The lobby of The Argyle before the renovation, after, and its more modern take now, below.

A staple of the gayborhood for nearly a century, Uptown’s historic Argyle gets an overhaul… while still retaining
its essential character

ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com

Dallas has never been a city known for its sense of historic preservation — buildings often come and go. (Remember the old Dr. Pepper plant on Mockingbird Station?) “New” has long been the watchword of city elders. (Want to impress a local? Tell them your house was built in the 1950s!… a brag that would trigger a chuckle on most of the East Coast.) But what if you had your hands on a great pre-Depression-era “high-rise” (i.e., seven stories) and you actually cared about its significance as architecture.

That’s what has been happening for the last year or so at The Argyle.

Considered to be one of if not the first high-rises in Dallas built specifically as residential housing (unlike the nearby Warwick Melrose Hotel, or Downtown structures converted from office buildings to condos in recent decades), The Argyle has the feel of a pre-war brownstone from New York City. And it kind of is.

“The Argyle truly is one of a kind. It’s notable to the community, a landmark and a piece of living history,” says Marc Riviere, director of marketing for Indio Management.

But the building — solidly built at the intersection of Oak Lawn and Hall — was in desperate need of updating. The elevators were old and slow (the kind where you have to close a gate before they will move). The carpeting was worn, the color scheme dated. It needed a jump-start, but not an autopsy.

“Our renovation process revolved around acknowledging, respecting and celebrating The Argyle for what it is,” says Riviere.

The renovation began when Indio bought the property in 2017, with the project divided into two phases: Phase one has just finished and most of the units will be occupied by the end of the month; phase two should be done by the end of 2019. (How much did such an undertaking cost? “Let’s just say that, in today’s dollars, we’re investing more in renovations than The Argyle cost to build in 1927,” quips Riviere.)

While a lot of the building has remained more or less intact — the exterior, the elevator shafts, the staircases and the number of units per floor are all the same — that doesn’t mean the changes were purely cosmetic. They were, in fact, substantial.

“We did borrow and lend square footage between apartments to fashion new spaces to meet the demands of today’s residents,” says Riviere. They devised four total floor plans for the total 48 units, which repeat on each floor: A studio (start at $1,400, for 425 sf); a “modified” studio/one bedroom with a loft-like feel; a more traditional one bedroom; and a two bedroom (1,224 sf). Some are finished out in white, some in black that makes the rough-hewn exposed concrete resemble mahogany.

Those concrete pillars, in fact, were one of the inspirations for coming up with some of the design aesthetics.

“There are a lot of immovable [features], like the concrete pillars, which [presented] a terrific challenge,” Riviere says. “We now call them ‘beautiful constraints,’ and they forced us to be wildly imaginative [and] mandate that many original aspects of The Argyle’s spirit and character remain intact. It’s almost as if The Argyle refused to compromise.”

The windows — there are tons; it was built before there was air-conditioning (though of course there is now) — let in amazing amounts of natural light. They didn’t lose a one, but the casements are all new. A ground-floor mixed-use space is being converted into a gym.

The original mailboxes will still be in use. And of course its location offers some amazing views.

The fundamental question for a redo like this is always how to preserve and honor a building’s history and spirit, while also fashioning modern living spaces that meet the needs of residents in the 21st century. The Argyle seems to have gotten that right.

The Argyle, 3721 N. Hall St. For more information, call Marcus Ellis at 214-734-5328 or visit TheArgyleDallas.com.