Rescue mission
Restoring Fort WorthÂ’s history one building at a time
Eddie Vanston gazes out an oversized window, its 100-year-old mahogany stained trim renewed, from the Sawyer Grocery Store, a once dilapidated old building on Fort Worth’s South Main Street. The view of the city’s constantly changing skyline – a blend of the past and the future – is unparalleled.
“I like what I do. I’m lucky to be doing this. I like messing with old buildings,” he says. “The old buildings serve as a catalyst for redevelopment.”
For the past 10 years or so, Vanston, president of The Carillon Group Inc., has been one of the key players in the successful redevelopment of the Near Southside, one of the city’s inner urban areas that had seen better days. The innermost fringe of the central business district – also known as the medical or hospital district and Vanston’s stomping grounds – is home to several neighborhoods that make up Fort Worth’s Urban Village Development Program.
A native of Dallas, where he still lives, Vanston and his father Ed Vanston, an entrepreneur with experience in banking and oil and gas, have been innovators in the program almost from its inception. Taking advantage of local, state and federal tax credits including the New Markets Tax Credits program, they have restored several historic multifamily buildings that otherwise might have been bulldozed.
Among them are the 1910 Markeen Apartments, a rare surviving example of Prairie School architecture in Fort Worth, the Leuda-May Apartments that date from the 1920s and 1930s and the LaSalle Apartments, one of the cityÂ’s few remaining Tudor Revival buildings from the 1920s.
“All these were in pretty bad shape when we took them over,” said Ed Vanston. “We bring them back to life and make them look like new again.”
Trendy and affordable – and with a waiting list – the Vanstons’ restored housing is just the shot in the redevelopment arm city officials were hoping to get for the Near Southside.
“Ed Vanston’s a breath of fresh air in Fort Worth,” said Jerre Tracy, executive director of Historic Fort Worth Inc. “Fort Worth is very fortunate that this Dallasite has been investing in the historic resources of our city.”
Tracy said that as a former banker, the elder Vanston has always recognized a good business deal, “which made him a quick study with the 20 percent Federal Historic Tax Credit program for the rehab of historic buildings.”
“Mr. Vanston is a gift to any building he rehabs because with the tax credits that can be sold to large institutions comes a higher standard of preservation,” she said.
Today, Ed Vanston is no longer directly involved in his sonÂ’s restoration business and he gives his 52-year-old son all the credit for the firmÂ’s success.
“He’s very, very good at what he does. He’s super serious and conscientious about what he’s doing. Everything he does works,” he said.
Eddie Vanston is all about change. But he didnÂ’t start out to be a historic preservationist.
After graduating from Columbia University, Vanston taught English at a private New York school and traveled for a few years before returning home to Dallas. He learned the construction business by helping a friend. By chance, he befriended the late Ken D’Angelo, founder of HomeVestors of America Inc., the “We Buy Ugly Houses” franchise.
“I stumbled into [real estate] really,” Vanston admits. “Kenny showed me the house flipping business, sort of a seat-of-your-pants real estate business.”
Until about 1995, Vanston flipped more than 30 houses in Dallas until the supply of available houses that could be turned around began dwindling. He then restored some run-down apartment buildings.
“But then, I got tired of fixing up, selling, fixing up, selling. I wanted to own stuff,” he says.
A newspaper ad for the Markeen Apartments led Vanston to Fort Worth in 1998.
“I stumbled into it, bought it, refurbed it and have been here ever since,” he says.
VanstonÂ’s latest project is the restoration of the 1909 Sawyer Grocery Store and an adjacent 1910 building that was formerly a hotel on South Main. The properties, his first commercial buildings, are being converted into retail/office space on the ground floor, with 14 loft apartments on the second floor. He expects to finish this summer.
As in previous restorations, Vanston and his team will update with modern conveniences but leave 20th century features such as the original tin ceiling tiles, pine flooring, claw foot bathtubs and kitchen cabinets.
Those details, he says, make Fort WorthÂ’s architecture more desirable and worth saving.
“Fort Worth is getting somewhat of a rep as being an interesting place to live,” says Vanston. “I like the idea of having some kind of intact Fort Worth where the interesting people – the musicians, the artists, the clever folks – will stay and not feel compelled to move off to Austin or New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco or wherever. They see that Fort Worth is an interesting place and want to stay here.”
Project architect Bob Kelly of Robert W. Kelly Architect Inc., who also is one of VanstonÂ’s partners in the deal, will move into 3,000 square feet of the office space.
“It would be kind of an understatement to say Eddie’s unconventional,” said Kelly. “He’s industrious. He’s resourceful. He doesn’t let anything keep him from where he’s going. He always figures out a way to get there.”
VanstonÂ’s next redevelopment is just around the corner from the old grocery. Work is already under way on the Miller Manufacturing Co. building, a concrete warehouse built in 1911 on Bryan Street. Vanston plans to convert the two-story factory into 15 industrial apartments.
“The more you make it interesting here, the more interesting people will come to live here,” Vanston says. “This part of town has such a mixture that makes this city a great place to be.”
Contact Dillard at bdillard@bizpress.net
