Free House

Dallas-area house is up for grabs in HGTV's latest smart-home sweepstakes

If you're willing to click twice a day, you could be cooking in this kitchen.

Jennifer Boomer/Getty Images

Texas is where it's at for the latest HGTV "Smart Home," an annual sweepstakes in which the grand prize is a newly built, fully furnished home, along with a 2020 Mercedes Benz GLE and $100,000 from LendingTree.

The 2019 Smart Home is in Roanoke, in a development called Fairway Ranch, a sustainable community with walking trails, greenbelts, a community pool, and parks.

To get your shot at winning, you go to HGTV's website and submit an entry, which you can do twice a day. The sweepstakes begin at 9 am April 24.

For perspective, the 2018 sweepstakes drew 95 million total entries.

The Roanoke house is a 3,400-square-foot, single-level Southern contemporary with 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms that blends top tech with Texas style.

Features include a media room, 3D movie theater, home office, playroom, master suite, and butler's pantry. An outdoor patio boasts a grilling and gaming area, movie screen, and covered spaces for dining and relaxing.

The house was designed by Tiffany Brooks, HGTV's go-to interior designer; she won the network's competition show HGTV Design Star in 2013. The HTGV website includes a video of Brooks explaining her process.

"I can't just put cowboy boots and hats up on the wall," she says. "I need to be not so cliche." Cliche is a noun. She clearly meant to say "cliched" with a D, which is the adjective form of cliche.

There's also a video announcing the location that relies on more cliches in its description of Roanoke. They call it a "Dallas-Fort Worth suburb," and show a panorama of images all focusing on Dallas, including the Dallas skyline and noted Dallas icons such as the Traveling Man sculpture in Deep Ellum.

HGTV launched the Smart Home sweepstakes in 2008 as an offshoot of its similar, long-running "Dream Home" giveaway. Prior Smart Home locations have included Scottsdale, Nashville, and Austin, which was home to the 2015 Smart Home. Many of the winners end up selling the house rather than moving into it.

Eligible viewers can enter to win on HGTV.com. The giveaway period runs through June 10. You can also sign up for daily email reminders.

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Party Is Over

Party City chain to close 21 stores across Dallas by February

Party City

A chain of stores where the party is always going on is closing down: Party City will close all of its stores and has initiated layoffs, effective immediately. According to CNN, CEO Barry Litwin told corporate employees that Party City has to “commence a winddown process immediately,” and that Friday would be their last day of work for the company.

However, the actual store locations, including those around North Texas, will be open until February 28.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, Party City is largest party goods retailer in the U.S. — the go-to destination for every type of celebration, with more than 700 company-owned and franchise store locations across North America selling home decor, candles, balloons, wrapping paper, tableware, bulk candy, baking supplies, and more.

A typical Party City store ranges in size from 10,000 to 12,000 square feet and carries approximately 30,000 items. Halloween accounts for as much as one-quarter of yearly sales, but they celebrate all seasonal holidays, from New Year's Eve to the Fourth of July to Father's Day to Super Bowl Sunday, and offer a wide array of merchandise for birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, wedding and bridal showers, and baby showers.

Party and costume merchandise has become more competitive in recent years, with companies like the budget-focused Spirit Halloween expanding beyond its Halloween pop-ups into “Spirit Christmas” stores, as well as competition from Amazon and other online retailers.

In 2023, the chain filed for bankruptcy, then emerged with a plan that included transitioning into a privately held company and canceling nearly $1 billion in debt. At that time, there were approximately 800 U.S. stores.

There are 64 stores in Texas, with 21 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as follows:

Arlington
Burleson
Carrollton
Cedar Hill
Dallas
Denton
Euless
Flower Mound
Fort Worth
Frisco
Hurst
Irving
Lake Worth
Lewisville
Mansfield
McKinney
Mesquite
Richardson
Rockwall
Watauga

Dallas-Fort Worth stores have already started sales between 5 and 50 percent off.

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