A white stucco house built in 1966 on Jamestown Lane in northeast Denton could become the city's newest historic landmark, if its owners' request clears three city bodies in turn.
The Historic Landmark Commission takes up the application at its regular meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Training Rooms 3, 4 and 5 of the Development Service Center, 401 N. Elm St. The property sits at the southeast corner of Jamestown and Locksley lanes in the Nottingham Woods area and carries Residential 3 zoning.
Planning staff recommend approval. A landmark designation counts as a zoning action, so a favorable recommendation from the commission would send the request on to the Planning and Zoning Commission and then to the City Council, whose decision is final.
What the application describes
The owners' narrative and the staff report describe a house in the Spanish Colonial Revival style: an enclosed courtyard entered under heavy wood beams, Saltillo tile, and a tiled staircase with iron rails climbing to a second-floor balcony. A three-tier fountain was added later, staff noted; the other features are original.
Inside, the tile runs unbroken through the kitchen, living and dining rooms, and the house has three masonry fireplaces of different designs.
A 2015 city historic resource survey of the Idiots Hill neighborhood identified the home as the only example of its style in the area, though the survey labeled it Mission style, a close relative.
Its builder, W.W. Kremer, started building custom homes in Denton in 1956 and advertised that he kept no stock plans. Nottingham Woods developer George Deutsch wrote subdivision restrictions meant to keep houses from repeating one another and to keep volume builders out, according to the application.
Staff found the property meets five of the 13 criteria in the city's development code, including its architectural type, its builder and its status as a contributing property in Nottingham Woods, which the 2015 survey flagged as potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
On a fifth criterion, ties to people who shaped the area, including developer and former state legislator Joe Henry Skiles, staff wrote that those individuals are not specifically linked to this house and that the commission does not need that criterion to approve the request. No neighborhood meeting was held.
