 10 of the homes Preservation Park Cities had identified as in its top 100 were demolished, including two that it had ranked in the top 10.

Since that time, Good said, destruction has slowed, a sign that the organization’s work may be making a difference. He hopes that The Houses of the Park Cities helps that trend continue. 

The book includes a photo, address, and information on the style or importance of each of the 170 homes featured in its pages. Its publication was made possible by sponsorship from Preservation Park Cities, as well as the efforts of Good and other dedicated volunteers passionate about preserving the area’s show-stopping residential architecture.

“I hope everybody that buys the book, looks at the book, says, ‘Wow, I never realized the quality of architecture in the Park Cities was as good as it is,’” Good said. “These are really great houses.”