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Be sure to pick up a copy of today’s Wall Street Journal, you’ll find a full page of incredible luxury homes from The Ebby Halliday Companies, courtesy of Luxury Portfolio Fine Property Collection. The featured homes range in price from just over $700,000 to more than $17 million on famed Beverly Drive in Highland Park.
You can also see the full ad here.
This weekend, the AT&T Performing Arts Center made its official grand opening debut in true Dallas fashion.
Saturday night was the Broadway themed Scene 3 of the four night Act III Grand Opening followed by a black tie gala throughout the Center. Those arriving early caught Dallas’ premiere fashion event producer, Jan Strimple, readying her team of sharply dressed attendants who lined the sidewalks and red carpet entrances of the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House and greeted guests with a friendly Texas hello. The well heeled crowd mingled inside as the cameras flashed before being seated for the performance, which began as the chandelier retracted into the ceiling.
The incredible show included 15-year-old, Tony Award-winning actor Kiril Kulish and Tony Award-winners George Hearn and Patti LuPone. But it was Oklahoma native Kristin Chenoweth who stole the hearts of the audience and the show when she appeared on stage in a burnt orange University of Texas football jersey. She explained she had made a bet with her manager (a Texas native) that if Oklahoma lost she would wear the Texas jersey wherever she was. “I figured I’d just be at Pappasito’s or something,” she said. She then went on to perform several songs from her Broadway shows, which really showed off the impressive acoustics of the complex.
We haven’t come across any video from the performances Saturday night, but you’ll get a good perspective of what it was like from the videos below - both of these songs were performed at the Winspear:
Following the performance, the gala celebration continued throughout the Center featuring the extraordinary design of Neiman Marcus. A translucent tent covered Sammons Park and was full of exemplary cuisine by The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas’ celebrity chef Norman Van Aken as well as chefs Dean Fearing and John Coleman. Think braised buffalo shortrib with jalepeno grits, bourbon-cured smoked salmon with corn crab hominy stew mole chicken, aged “mac n’ cheese” with truffle parmesan bread crumbs and decadent desserts including bourbon pecan tarts and chocolate passion cake.
Across the way, the black tie crowd let their hair down and got their groove on - literally. The Dee and Charles Wyly Theater was transformed into “Club Alon”, full of sleek modern white leather furniture and the sounds of Ellis Hall, Eden Espinosa and Mindi Abair which went well into the night. This is also where we spotted surprise celebrity guest, Zachary Quinto.
Can’t wait for next month’s issue of D Magazine or PaperCity for pics from inside the Saturday night festivities? D Magazine’s Tim Rogers has some great views and insight here.
But the party didn’t stop there.
The following day was Spotlight Sunday in the Dallas Arts District, a free, day-long festival which included tours of the Wyly and Winspear, free admission to all of the Arts District venues and dozens of performances both inside and out. Early estimates indicate that the crowd easily numbered 45,000!!
The grand finale was a glittering fireworks show from the rooftops of the Wyly and Winspear. The crowds lined the streets for the show from the beginning of the Arts District all the way to One Arts Plaza where Lucy Billingsley herself mingled with the crowd as they enjoyed the sounds of Hunter Sullivan and his band.
Ebby Halliday has always said that Dallas has a “can-do” spirit and that spirit and what it can accomplish has never been more apparent than this weekend with the opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. The Ebby Halliday Companies are proud to be a Flagship Corporate Alliance Donor of the PAC and thank everyone involved with the project.
On Friday, Luxury Portfolio highlighted 30 beautiful listings of the Ebby Halliday Companies in The Wall Street Journal - another example of the marketing power Luxury Portfolio brings to all luxury homes listed by Ebby Halliday Realtors, Ellen Terry Realtors and Dave Perry-Miller & Associates . The full page ad featured a variety of luxury homes from all over the Metroplex ranging in price from $18 million to just under $800,000. If you missed Friday’s WSJ, you can see the full ad here .
What’s the best real estate website around? It’s Ebby.com according to the Web Marketing Association! The winners of the 2009 WebAwards, which are presented by the Web Marketing Association, were recently announced and Ebby.com was honored with a Standard of Excellence Award.
The WebAward recognizes the standard of excellence for which all Web sites should strive and the competition is the premier award recognition program for Web developers and marketers worldwide. In its 13th year, the Web Marketing Association has set the standard for achieving excellence in Internet marketing and website development. The awards were judged by a panel of independent Internet experts on various criteria including design, interactivity, technology, content, innovation, copywriting and ease of use to the target audience.
See the award winning website for yourself and find your perfect home at Ebby.com.
According to Forbes Magazine, Dallas is the best city in which to earn a living. And the Lone Star State was well represented on the list - Houston was ranked #2 and Austin came in at #4. One of the biggest reasons for the decision was the fact that 38 top-ranked companies are headquartered in Dallas. Rankings were also determined by median income, cost of living, job growth and the quality of the business environment.
You can read the entire article at Forbes.com here.
Each month, Luxury Portfolio releases their web traffic statistics via their proprietary LuxeAnalytics reports and once again, the luxury listings of The Ebby Halliday Companies have received an abundance of national and international exposure. In fact, Ebby Halliday Realtors, Ellen Terry Realtors and Dave Perry-Miller & Associates are consistently in the Top 5 for members with the most web traffic on this award-winning site. Since the beginning of the year, our luxury homes have received almost 400,000 property impressions with visitors from 120 countries who have translated the property descriptions into almost a dozen languages.
