Preston Hollow, Dallas

Preston Hollow
neighborhood
A house in Preston Hollow
Country	United States
State	Texas
Counties	Dallas
City	Dallas
Area	North Dallas
ZIP code	75220, 75225, 75229, 75230, 75244
Area code(s)	214, 469, 972

Preston Hollow (PH) is a neighborhood in north Dallas, Texas. It is bordered on the south by the city of University Park, Texas, an enclave within Dallas.

In 1924, Ira P. DeLoache bought a 56-acre (23 ha) farm. Preston Hollow's first lots were carved out of the former farm parcels. De-Loache and Al Joyce developed Preston Hollow, with development largely occurring in the 1930s. At first Preston Road was the area's only connection to Downtown Dallas. Terry Box of The Dallas Morning News said that the Northwest Highway "was nothing more than muddy right of way." The area that would later become Preston Center was a dairy farm in the early to mid-20th Century.

Preston Hollow eventually extended from east of Preston Road (the cattle-drivers' route to the old Chisholm Trail), slightly north of Walnut Hill Lane, west of Midway Road and southwest of Northwest Highway.

The developers intended Preston Hollow to be what Box said was "more than a flatland suburb on the fringes of a new and growing Dallas." Doctors, entrepreneurs, industrialists, lawyers, and oil businesspeople moved to Preston Hollow. Many built country-style estates that housed horses and stables. A private school which later became St. Mark's School of Texas opened in the area.

In the early 1930s during the Depression, Edward James Solon, the treasurer of a company called Interstate and the partner who came with Karl Hoblitzelle from Chicago to Dallas, purchased the first Preston Hollow corner property at Douglas and Averill Way. DeLoache built a Dillbeck designed house on the property. This Tudor styled home was considered the first of the many large estates built in what is now termed the Old Preston Hollow area—an earlier large house in the area, by the pond near Avrill, was considered as part of the farm.

In the 1930s, moving beyond Northwest Highway was considered "going into the sticks" and risky in terms of attracting affluent homeowners. Later many people said that E.J. Solon's estate started the North Dallas migration.

Incorporated as a municipality in 1939, and provisioned by the Preston Road Fresh Water Supply District, the North Dallas town of Preston Hollow was named for the deep wooded area with creeks and hollows extending westward from Preston Road. The bramble in Preston Hollow was unique in the Dallas area and all home builders in the area were to preserve it as part of the covenant.