Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1354780
O n a recent spring day inside one of Highland Park's grand estates, April Manson is doing something t h a t h e r h u s - band, Jeff Manson, expressly forbids: roller-skating in the house. She's laced up her suede Moxie high-tops in the great room for our camera, but it's not the first time, nor is it likely to be the last. "Once in awhile, I skate through the house when he's not here — he gets so mad," April says, laughing. "He's the really serious one in the marriage." April started skating with a gang of girlfriends about a year ago during lockdown when the streets were empty. It's a daily routine now, and she often skates into downtown Dallas along the Katy Trail with her headphones blasting electronic dance music, whizzing on her wheels through the tony aisles at Forty Five Ten, and sometimes lunching — skates on — at a nearby hotel. "Most people don't mind, they just laugh," she says. Once, she and her friends rolled as far as the marble lobby at The Mansion on Turtle Creek before they were stopped, but staff made up for it by bringing them chilled champagne. She has skated through the Faena Hotel Miami Beach and through the streets of Cape Town, South Africa. In Cabo San Lucas, she skated through the shops 007-style in a pair of sneakers with retractable wheels "just in case I got into trouble," she says. This 48-year- old might just be the most colorful mom in the neighborhood — and she's got 10 kids, eight of them living at home. "I'm the one in the front row of all the live-music festivals — Coachella, Austin City Limits — and I go to the midnight rave shows, even though I'm totally too old," she says. So, when it came to decorating their new house, beige just wasn't an option. "I like things that hit you like lightning, that make you go, 'Wow!'" she says. "I'm not interested in being safe. I don't have a beige personality. Look at my life — we have 10 kids; we don't operate out of fear. We just kind of go for things." The Mansons The 18th-century swan rowboat, displayed like a piece of sculpture and filled with Fortuny pillows, once belonged to the children of a noble French family and was kept on their pond in southern France. Zuber hand-painted wallpaper. 53