North Texas is home to the most expensive listing in all of Texas, the Crespi Estate
5619 Walnut Hill Lane in Dallas — better known as the Crespi Estate — is currently on the market for $64 million.
“It’s just such an opportunity for somebody to own such an incredibly gorgeous and legendary historic property,” Briggs Freeman Sotheby’s International Realty listing agent Pogir Pogir said in an interview with the Star-Telegram.
The estate, designed by architect Maurice Fatio, features 44,000 square feet of property and almost 16 acres of land.
Fatio is a renowned Swiss architect mostly known for his Italian Renaissance-style work in Palm Beach, Fla. He started working in New York with partner William Treanor before moving to Florida. The Crespi Estate is the only property Fatio designed in Texas. It was also his last project before he died from cancer in 1943 at the age of 46.
The property features 10 bedrooms with 12.5 bathrooms. Including the 5,000-square-foot pool house and 3,000 square foot guest house, which were added later, there are 17 bathrooms on the property.
“It’s just the epitome of elegance and graciousness, it’s a property to experience,” listing agent Diane DuVall said.
Why is it called the Crespi Estate?
Count Pio Crespi commissioned the property in 1938. Crespi was a Dallas businessman who was president of Crespi & Co, a cotton trading company. In 1936, the Star-Telegram reported that he was one of America’s highest-paid CEOs, with a salary of $82,830.
At one time, there was a party every week at the larger-than-life mansion. Pogir calls it “Greater than Gatsby” — not just for the grand details, but because it has hosted several presidents, European dignitaries and socialites like Coco Chanel.
Crespi hired Fatio because he wanted his Preston Hollow property to feel like a villa in Italy. They came up with a 10,000 square-foot home on nearly 12 acres. Fatio had a keen eye for drama, decadence, and detail, evident in the grand spiral staircases and expensive ceilings.
Rumor also has it that the elevator was not put in for Mr. and Mrs. Crespi, but for their steamer trunks. Room for clothing and personal belongings was not a sweat for the home owners, considering their 3,000 square foot primary suite.
“Everything in the home is museum quality. There’s Honduran Crotch Mahogany, that’s in his dressing area,” DuVall said. “And the mill work is just extraordinary. Even the hinges, the details of the hinges, the way the doors fold back and match with the mill work.”
Adding on to the Crespi Estate
The Crespi family owned the estate until Tim Hicks, past owner of the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars, bought it in 1997.
Beginning in 2000, Hicks expanded the house, adding 17,000 more square feet, along with a 3,300-square-foot guest house with a 4,800-square-foot pool house (which also includes a 19-seat movie theater). The Hicks family worked with New York architect Peter Marino.
DuVall said that to expand the architecture, they had to reopen a closed quarry in Indiana to match the exact exterior limestone.
The Grand Salon (ballroom) has a dismantled European wood floor that was shipped to Dallas, and constructed piece by piece in the Crespi Estate. The library, also made with materials imported from Europe, is 19th Century Italian walnut and burl wood.
“And what we love about the [Grand Salon] is you can host a birthday party there, you could host a political event there, you could host a family and have it as just a living room,” Pogir said. “So it’s all about the experience. It could work for a family. It could work for a single guy, work for a single lady, whatever you want.”
The Crespi Estate grounds
Pogir and DuVall have added almost 4 acres of three adjacent lots to the listing, which is why it now equates to almost 16 acres.
“To me, the land is so spectacular,” Pogir said. “It has creeks. It has water features. It has sculptures. It has walking paths. It has beautiful trees. It has incredible private gardens. It has formal gardens and it has a greenhouse.”
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The driveway winds up verdant gardens and magnolia trees. A wooded creek also trickles through the back of the home. Numerous statues make you feel as though you are at a family villa in Italy.
Pogir says you can tell that the architect was thinking about what people would be looking at as they walk throughout the estate. “The views are what makes the home so inviting,” he said.
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The land has tennis courts, a swimming pool, bocce ball courts, private and formal gardens, a greenhouse and heliports.
Though the space for entertaining is endless, the Crespi Estate is not short on privacy. The 16 acres allow for solitude but also is a short drive from Dallas hustle and bustle, just five miles from Highland Park and downtown.