Winnetka Heights home showcases generational artwork

After 20 years abroad and a short stint in California, Sarah Gill came home to Texas.

“My whole family is still here, and they all live in Oak Cliff,” she says. “My parents are a mile away in one direction. My brother and his family are a mile away. And I have a nephew, who’s 3-and-a-half, so it was nice to move back right after he was born.”

Her 1922 Winnetka Heights Craftsman sits in the middle. The home includes a preserved historical floor plan, keeping the middle corridor of the home layout in a loop for the two-bedroom, two-bath that’s filled with golden yellows and cream as nice compliments to the warm wooden details of the original doors, butler’s pantry, pine floors and window trims.

Gill previously worked in London and India as an architect, exploring different places through the opportunities that came. In India, she worked for a former University of Texas at Austin professor.

“It was a time when there was a lot of construction, and things moved very fast,” she says. “And then after grad school (at Yale), I moved to London to work for a firm called Heatherwick Studio, which does a lot of really unusual and interesting work. My dad is British, so although he has lived in Texas for 40 years, 45 years, it was nice. It was nice to spend time there and in a culture that was familiar and had lots of interesting opportunities.”

Today, Gill works as a project manager for large design and construction projects, often with nonprofits.

Gill began the house search casually for a year, then seriously for a couple of months before finding her Oak Cliff home, she says.

“I knew I wanted an old house,” Gill says. “I knew I wanted a house that had a lot of the original features and that hadn’t been renovated by someone else. Didn’t want to go renovate and undo work someone else had done. I wanted just a house that had character, that had strong identifying features, whatever those would be.”

When her realtor sent a single photo of the original brick fireplace with the wooden built-ins before it was formally listed, she says she was pretty sure this was going to be the house for her.

“This one, because it had not just original woodwork that was unpainted, and the original layout, it just kind of had preserved all of that was still in reasonably good condition for not having had a significant renovation.”

For being a century old, the home had only 4-5 owners to her knowledge, with that last couple – Jan and Alyssa – being beloved neighbors of the community for about 40 years.

The significant renovations came quickly after her purchase in order to make the home her own. She says she really did things out of order, picking up pieces she liked along the way without a “big grand plan.”

“I definitely bought that tile and the sink, all of which was custom, before having a plan,” Gill says. “But I think I just have a strong enough color palette in general that I really just bought things that I liked and trusted they would all work together.”

The yellow tile lines the sitting area at the back of the primary bedroom, going from the right floor; as you enter the quaint master bath, it climbs up the walls to surround the single sink and shower. There’s a brief addition just in front of the sink to add some extra storage.

“I definitely bought that tile and the sink, all of which was custom, before having a plan,” Gill says. “But I think I just have a strong enough color palette in general that I really just bought things that I liked and trusted they would all work together.”

The yellow tile lines the sitting area at the back of the primary bedroom, going from the right floor; as you enter the quaint master bath, it climbs up the walls to surround the single sink and shower. There’s a brief addition just in front of the sink to add some extra storage.

“My mother’s grandmother grew up in Lubbock, and she had like 10 or 11 children. And so she made quilts for each one of her children and all of her grandchildren. I have no idea how many grandchildren she had,” she says. “So my mother still has the quilt that was made for her, which it’s the same pattern and the colors were different … based on the fabric, it looks like it’s from the ’50s and ’60s, so I’m not positive, honestly. And I took it from my mother. At some point, I had it in California with me, and I’d hung it there, and it was the first thing I hung in here once I’d done the really messy floor refinishing and sanding the walls and stuff.”

Gill herself also works on fiber arts projects, with embroidered canvases and framed works throughout her home. She picked up the art form during her time in India, after discovering a tiny shop with “every single color of embroidery thread you could imagine.”

“Having a home and feeling settled has made me want to do it even more for some reason,” she says. “I enjoy being in the house. Doing something that is methodical and time-consuming in a home that feels like a forever home. That sense (of) permanence makes you, makes me at least, want to create, spend more time doing that.”

Although this house is planned to be hers forever, she does not think it is done just yet.

“I imagine I’ll never be done,” she says. “I imagine I’ll always find something that I want to do. I’ve not bought tons of furniture, so I think I’ll also slowly buy pieces that fill the house up and give it character over time.”