Most eastern of the neighborhoods in Kessler Park

East Kessler Park is the most eastern of the Kessler Park neighborhoods. Early Dallas residents such as the Guggenheim family from Switzerland and the Stemmons family once lived here. The neighborhood we know today was established in 1937.

East Kessler Park Neighborhood Association, one of the oldest neighborhood associations (NA) in the city, was organized in 1950 to enhance and protect the neighborhood. It is an all-unpaid, all-volunteer, non-profit 501c3 organization. Its activity varies over time with changes in its composition of volunteers.

The neighborhood association is not now and never has been a homeowners association (HOA). It does not have any legal authority and is not part of any government. The neighborhood association is a long-time, active supporter of all-volunteer Heritage Oak Cliff (formerly the Oak Cliff Conservation League), Oak Cliff Greenspace Organization, and Fort Worth Avenue Development Group.

East Kessler Park’s borders within Kessler Park are Sylvan Avenue, North Beckley Avenue, West Colorado Boulevard and the I-30 Freeway. It is located north of the Kessler Highland, Kessler Lake, and Kidd Springs neighborhoods, east of the Dealey Estate neighborhood, and west of the Beckley-Zang neighborhood. Methodist Dallas Medical Center, built in 1927 on land from the Stemmons estate, anchors the southeast corner of the neighborhood.

The homes are single-family and the architectural styles range from ranch to modern and contemporary. Sizes range from one-story small cottages to multi-story large houses. All houses provide off-street parking.

The art moderne style house at Cedar Hill Road and Colorado Boulevard, built in 1936 as one of the first all-electric residences in the city, retains many original features. Several mid-century modern houses are located here including the former home of AIA award winning Architect David Braden.

Rock Lodge, a former stagecoach stop.

One of the oldest masonry structures in Dallas County, Rock Lodge, is in East Kessler Park. Construction may have started as early as 1870 using stone quarried in the neighborhood. The small lodge was built to last with stone exterior walls that are two feet thick in some places. It originallly functioned as a stop on an adjacent stagecoach trail. It has had several other functions and currently is a single-family residence.

Many houses in East Kessler Park blend into hilly, wooded landscape and those on high elevations have a view of the Downtown skyline. Many are located within walking and biking distance of a Dallas Streetcar Stop, the Trinity River Greenbelt, Downtown, and a proposed bullet train station.

Coombs and Kidd Springs Creeks flow through the neighborhood on their way to the Trinity River. City-owned Kessler Parkway Park and Coombs Creek Trail line the northern edge. The privately-owned basketball-court park and Greenbriar Pocket Park set in its center.

East Kessler Park residents always have been active, strong supporters of the Oak Cliff Conservation League and Heritage Oak Cliff from their beginnings. They have been financial donors, sponsors, and volunteers. They also have served as active members of the Executive Board such as President and Vice President, Board and At-Large Board, Chair of the annual Home Tour Committee and all positions on Home Tour Committees, and members of various ad-hoc committees such as many grant, by-laws re-write, organization re-naming and new logo selection, neighborhood development advisory, and Architecture-at-Risk committees. They had many other responsibilities such as graphic designer, homeowners of residencies on Home Tours, and participants for the organization’s units in Oak Cliff Mardi Gras parades. In addition to their own neighborhood events East Kessler Park participated in HOC’s Passport fundraising event in response to the Covid pandemic.

The neighborhood association is grateful to have received many grants over time from the Oak Cliff Conservation League and Heritage Oak Cliff. The grants financially assisted their neighborhood improvement projects such as landscaping and re-landscaping all public medians, providing permanent signage on Sylvan Avenue identifying Kessler Park, providing street sign identification toppers, providing pedestrian reflective vests, providing re-usable event information signage, provide temporary signage for slower driving on their residential streets, provide website upgrades, provide a solar panel device for median lighting, provide house addresses painted onto curbs, provide traffic calming striping on Sylvan Avenue, and provide public park bird houses for neighborhood owls.

Diversity

East Kessler Park currently is the home of fine art, education, government, healthcare and business professionals.  Families, singles, and retirees call it their home.  It is the home to a diverse population in regard to age, race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, political affiliation, religion, disability, and income level. It offers many volunteer opportunities to enhance and protect East Kessler Park, Oak Cliff, and Dallas.