a village affair Upside-down margaritas with Foghat is a bygone era, giving way to walking paths and lattes
w
hen it came time for Rebekah Wright and her husband Kevin to agree on a name for their first child, there was no disagreement. They met at The Village apartments. They married under huge live oak trees that have stood guard for nearly 50 years over the Village Country Club pool. And Rebekah has worked at The Village for the past 20 years in a variety of roles, starting as a leasing agent at the Village’s Northbridge apartment buildings. They named their daughter after a “lovely, one-bedroom den” apartment floorplan at Northbridge. That’s right: Welcome to Dallas, Emerson Wright. Maybe there are other children named after Village floorplans. (Northbridge’s were named after writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Certainly, there are plenty of children throughout Dallas whose parents met at The Village or who live at The Village today. That’s what the 7,300-apartment-unit facility — the most gigantic apartment
early years as construction of the eventual 17 sets of apartment neighborhoods began in 1968. The late 1960s through the early 1980s were a growth period for Dallas much like today — real estate developers can’t build apartments fast enough to satisfy the demand for young people moving into the city. The Village came about when an arm of Lincoln Property Co. acquired 307 acres of land on the then-outskirts of Dallas near the original Caruth Homeplace. After adding a golf course and the original Country Club building, construction began on The Gate series of apartment buildings in 1968 bounded roughly by Skillman Avenue, Lovers Lane, Northwest Highway and just east of Greenville Avenue. The original 14 apartment neighborhoods were constructed from 1968 through 1986, with age 21+ residents filling the series of apartment buildings clustered around pools and parking areas, giving residents a distinct, neighborhood feel atypical of many apartment complexes. The exception was Whether the original plan for The Village The Glen, built in 1969 for families only. Today, more than 500 separate buildings was to become Dallas’ mecca for singles or are part of The Village property. not, that’s the reputation it earned in the
complex in Dallas — has brought to the city for more than 50 years: a unique place for people new to the city to make friends, learn about what ithas to offer and eventually (although not always) venture to settle in other parts of the city. Just ask Wright, whose 20 years of dedication has been rewarded with the title of Senior Vice President of All Things Fun at The Village. These days, she offices next door to the trees under which she and her husband were married. “I met all of my friends here at the Village Country Club pool, and I met my husband in The Village when I worked in the leasing office of Northbridge during the building’s lease-up in 2001. “He was looking for an apartment, and I was looking for a boyfriend!”
so what ’s the deal with the village?
Story by RICK WAMRE | Photography courtesy of LINCOLN PROPERTIES
34 lakewood.advocatemag.com OCTOBER 2021
