Here’s some trivia you might find interesting ~
The Craftsman architectural style began in England in the mid-19th Century as a reaction to the upper-class opulence of the Victorian Age. It was also an effort to produce houses in local districts from natural materials for a new and growing middle-class British population. The American movement began in California in the early 1900s inspired by two builders, the Greene brothers in Pasadena who designed and built bungalows. Homes were detailed with a then current interest in oriental wooden architecture. The Craftsman style residences became the most popular and fashionable smaller homes in the country. As a result a flood of pattern books appeared, selling plans; some even offering completely pre-cut and packaged lumber for assembly by local carpenters. Frank Lloyd Wright designed many homes with Craftsman influences and credited the development of middle-class housing in America to his Prairie School of architecture and the Craftsman styling, both growing to popularity in the early 20th Century.
North Oak Cliff’s Lake Cliff Historic District has seen much of the area’s history since the late 19th Century. The original Oak Cliff township was platted by T.L. Marsalis in 1886 and was annexed by the City of Dallas in 1903. The original township had one of Dallas’ largest collections of Craftsman and Prairie style homes. The Dallas Land & Loan and Lake Cliff neighborhoods, both within a few blocks of 9th and Starr Streets have active neighborhood associations. Lake Cliff itself is both a National Register and Dallas Historic District. The collection of Bishop Arts buildings in the Land and Loan District is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
A local organization named the Oak Cliff Transit Authority strives to bring back the Oak Cliff trolleys that until 1958 clanged their way from downtown along Jefferson Boulevard and other nearby thoroughfares. We’ll be here waiting for the bell
Bennett Miller Homes took inspiration for the 9th STREET TOWN HOMES from the mundane street name, the Craftsman details (i.e. knee bracing, old fashioned porches, rafter tails, authentic coloring), and also like Oak Cliff itself, a pleasant, slightly out-of-the way…but close-in, friendly place for working people to make their homes. We hope you will want to join us here where the people are friendly, unpretentious, and can be downtown in less than five minutes.