MALAKOFF -- The Greater Malakoff Area Garden Club published "Sculpture Gardens and Art Tour in the Upper East Side of Texas" this year featuring work by a local artist colony to help promote cultural interest in the area. The garden club, led by its current president, Lyn Dunsavage Young, selected 75 artists from the colony of artists living and working in the Cedar Creek Lake area to feature in the art book. By promoting the artist colony Young said she hopes interest will be generated in helping the club realize its prize project -- the restoration of The Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens. Young said the artist colony is an asset to the community that goes largely unnoticed and under appreciated. "There are a thousand artists of not inconsequential ability all creating substantial work that contributes to the quality of life," said Young during a recent sculpture garden art tour in Malakoff sponsored by the club. "The book will really have an impact on people's impression of the community." The club published 500 copies of the table top art book, which is available directly from the garden club at http://malakofftexas.com at $39.95 each. It also features works of art presented in the club's sculpture garden and art tour on April 28. The tour included two private sculpture gardens never before opened to the public at the lakeside estate of Jim and Barbara Stewart and the country retreat of internationally-known artist James Surl. During the tour the house and grounds of The Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens also opened for public inspection. The house was built in 1929 and bought by the garden club in 2008 to create a community attraction that would also draw visitors to the city. In the 1930s and 1940s the owners of the house and its gardens hosted large parties. It was renowned for its beauty. The house is known for its elaborate concrete architecture, which includes a flat roof that was used for dancing, with pillars forming a fence-like structure around its edges. The house was built by T.A. Bartlett, owner of the Malakoff Pressed Brick Co., who designed the yellow brick especially for his new home and never again manufactured the style. In another book designed by Young, "Malakoff, Texas," published in 2009, the garden club president tells the story of how Bartlett's house project led to an incredible discovery that put Malakoff on the North American map in terms of archeological signficance. Bartlett sent his two architects, brothers Indelicio and Teo Mergado Cuban, to collect gravel for the brick to design his residence. That led to the discovery of the "Malakoff Man," the fossilized remains of a 30,000-year-old man, which is the site of one of only seven such sites in North and South America providing evidence of tribal life from that period. The garden club plans to first restore the gardens of the house, then the three-car garage as a preliminary site for functions and finally the house itself for large parties like weddings and other events. The house is located near the entrance of what now is known as the Acme Brick Co. Pictures below are of the house and its grounds taken during the tour. Work has begun on the gardens with the planting of flowers,but restoration of the house awaits funding. Vist the website at http://malakofftexas.com for information about participation in the project.