High on a hill on the east side of White Rock Lake is the white brick house which was built for Alex and Roberta Camp. As with most houses that stand the test of time and survive the developers in Dallas County, this house has a very interesting history. The Camps, who had been living at the corner of Bennett and Monarch, acquired two parcels of land near the lake in the 1920s. Until 1911, when the spillway was completed, the view from the Camp’s land was overlooking a wide flood plain with the lush fields spotted with herds from a nearby dairy.
When George Kessler (1862-1923), eminent Kansas City Planner and landscape architect, was hired by the Dallas City Council in 1910 to lay out a plan for the city, one of the suggestions he left with the city fathers was to dam up White Rock Creek and form a lake, as the city needed a more dependable water supply. Not all of the Kessler Plan was adopted, but the formation of White Rock Lake was accomplished. It was one of the main sources of drinking water for Dallas for many years. Kessler’s Plan also suggested that land surrounding the new lake be reserved as park land for the citizens of Dallas. Therefore the land between the lake and the road designated as the Dallas, Reinhardt, and Garland County Public Road was extremely desirable.By the 1920s, when the Camps decided to look for land out from town, this site had already had several owners. It was a portion of the C.A. Lovejoy Survey No. 829.
Lovejoy was a half brother of Warren A. Ferris, who had been named surveyor for Nacogdoches County in this section of the Republic of Texas. (Before 1845) When this land was finally opened up for settlement, an attempt was made to have the bounty land surveyed as required. It was against the contract for the surveyor to pick out the choice land for himself. Warren Ferris registered the land he desired in his half-brother’s name. This relative was called C.A., but his given name was Joshua. Thus there are several parcels called C.A. Lovejoy in Dallas County. Joshua participated in the revolution against Mexico and that qualified him for bounty land. Neither Ferris nor Lovejoy is listed in the Peters Colony documents.
Survey No. 829 is shown on Sam Street’s Map of Dallas County dated ca. 1900 as having only one owner living within the 640 acre survey. That person was Rev. Robert Taylor, a black farmer and preacher. He was one of the last persons buried in the small Ferris Cemetery nearby. His gravestone, with the date of his death as 1907, has been protected in someone’s yard in the Forest Hills neighborhood. It was removed along with many others from the cemetery by developers of Forest Hills and vandals. Reverend Taylor’s heirs sold the forty-three acres in 1914 to three buyers, namely, John S. Turner, W.L. Allison, and George Moody. Other land in the survey had already been purchased by the City of Dallas.
The deed for transferring the title to Alex Camp (1877-1939) from American Exchange National Bank of Dallas states that it was the same land as sold to Turner.The Camp Estate is an interesting Dallas manifestation of the American Country House Movement. Generally, wealthy Americans built homes in fancy suburbs (Park Cities, Preston Hollow, Lakewood) rather than semi-rural locations. The DeGolyer and Camp Estates, the Buddy Fogelson House (later Northwood Country Club), The George Estate (razed), the Murchison Estate were all rare examples of houses of some substance built on large acreages.
The Camps held the land for nearly ten years before deciding to build their home. During this time they had contacted several prominent architects to submit plans. One of the architects was Hal Thompson, a most successful architect in North and Central Texas. Many of the homes in the Swiss Avenue Historic District were designed by Hal Thompson. After much deliberation, John Staub, (1892-1981) well-known architect from Houston, Texas, was finally selected to design their home. He had designed Bayou Bend, a mansion in Houston owned by Will and Mike Hogg and their sister, Ima Hogg, the descendants of the first native born Texas Governor (1891-1895), James Stephen Hogg. This architect, Staub, was noted for matching the design of the house to the personality of the client. He would have lengthy interviews to learn a great deal about his clients. Probably in many cases that would have been all right, but with Mrs. Camp it was very difficult. She was very indecisive. Even after the plans were approved and part of the foundation had been poured, she decided to invert the house plan and made several other changes, which caused John Staub considerable distress.
The house is one room deep throughout, with all living and bedrooms obtaining three or four exposures. This arrangement permits wonderful vistas and penetration by breezes. To expedite air circulation even further, most windows run from floor to ceiling and slide into side pockets. Every room has a view of the lake. The house is symmetrically balanced with a thin, two-story block which is eccentrically pierced by a shallow, gabled bay and a long, one story appendage. The sand surfaced brick and a metal roof provide a contrast in surface finish. The house is a combination of Latin Colonial, English Regency and Art Deco styles combined very harmoniously. The 8,000 square-foot house was completed at a cost of over $80,000.00 in 1938.