To help put this accomplishment into perspective, here are some basic statistics for LuxuryPortfolio.com: the site averages 102,000 visitors per month and 1.2 million high-net-worth visitors per year. It also has the greatest overall market share of luxury properties, both nationally and globally, as well as more U.S. listings priced at $1 million and above than Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Coldwell Banker Previews, etc.
And be sure to check out the beautiful new home page design which debuted this past month. In fact, the remarkable Santa Barbara-style estate on White Rock Lake, listed by Brett Gray of Dave Perry-Miller & Associates, is one of the featured homes on the home page this month.
Bottom line - when you list a luxury property with an Ebby Halliday Company, you can be assured it will be marketed to the world through the best luxury afilliation around - Luxury Portfolio. How many other companies can claim that?
Grande dame of real estate, Ebby Halliday, was today commissioned as Admiral of the Texas Navy. Making her now Admiral Halliday.
At a ceremony held today at her corporate office, Ebby was commissioned as an Admiral in the Texas Navy by Admiral Patrick McEnroe who conferred her title.
During his introduction he said that Ebby has a PhD in the school of “Get ‘er done!” He went on to say that she has elevated women in areas that were dominated by men and done a better job. “It reminds me of the saying, when you want the right man for a job, it’ll probably be a woman,” he said.
An official State of Texas Proclamation was signed by Governor Rick Perry with the official Seal of the State of Texas and presented to Ebby. She joins the ranks of other notables to receive this honor, including Academy Award winning actress Ginger Rogers.
When asked about this honor, Ebby said, “It is one of the true highlights of my 98 years. Of course, now that I am an Admiral, I am going to have to perfect my salute!”
Ebby adds this to a long list of honors, including the title of honorary doctorate from Dallas Baptist University. She is fondly referred to as Doc Halliday.
In addition to Ebby, Uly Vlamides, a WWII Navy man and 30-year member of Ebby’s Property Management and Residential Leasing division, was commissioned as Admiral along with Reed Ashwill and USAF Colonel Mark Fluker.
The First Texas Navy was established in 1835, and the Second Texas Navy was established in 1837. In 1958, Texas Governor Price Daniel re-activated the Texas Navy with the purpose of “Assuring the survival of Texas’ Naval history, boundaries, water resources, and for the civil defense of Texas.” In 1973, the Texas Legislature authorized the charter of the Texas Navy Association, Inc., as the official body to oversee the operation of the Texas Navy. For more on the Texas Navy, click here.
Coverage of the ceremony and Ebby’s interview is scheduled to air tonight, July 30, on Channels 4 (FOX) and 5 (NBC) at 5:00p.m. and Channels 4 (FOX) and 33 (KDAF) at 9:00p.m. Channel 5 (NBC) will also air at 10:00p.m.
To see photos from today’s ceremony, visit the official Ebby Halliday Facebook Page here.
CNNMoney.com just released a list of the 10 Fastest Growing Cities in the country and almost half the list is made up of Texas cities! Two of them are right here in the DFW Metroplex - Fort Worth and McKinney. In fact, McKinney had the highest rate of growth since 2000, more than doubling in size from 54,369 to 121,211. Ebby’s McKinney Office manager Gerry Russell had this to say about the recent news:
“There is a reason McKinney is one of the fastest growing communities in the nation—it a great place to live. Our community slogan is “Unique by Nature” and it is. We are a community of golfing opportunities with five major golf courses and/or country clubs; one of the largest historic districts in the State; outstanding private and public schools; and, our community sits on rolling hills with an abundance of greenbelts sprinkled with hike and bike trails. The quality of life is unequaled.”
You can read the entire article from CNNMoney.com here.
LuxuryPortfolio.com just released their year-to-date web traffic statistics via their proprietary LuxeAnalytics reports and the Ebby Halliday Companies ranked in the Top 5 for members with the most web traffic internationally. This means that luxury properties listed with an Ebby Halliday Company - Ebby Halliday Realtors, Dave Perry-Miller & Associates and Ellen Terry Realtors - received above average exposure on a global basis! The Ebby Companies had more than 350,000 property impressions with visitors from more than 115 countries who translated listings in 9 languages.
To help put this accomplishment into perspective, here are some basic statistics for LuxuryPortfolio.com: the site averages 102,000 visitors per month and 1.2 million total visitors per year. It also has the greatest overall market share of luxury properties, both nationally and internationally, as well as more U.S. listings priced at $1 million and above than Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Coldwell Banker Previews, etc.
So, when you list a luxury property with an Ebby Halliday Company, you can be assured it will be marketed to the world. How many other agents can claim that?
This week, two Ebby Associates were featured on the NBC DFW evening news for a series showing great homes currently available at various price points in the DFW Metroplex.
Associate John C. Weber of the Hickman + Weber Group with Ebby’s Lakewood office was featured Wednesday night in the segment highlighting homes available in the $500,000 range. John showed off the great Tudor listing at 6200 Tremont in Lakewood. One special feature of this home is the 600 square foot full guest house, which, as John points out, would be perfect for nanny’s quarters, a separate home office, or in-law suite.
Last night’s feature highlighted great listings in the $750,000 range and included the home at 6739 Northport in Preston Hollow, listed by Ebby Associate Kay Weeks from the Preston Center office. This home sits on a wonderful 100′ x 182′ lot and the backyard is an entertainer’s delight with large patio areas, pool with waterfall feature and grotto.
You can see the complete series, which concludes tonight, at the NBC DFW website, here.
