Renovation, restoration, reinvention, call it what you will, but there is a movement afoot. This 1971 California shed-style home proves something exciting is happening in Dallas — buyers are choosing to restore rather than demolish historic homes.
I think it’s a generational change. Our younger buyers and investors are looking for character. They see potential and are willing to put in the effort to recreate homes, especially those from the 1950s-1970s.
When we first featured this home last March, we were all a little worried, but Realtor Katrina Whatley found the perfect buyer for this California shed-style home. Don’t be put off by the word “shed.” It’s a bona fide architectural term. The style was born in California in 1963 at a second-home community north of San Francisco called Sea Ranch. The concept was to place useful, simple structures as lightly as possible on the land, leaving surrounding forests and meadows intact.
The inspiration came from structures found on farms and western mines. The signature element was the shed-style roof, and the main features include high clerestory windows to help with passive solar cooling and unpainted wood siding. In our revered reference book “A Field Guide to American Houses” by Virginia Savage McAlester, she states:…