The Cabana Motor Hotel at the time of its opening. The property has since been redeveloped into the Cabana Design District.
Staff/Dallas Morning News
A historic North Texas hotel once known for welcoming rock royalty—and later prisoners—is beginning a new chapter as affordable housing.
The Cabana Motor Hotel, at 899 N. Stemmons Freeway in Dallas, opened in 1963 and became a popular stop for touring musicians, including The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. Two decades later, the landmark took an unlikely turn, serving as a jail for more than 20 years.
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Dallas-based Sycamore Development, in partnership with Citi Bank, Hunt Capital Partners and Affordable Housing Partners, converted the 10-story landmark into a 175-unit apartment community known as the Cabana Design District, with 40 percent of the apartments rent-restricted.
“We just opened up leasing this month; we’ve already had a couple of people move in,” Chad Baker, affordable housing professional and attorney with Sycamore Development, told Chron on Tuesday. “We have more people scheduled to move in by the end of this month.”
Everything’s off to a strong start, according to reports from Sycamore Development’s third-party property manager, Baker said
“So far, the excitement around the project has been pretty high and we’ve been doing lots of tours,” he added.
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Cabana Design District is leasing and has welcomed new residents this month.
sonay nicole photography/Hunt Capital Partners
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One building, three lives
More than a half-century ago, the Cabana Motor Hotel opened its doors as a luxury destination, developed by Las Vegas’ Jay Sarno, the developer also behind Vegas’ Caesar’s Palace and Circus Circus, according to Preservation Dallas.
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The property served as a hotel until the mid-1980s, welcoming musical legends like Led Zepplin, The Rolling Stones, The Monkees and The Who in addition to Hendrix, Page and The Beatles. Other famed guests also enjoyed a stay, including Richard Nixon and Norman Mailer. Raquel Welch even worked at the hotel as a cocktail waitress before her Hollywood discovery.
After changing hands and rebranding several times, and falling into foreclosure, the hotel ceased operations in 1984, according to The Dallas Morning News. The property was acquired by Dallas County and that’s when its next peculiar era began.
In 1987, the building reopened as the Bill Decker Detention Center, housing overflow inmates until 2009, when the county opened another jail instead, according to the Dallas Observer. The building then briefly operated a halfway house for parolees, temporary housing after Katrina and a privately run juvenile prison.
Over the years, developers floated plans to demolish the building for a data center or convert it back into a hotel. Instead, the property sat vacant for roughly a decade before Sycamore Development acquired it in 2023.
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Sycamore Development secured financing to rehab the site through the city and broke ground on the $116-million mixed-income housing project on Oct. 29, 2024, according to a prior news release from the City of Dallas Economic Development.
“Our goal is always to do a mixed-income housing development,” Baker said. “We think that having affordable housing mixed with market rate housing and in the same development is just a great way to incorporate those affordable housing units within the community instead of having them as some separate development off on their own.”
Construction on the renovated Cabana Design District officially wrapped in April with a grand opening ceremony, according to Hunt Capital Partners.
A one-bedroom apartment (left) and the lobby (right) of the Cabana Design District.
Sonay Nicole Photography, Texas Department Of Housing And Community Affairs
What’s changed and what remains?
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs described the renovation of the Cabana as “a rock-solid makeover in a recent news release.
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“The entire project was approached with deep care for the building’s history,” Zach Krochtengel, principal of Sycamore Development, said in the release. “Though many original features had been lost over time, we were able to restore elements like the terrazzo flooring, tiles, and the iconic sun shades around the pool deck, while also modernizing the building’s design and converting it into an apartment community that can serve Dallas for decades to come.”
The Cabana Design District website advertises the community as “elevated apartment living” with one, two and three-bedroom apartment floor plans. The apartment complex highlights its resort-style pool, fitness and yoga center, dedicated coworking spaces, dogwash room, conference room and onsite garage parking.
“The building itself is pretty iconic, it sits just at the edge of downtown here in Dallas,” Baker said.
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