D Magazine – Coming Home

Wade May and his wife, Carolina Gentry, saved from demolition the Hollywood Santa Monica house his grandparents built.

Carolina Gentry was a frequent visitor to the little 1950s house her now-husband, Wade “Lafe” May, shared with his sister in East Dallas Hollywood Santa Monica neighborhood when they started dating, in 2001. Built by May’s grandparents, the modest brick home was where his mother grew up and where various family members had lived throughout the decades. “When we were dating, I would always come to this house, and I remember thinking how much I loved the neighborhood,” Gentry says. It’s easy to see why she fell so hard for the 100-vear-old enclave nestled between Lakewood Country Club and Tenison Park Golf Course. Developed in 1924 on a former dairy farm, Hollywood Santa Monica has no shortage of charm, from its tree-lined streets and parks to one of the country’s largest collections of stone-embellished Tudor-style cottages. The neighborhood’s status as a City of Dallas Conservation District also means its vintage vibe is here to stay. By the mid-2010s, Gentry, an interior designer and co-founder of Pulp Design Studios, and May, who works in IT for Fidelity Investments, were married and living in a loft in the Cedars. Around that time, May’s family decided to put his grandparents’ house on the market. Previously, his parents had asked if he and Gentry would be interested in having the home for themselves, but they knew the place needed a laundry list of updates, and they didn’t relish the thought of working within the requirements of a conservation district. “We just didn’t want to deal with it.” Gentry says. “We knew that the house was going to have to be fully gutted.”

The offers came in quickly, but May’s family was dismayed when they learned that all of the bidders had plans to tear down the house. In the end, sentimental value won out when Gentry and May decided to take on the cumbersome task of bringing the house into the 21st century.

With help from Maestri Studio’s Eddie Maestri, who created the architectural plans, the couple added about 1,000 square feet of living space to the 1,300 square-foot house. One of their biggest moves was adding a living room that opens onto the expanded kitchen, creating a space that felt like their favorite part of their previous home. “We loved how open the loft was,” Gentry says. “The kitchen was in the center of the loft, and we wanted to have a similar feel to that in our house.” Now the couple cooks dinner in the Thermador-appointed kitchen nearly every night- tostadas and micheladas are often on the menu -and when people come over, they almost always gravitate toward the wide-open space.

The couple also completely transformed the primary bedroom with larger custom windows that maximize views of the lush backyard complete with a pond and babbling creek. “Now our bedroom is my favorite room in the house,” Gentry says.

To decorate the place, she layered some of her favorite furnishings and textiles, including a Pulp-designed fabric inspired by Mexican embroidery, with vintage finds she had picked up over the years. Then she sprinkled in pieces from her wide-ranging art collection, including works by Alabama-based abstract painter William McLure and local artist Amy Berlin. Gentry and May also incorporated some special touches, such as the 1920s photo they found in the attic and hung in the den and the 1930s medicine bottle that was unearthed when they redid the driveway and now resides in one of the bathrooms. The entire renovation process- including designing the plans and obtaining construction permits and conservation approvals- took three years. But the wait was worth it. Now May gets to live in a house that has been a part of his life since the day he was born, and Gentry gets to experience putting down roots in a neighborhood that first won her heart more than 20 years ago. “When I sit on my back porch, I don’t feel like I’m in a big city. I feel like I live in a small town,” she says. “And it’s such a cute little area. I always say that we live in a front yard neighborhood because people love sitting in Adirondack chairs in their front yard. People drive around in little golf carts. It’s just a charming little neighborhood.”

Photography by Cody Ulrich