Buccaneer
04-10-2007, 06:16 PM
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Housing division brings bit of ‘Dallas’ to Springs
By BILL VOGRIN THE GAZETTE ([email protected])
April 9, 2007 - 11:49PM
On a 1984 vacation to Texas, Helen Wilson and her family visited the Southfork mansion, home of fictional oil baron J.R. Ewing and the rest of the backstabbing Ewing clan on the hit television series “Dallas.”
“My daughter lived nearby, and we went to see where they filmed the show,” Wilson said. “It was a beautiful place. And my husband really liked the show. He watched it every week.”
Today, Wilson lives in Southfork, but it’s a long way from Dallas — either the city or the show.
Wilson lives with her son and his family in the Southfork subdivision east of Falcon, where all the streets pay homage to the famous show and its characters — J.R., Bobby, Pamela, Sue Ellen, Lucy, Clifford, Calley and Miss Ellie.
Unlike the Dallas original, the Colorado version of Southfork is modest, with about 175 homes on 2.5-acre lots. Most of the homes are the manufactured variety.
Still, the Colorado Southfork has horses and wildlife including coyotes, just as you might find in Texas. And Wilson loves it. In fact, it doesn’t sound like she’d trade for the famous television backdrop she visited so long ago.
“They wouldn’t even let us in the mansion,” said Wilson, who is closer to Miss Ellie, the matriarch of the Ewing clan, than the promiscuous younger women on the show.
“This is a very nice place,” she said. “It’s very quiet. We don’t have any streetlights, and when the moon and stars come out at night, it’s so bright you could read a newspaper.”
In fact, Wilson sounds a lot like Miss Ellie when asked if the Colorado Southfork resembles its TV cousin in the antics of its residents, who were always feuding and sleeping around.
“I don’t hear it, if it’s going on, and I don’t look for it,” she said, declaring herself a proud member of Falcon Baptist Church, uninterested in such shenanigans.
Still, she gets a hoot out of the connection between her subdivision on the plains of El Paso County. “We live on Calley Court,” Wilson said with a laugh. “It’s named after Cliff Barnes’ wife.”
The name for the subdivision originally was Bobcat Meadows, but it was changed when a Dallas-based developer bought the land about eight years ago and started planning homesites, said Carl Schueler, El Paso County planning manager.
The link to the TV show came during a brainstorming session to generate street names — a huge challenge given rules prohibiting duplication to avoid confusing emergency responders.
“You can’t repeat a street name anywhere in El Paso County,” Schueler said. “You have to be real creative.”
So the developer and his local planners started tossing out names.
“We were sitting around joking that he ought to name his streets after something to do with Texas,” said Chuck Crum, an engineer with MVE Inc., a Colorado Springs company who helped plan the subdivision.
“He liked the television show and named everything after the characters from ‘Dallas,’” Crum said. “It was simple as that.”
Beyond being important for police, fire and ambulance drivers, street names can be important to people buying homes, said Doug Barber, president of the Rawhide Co., a Falcon real estate sales and development company.
“I’ve had people say: ‘I can’t live on a street named this’” Barber said. “Others like some street names, but if they don’t like the house, the street name won’t make a difference.”
For most Southfork residents, the name is a novelty that they enjoy.
“It comes up in conversation when you tell someone where you live or when you write a check,” said John Sabell, who lives on Southfork Drive and is president of the Southfork Property Owners Association.
Of course, whether the name rings a bell depends who you’re talking to, said Sabell, a teacher in his late 40s who recalls when “Dallas” was the rage in the 1980s.
“People in our age group catch on quick,” he said. “People in their 20s say: What’s ‘Dallas?’”
Housing division brings bit of ‘Dallas’ to Springs
By BILL VOGRIN THE GAZETTE ([email protected])
April 9, 2007 - 11:49PM
On a 1984 vacation to Texas, Helen Wilson and her family visited the Southfork mansion, home of fictional oil baron J.R. Ewing and the rest of the backstabbing Ewing clan on the hit television series “Dallas.”
“My daughter lived nearby, and we went to see where they filmed the show,” Wilson said. “It was a beautiful place. And my husband really liked the show. He watched it every week.”
Today, Wilson lives in Southfork, but it’s a long way from Dallas — either the city or the show.
Wilson lives with her son and his family in the Southfork subdivision east of Falcon, where all the streets pay homage to the famous show and its characters — J.R., Bobby, Pamela, Sue Ellen, Lucy, Clifford, Calley and Miss Ellie.
Unlike the Dallas original, the Colorado version of Southfork is modest, with about 175 homes on 2.5-acre lots. Most of the homes are the manufactured variety.
Still, the Colorado Southfork has horses and wildlife including coyotes, just as you might find in Texas. And Wilson loves it. In fact, it doesn’t sound like she’d trade for the famous television backdrop she visited so long ago.
“They wouldn’t even let us in the mansion,” said Wilson, who is closer to Miss Ellie, the matriarch of the Ewing clan, than the promiscuous younger women on the show.
“This is a very nice place,” she said. “It’s very quiet. We don’t have any streetlights, and when the moon and stars come out at night, it’s so bright you could read a newspaper.”
In fact, Wilson sounds a lot like Miss Ellie when asked if the Colorado Southfork resembles its TV cousin in the antics of its residents, who were always feuding and sleeping around.
“I don’t hear it, if it’s going on, and I don’t look for it,” she said, declaring herself a proud member of Falcon Baptist Church, uninterested in such shenanigans.
Still, she gets a hoot out of the connection between her subdivision on the plains of El Paso County. “We live on Calley Court,” Wilson said with a laugh. “It’s named after Cliff Barnes’ wife.”
The name for the subdivision originally was Bobcat Meadows, but it was changed when a Dallas-based developer bought the land about eight years ago and started planning homesites, said Carl Schueler, El Paso County planning manager.
The link to the TV show came during a brainstorming session to generate street names — a huge challenge given rules prohibiting duplication to avoid confusing emergency responders.
“You can’t repeat a street name anywhere in El Paso County,” Schueler said. “You have to be real creative.”
So the developer and his local planners started tossing out names.
“We were sitting around joking that he ought to name his streets after something to do with Texas,” said Chuck Crum, an engineer with MVE Inc., a Colorado Springs company who helped plan the subdivision.
“He liked the television show and named everything after the characters from ‘Dallas,’” Crum said. “It was simple as that.”
Beyond being important for police, fire and ambulance drivers, street names can be important to people buying homes, said Doug Barber, president of the Rawhide Co., a Falcon real estate sales and development company.
“I’ve had people say: ‘I can’t live on a street named this’” Barber said. “Others like some street names, but if they don’t like the house, the street name won’t make a difference.”
For most Southfork residents, the name is a novelty that they enjoy.
“It comes up in conversation when you tell someone where you live or when you write a check,” said John Sabell, who lives on Southfork Drive and is president of the Southfork Property Owners Association.
Of course, whether the name rings a bell depends who you’re talking to, said Sabell, a teacher in his late 40s who recalls when “Dallas” was the rage in the 1980s.
“People in our age group catch on quick,” he said. “People in their 20s say: What’s ‘Dallas?’”