Without ceremony or celebration, Dallas' Landmark Commission on Monday proclaimed a one-story Mission Revival house — carved from concrete more than a century ago — a historic landmark. There was no applause; there were no cheers. There was barely even an audience in the cold and cavernous chamber built for the Dallas City Council. The only remarks came from the commission's chair Katherine Seale: "Congratulations to our newest landmark designation," she said, referring to the so-called House of the Future that had only narrowly dodged becoming a thing of the past tossed into a landfill.

This is the Bianchi House on Reiger and North Carroll avenues in East Dallas. It had been abandoned for years by Rick Leggio, an owner who had gone missing for reasons we will never know — perhaps because of illness, perhaps because of heartbreak, perhaps to dodge the mountain of code citations that City Hall delivered.