After the Civil War Aaron C. Camp and Captain W. H. Gaston (1840-1927) came to Dallas in 1867. Since Gaston’s first wife had died in February and the cotton crop was in, the two friends decided to come to Dallas from Anderson County. They found that there was no bank in Dallas and proceeded to form a partnership, “for the purpose of opening a bank to do business and trade in real estate, personal property, merchandise, and general speculation in the town of Dallas.” The two partners decided that Gaston would put up $20,000.00 in gold, and Camp was to give his personal attention to running the business. In January 1873, Camp resigned from the bank due to ill health. He had purchased thirty-three acres of land south of the city of Dallas. After he died in 1881, his widow refused to sell the land for many years. The four Camp children were Alex, Thomas, Aaron, and daughter Mattie.
In 1889 Mrs. Camp married James F. Warren, who was in the real estate business. In 1916, Alex and Thomas L. Camp were able to develop the Wheatley Place Addition to the City of Dallas on some of the land that Mrs. Camp had owned for many years in South Dallas. This addition was next to the Oakland Cemetery that had been established since 1887. Alex Camp and his brother were attorneys in downtown Dallas and Alex was also involved in the Central Land Company. This was a real estate investment company. Alex Camp’s name is on deeds in the Farmers Market area of Dallas.
Stephen Coke, nephew of Roberta Camp repeats the following story after talking to Caroline Bolton a 91 year old granddaughter of slaves. Roberta and Alex Camp had a chauffeur, Kay Bolton, who worked for the family for nearly sixty years. His wife, Caroline Bolton, had worked as a maid for one of the Mungers. After Caroline and Kay were married in 1928, Kay and Caroline bought a house on Munger Ave., but Mr. Bolton never did think of it as home. He continued to live at the Camp Estate and he and his wife visited back and forth. Caroline recalled Roberta Camp as a “lovely person.”A letter from Freda Petersen states that her husband Paul began working for the Camps in 1928 and continued for twenty-one years. He was responsible for planting many of the trees and shrubs surrounding the house. She recalled that she and her husband would drive out to the estate when freezing weather was predicted to cover the “tiny shrubs and plants in cold frames,” even late at night. She said Mrs. Camp loved to have an abundance of flowers to give away or decorate some halls or places of meetings. She has been remembered for furnishing many flowers for St. Johns Episcopal Church on Harter Road near the Lake.
Alex Camp (1877-1939) died about the time the house was finished. Although the house was designed for entertaining, few private or public events ever occurred. Mrs. Camp never did finish decorating parts of the house. The beautiful dining room, one of Staub’s favorites, was never finished. It went thirty-five years without a dining table. In an interview after the fact, Mr. Staub stated that Mrs. Camp “wore out two decorators” and never did furnish the house.
Mrs. Camp commissioned a young sculptor, Edwin C. Rust to design a large piece to hang over the fireplace. The 350-pound pewter composition took a year in the making. It took the sculptor and two assistants to hang the piece. It was sold at an auction after Roberta’s death to a “native Dallasite.”
Roberta Coke Camp was born in Dallas in 1893. She was the daughter of Henry C. Coke and his first wife, Roberta Rosser. Coke was a prominent attorney in Dallas and a nephew of longtime Texas governor and later senator Richard Coke. As a widow, Roberta Camp continued to participate in many social activities, first at St. Matthews Episcopal Cathedral and later at St. Johns, a new Episcopal parish near the lake. She had donated some land for this church. When she died in 1973, services were held for her at St. Johns. After her death a widely publicized auction was held in which most of her belongings were sold. Among these items were cases of fine china, for instance, that had never been unpacked. Alex and Roberta Camp were childless and at her death the estate was willed to several charitable organizations. These included the symphony, art museum, ballet, and the Episcopal Church. The property was put up for sale and except for a caretaker and his dog, it remained empty and had minimal maintenance. In spite of architectural interest, the large acreage (which had been reduced to twenty-two acres by this time and a surprisingly low price tag) the Camp Estate remained unsold.By 1974, a number of Dallasites were concerned about the fact that Dallas was the largest city in the country without an arboretum, and the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Society was formed to promote the idea of establishing a city arboretum to educate the public and encourage their interest in trees and plants and for scholarly work on regional plant materials. The DeGolyer Estate, which was adjoining the Camp property, was a logical choice for the site of the proposed arboretum. El Rancho Encinal, as it was called, had been completed for Everett and Nell Virginia Goodrich DeGolyer shortly after the Camp’s house was finally finished. The two families had been next door neighbors for over thirty years. The DeGolyer Estate had been given to S.M.U, who sold it to the City of Dallas. Combining these two estates would provide the necessary land for a world class arboretum for Dallas.The garage portion of the Camp House has been used for the administrative offices for the Arboretum and Botanical Society and the entire facility is available for private rental. The Society is a private nonprofit institution made possible through the generosity of many corporate and individual donors and the City of Dallas.
The mission of the Society is to build and maintain a public botanic garden promoting the art, enjoyment, and knowledge of horticulture, while providing research opportunities. The organization is committed to excellence, sound management and fiscal responsibility The Camp House is a beautiful part of this.
