{"id":80251,"date":"2025-12-08T12:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/80251\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T12:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:38:08","slug":"photos-holiday-in-the-highlands-is-like-a-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/80251\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Holiday in the Highlands ‘is like a reunion’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dee Broome and Ellen Boutin tour the home of Alison and Andrew Kirkpatrick<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a while since Dee Broome welcomed the community into her home for the Lake Highlands Women\u2019s League<\/a> home tour. Her house on Westview Circle was one of four featured in 1997, but she remembers it like it was yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fabulous,\u201d she recalled Friday as she attended this year\u2019s Holiday in the Highlands<\/a> tour. \u201cI had my decorator come over and make sure everything was just right. It was wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

She remembers displaying several antique chairs which had belonged to her great grandmother and staying with a neighbor down the street on tour day to resist the urge to listen in as visitors critiqued her choices for wallpaper and Christmas decorations. Her house, known for its distinctive pink brick and white cast stone, has been extensively remodeled since then. Her children, Holly and Paul, who were standout soccer players at LHHS and on professional teams, are now grown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe enjoy living in Lake Highlands, it\u2019s a great neighborhood,\u201d she told me. \u201cI love coming on the tour to see people I haven\u2019t seen in a long time. We live in a wonderful community with great schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

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RISD\u2019s Chris Poteet, Sandra Hayes, Tabitha Branum and Letitia McGowan at the Ince home<\/p>\n

Chris Poteet, president of the Richardson ISD school board, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy seeing the people \u2014 it\u2019s like a reunion. Every line that I stand in, I see people we know in the community. This is just one of our ways to plug in every year, and it\u2019s unique in the district. When there is an available option like this, it\u2019s great to plug in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poteet was attending with several representatives from RISD, who expressed their appreciation for the sacrifices and accomplishments of volunteers at LHWL.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love coming to the home tour, because it\u2019s one way that I have the opportunity to support our Lake Highlands Women\u2019s League and give back the way that they give to our more than 36,000 students,\u201d said Superintendent Tabitha Branum. \u201cI love to see how each house brings their family\u2019s personality to life through the architecture, the design, and, most importantly, their holiday decorations. And I love to get a little inspiration I can bring back to my own house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant Superintendent Sandra Hayes, who recently announced retirement plans, has been attending the tour for more than 20 years. She admits she\u2019s no Martha Stewart, but she looks forward to kicking off the holiday season by viewing the beautiful homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a big decorator, but I love to look, knowing I\u2019ll never do it,\u201d she laughed. \u201cAnd I love that the league brought kids into the mix at the Sip and Shop holiday market. Kids didn\u2019t perform when that first started, and I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lauren Phoenix, Ashley Nelms Davis and Leigh Baldwin<\/p>\n

Lake Highlands High School graduate Ashley Nelms Davis attended the tour with neighbors Leigh Baldwin and Lauren Phoenix. The young homeowners were looking for inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to see the backyard life at this house because I feel like we\u2019re always outside with our kids,\u201d Davis said as they waited in line at the Ince home on Club Glen. \u201cI\u2019m thinking about what I can do to my backyard one day \u2014 what I can dream about doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldwin grew up in Fort Worth, but she now lives in the ABC streets near LHHS.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of a remodel project, so I\u2019m coming to see what they\u2019ve done to this one,\u201d she said. \u201cMy dad is a contractor, so I grew up touring homes that he was remodeling and revamping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldwin was looking carefully, too, at the holiday decorations inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, I purged all my cheap decorations, and I\u2019m trying to collect things that I think are really pretty. I put up a second Christmas tree, and I\u2019m trying to build up my collection. It\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phoenix is planning a January remodel of her White Rock Valley home and says she wants to make each piece meaningful to her young family.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur girls love to pick out special things, but at this point it\u2019s mostly food related,\u201d she joked. \u201cThey chose a bagel ornament to represent our Saturday morning outings. Our house is very much a blank slate. My style is pretty traditional, but I want to look at everything to get ideas. I like to have a few funky spots in the house, too. I work from home, so I have a dedicated office space I\u2019m planning to make my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Missie Hendon and Carol Cory-Brown<\/p>\n

As Missie Hendon and Carol Cory-Brown wandered through the houses, they appreciated the diversity in architecture, style and d\u00e9cor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the fun of it,\u201d said Hendon. \u201cThey usually throw in a super modern one, then a real traditional one \u2014 just a mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about the artwork, the light fixtures, the fabrics \u2014 it\u2019s all so colorful,\u201d agreed Cory-Brown.<\/p>\n

Hendon hasn\u2019t always been available on tour day. For several years she worked at LHHS, checking visitors in at the front door of the school and helping students in the library.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a different area of Dallas,\u201d said Cory-Brown, \u201cbut I just love this community, and I love the fact that Missie, wherever she goes, knows ten or 20 more people. The spirit of this community is fabulous \u2014 the way all the women know each other and promote the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funds raised from Holiday in the Highlands will go to neighborhood projects, nonprofit organizations, local schools and college scholarships. You may donate here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You may view my photos here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dee Broome and Ellen Boutin tour the home of Alison and Andrew Kirkpatrick It\u2019s been a while since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":{"0":"post-80251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-plano","8":"tag-plano","9":"tag-plano-headlines","10":"tag-plano-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}