Ju-Nel Home Tour

As my friend Adam can attest, I have become obsessed with the weather. I attribute this to getting old. Anyway, the weather this weekend going to be lovely, my friends. Let’s hope it keeps so that NEXT WEEKEND (I jumped the gun earlier) is the perfect weekend for the White Rock Home Tour and Art Festival. I love home tours—it saves me the trouble of knocking on the doors of strangers in East Dallas and begging for a looksee. (Rarely successful.) Anyway, this is a good event, benefitting a great cause (Hexter Elementary). After the jump are the words of my lovely and amazing friend Christine Rogers, who knows all about the tour’s bells and whistles.

White Rock Home Tour and Art Festival features another Ju-Nel home this year. The Ju-Nel Homes story was told for the first time in D Home in 2006, but in a nutshell two Howard Meyer understudies, Jack Wilson and Lyle Rowley, started their own business called Ju-Nel Homes. They created single family modern homes in the 1950s and early ’60s in the White Rock Lake area. With today’s renaissance of mid-century modern homes coupled with low supply (Ju-Nel only built around 50), these homes are some of White Rock Lake’s crown jewels.

A unique aspect to this tour is the chance for visitors to meet the original architects in the homes they designed and hear the architectural back-story. Event organizers struggled to find leads to either architect the first year, and were thrilled to have found Rowley. He participated in the first two home tours, but has since moved away. Wilson continued Ju-Nel Homes long after Rowley left the partnership, so this year event organizers are ecstatic to announce that Wilson’s surviving daughters will tell the Ju-Nel story on behalf of their father. They tell great stories about their dad’s work ethic, design philosophies and what it was like growing up in their modern homes.

Meet the Wilson daughters at 9271 Meadowglen, Sat. 4/19, 2-4 pm or Sun., 4/20, noon to 2 pm. Discounted tickets on sale now through 4/18 at Green Spot Market and Biofuels or White Rock Coffee. On event day, tickets can only be purchased at the tour homes or Hexter Elementary.