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54 If not for the fashion and the au courant caravan of cars lined up in valet during a certain Saturday in December 2015, the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek felt like it was once again the 1920s estate of its original owner, oilman Sheppard King. For one night only, the entire restaurant and bar — the portion of the hotel that was originally a residence — was shuttered for private use. The last time these rooms were closed to the public was in 2013, when Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld took over the entire hotel during his Paris- Dallas Métiers d'Art fashion show. But the cause for celebration this time had little to do with French fashion and more to do with love: the wedding reception of Dallas native Sterling Stensrud upon her marriage to Houstonian Robert Evans. Nearly four weeks before the wedding, a multi-tiered, 10,000-square-foot, translucent tent began to take shape on the Mansion's sloping front lawn. "This was the fi rst time a tent had been erected at the Mansion," says Julian Leaver, then the hotel's director of catering sales and events (now the owner of his own event planning and design company, The Dapper Diplomat). "No one had ever built a tent like that. The way it was designed made it feel like an extension of the Mansion. It looked like it had always been there." That was precisely the point. When Sara Fay Egan, a partner at Jackson Durham Events, fi rst met with Stensrud, it was clear the bride wanted something that had never been done before. "I told her I loved the Mansion but that I didn't want to have the reception in the ballroom," Stensrud says. "And Sara Fay smiled and said, 'Oh, I have an idea …'" What happened next was a wedding reception of epic proportions, one the Mansion had never played host to before. Instead of treating the hotel like a traditional venue, Egan looked to the Mansion's storied history. "We wanted it to feel as if it were your home," she says. "We took the hotel back to the original mansion estate." Post-ceremony at Highland Park United Methodist Church, guests proceeded to that famous Turtle Creek destination. The main dining room was set up like a living room, with sofas and chaises replacing dining tables and chairs. And the library was redesigned to feel, well, like a library — as it once was. Flowers were styled in a domestic manner, with elegant topiaries and small, low arrangements; even the Mansion's patio was refurnished to resemble that of a most glorious home. Once the tent opened for dinner and "The tent felt open," Julian Leaver says. "You could see the trees and onto Turtle Creek. The Mansion should consider expanding its patio." The Mansion restaurant set up as a living room in a private home. Sterling Stensrud, in custom Nardos Imam, and Robert Evans, in Ermenegildo Zegna Ms. Vicki martinis The getaway: a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III from Imperial Limousine, and fi reworks by Pyrotex, Inc. In lieu of the Mansion's front entrance, guests entered through the original back entrance to the estate.