Thanks so much for asking this question. My blood was boiling after reading about this teardown in your paper. You would think that the previous owners, after all the years of loving meticulous restoration, would have created a deed restriction to prevent this senseless destruction. I hope all this press and dialog will instill a sense of shame into the new owners. But unfortunately their monumental arrogance will protect them. Why does Dallas attract this kind of culture depraved mentality? They need to spend more time in our museums and less time at the gladiator events (professional sports) that we have too much of. We have more stadiums than we have art museums. Uh oh … I’m ranting again. I need to sign off and take a “nice” pill.

Gadfly - see my comment on Austin’s post.

It’s absolutely horrible that the house on Rheims got torn down….it was such a nice house and it’s on the cover of the new Park Cities book!

I’m not surprised that the Middle Eastern owner tore it down. They bring their deep pockets but most of them don’t have taste.

I remember when I used to live in L.A., affluent Middle Eastern and Persian people would buy charming Spanish colonial and English tudor houses in Beverly Hills and tear them down.

After tearing down the house, the Middle Eastern people typically build an ornate, gaudy, wedding-cake shaped, greek columned monstrosity which takes up almost the entire lot.

I don’t know what Dallasites call it, but there are so many of these Middle Eastern mansions in Beverly Hills that they’re disdainly referred to “Persian Palaces.”

If you like, access the link below….it will probably give you a sense of what will probably replace the house on Rheims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_palace