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preserving. It was, the urban biologist told them.

So for four years, the group worked with landscape architects, talked with city councilmen, gathered 900 signatures on a petition supporting the preserve and secured a nonprofit status for the Twelve Hills Nature Center. They also succeeded in rezoning five acres of the land to be used only for green space.

The group had something different than a park in mind: an environmental education area.

“There are a lot of kids living in apartments nearby that don’t have yards and don’t get to go to nature centers,” Touchet says, pointing to the one or two environmental education field trips DISD students may take during the course of grade school. “This was their only access to nature that they’d ever have. We thought it was really important to teach people about stewardship.”

The group focused on re-naturalizing the land, returning it to the native blackland prairie grasses that blanketed Twelve Hills before it was covered in concrete. The point is to maintain wildlife diversity, according to Marcie Haley, the current Twelve Hills Nature Center board president. Over time, insects develop the ability to digest certain plant chemicals. As those plants are taken away, even if new ones are introduced, insects are left with less food, meaning birds are left with less food, meaning reptiles are left with less food, and so on down the food chain.

In undeveloped spaces, nature does a pretty good job of keeping invasive plants from taking over, Haley says. In a place like Twelve Hills, which is surrounded by development, people have to step in and take care of the land.

“Prairies were always kept that way, and trees were kept that way and kept out of prairies by fire and buffalo herds running across the land,” Haley says. “Those things don’t exist anymore, but there are other natural mechanisms that would keep a native plant in check.”

Sharing the land

After the land stood vacant for a decade, in 2003 Dallas ISD began construction of Rosemont Elementary School Primary campus on about 10 acres. The original Rosemont, what is now its upper campus, is across the street and St. Cecilia Catholic School is down the road, making Twelve Hills an outdoor classroom to anyone who drops by when the center is open — sunup to sundown.

Around 2005, the other 10 acres went to the highest bidder, former Oak Cliff resident Matt Holley. Because half of the land already was designated green space, and because Holley had discussed the nature preserve with Touchet and supported the effort, he sold 5.4 acres to the Twelve Hills group at a reduced price since the fledgling nonprofit couldn’t afford to pay full price for it. On the remaining land, Holley built a mid-century modern inspired gated community called Kessler Woods.

“Even during the downturn, a lot of great stuff continued to happen in Oak Cliff, and it speaks to the energy in the community,” Holley says.

The landscaping plan for the homes, which have since sold for between $450,000 and $1.5 million, was to blend harmoniously with the Twelve Hills Nature Center and the surrounding hills.

Holley and Rosemont Primary architects met to see if there was a way to “create synergy” so that the buildings complemented both each other and the land. Today, both the students and neighbors enjoy that synergy. Though Holley says not many Kessler Woods residents have children, they often run or walk through Twelve Hills. Rosemont classes visit the preserve whenever they want, though the biggest event of the year happens in the spring.

Around May, every class at Rosemont Primary from pre-kindergarten through fourth grade embarks on an hour-long nature walk through Twelve Hills with adult volunteers and fellow students trained as nature leaders. Flowers are blooming, and butterflies, bees and other insects are flying around. As students take in the excitement and ask questions, they are also learning environmental stewardship.

“Students have gone home and taught their families about the plants in their yard,” Haley says. “They take the knowledge with them. We hope that — and we think they probably will — take the desire to take care of the land with them also.”

Roots

The city buzz quiets as you walk past the stone entrance into a fairytale-like flurry of monarch butterflies. A creek trickles past the western corner of the center. Twelve Hills offers a much-needed breath of fresh air and that “restorative, calming effect that nature bestows,” Haley says. In children and adults alike, it nurtures a sense of “wonder and imagination.”

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