Old Lake Highlands: Where Lake Highlands Feels More Like Lakewood

Old Lake Highlands is the part of Lake Highlands most likely to make someone question the map.

It sits along the northeastern side of White Rock Lake, bounded generally by Northwest Highway, Lake Highlands Drive, and Buckner Boulevard. The neighborhood association calls it an East Dallas gem, and that description is revealing. Although the name connects it to Lake Highlands, the lived experience often feels closer to Lakewood.

The lake is not simply nearby. Trails, Norbuck Park, Bel-Aire Park, and greenbelt edges make outdoor access part of the neighborhood's geography. Streets rise and fall, and some of the area's higher elevations open toward views of White Rock Lake or the downtown skyline. That topography gives Old Lake Highlands a visual character that separates it from many of the flatter postwar subdivisions farther north.

The homes reinforce the distinction. The neighborhood includes approximately 1,700 residences, with postwar cottages, ranch homes, midcentury houses, renovations, and newer construction sharing the same broad area. Some homes remain modest in scale. Others have been expanded or replaced as buyers place greater value on the setting.

Schools are another dividing line. Old Lake Highlands is served by Dallas ISD, not Richardson ISD. Hexter Elementary sits within the neighborhood and has long functioned as a community anchor. That makes Old Lake Highlands an important exception to the school-based definition many people use for the larger Lake Highlands area.

Daily life also leans south. Lakewood, the Dallas Arboretum, Casa Linda, Lower Greenville, and the eastern side of White Rock Lake feel close at hand. Residents can still identify strongly with Lake Highlands while using the lake and East Dallas amenities as part of their regular routine.

For buyers, the appeal is unusually layered: character homes, hills, trees, recreation, and a close-in location. The tradeoffs are equally property-specific. Sloping lots, older systems, renovation quality, drainage, and school assignments deserve careful attention.

Old Lake Highlands is not simply an older section of a larger neighborhood. It is its own version of lake-adjacent Dallas—one that happens to carry the Lake Highlands name.