Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/996854
56 T he house on the busy corner of University Boulevard and Preston Road was always my favorite. As a child, I was delighted by the charming horsehead on the picket gate in front and the wisteria that bloomed around it. I fell in love with the house's magical exterior long before I knew anything about its architect, Charles Dilbeck, who designed the 1937 duplex in the fanciful French farmhouse style he became famous for. Its placement on a busy corner was no accident: Dilbeck often put his best houses on prominent corners to elicit attention, and this one drew legions of admirers. As the decades passed, the gate began to droop on its hinges and some of the boards rotted. The slow decline only added to the charm. An enormous tangle of climbing wisteria vines and foliage eventually swallowed up the two-story house, and for a few weeks each spring, a glorious shower of lavender blooms rained down. The house had all but disappeared. Only a portion of the white washed, slurried-brick wall remained visible, its horsehead gate standing guard like a sentinel over a mysterious kingdom. In late March, I snapped a picture of the house as I waited for the light to change. The timing was lucky — the wisteria, in full bloom, was at its peak. I posted the shot to Instagram, and from the comments, a lot of other people loved this house, too. In May, it was sold, and someone put a shot of it on Facebook. I was devastated. The wisteria was completely uprooted and an old two- story crape myrtle had been butchered in the process. Worse, the horsehead gate was gone, a gaping hole left in its place. Was the house being torn down? No one seemed to know. I raced over to inspect the carnage and peered inside the open front door. To my relief, plastic drop cloths covered the floors and walls, and workers on ladders chipped paint from between the ornately carved plaster ceiling beams. The exterior's changes might be worrisome and inelegant, but this wasn't a teardown — at least not yet. Dilbeck-designed houses, especially in the Park Cities, are in constant peril of the wrecking ball. "It's frightening," says architecture historian Willis Winters. "Houses of architectural importance are disappearing at an incredibly fast rate." DILBECK, IN PERIL IT IS THE TALE OF PRESERVATION WE KNOW ALL TOO WELL: WITH ITS BELOVED WISTERIA VINES AND HORSEHEAD GATE THE FIRST DESIGN ELEMENTS TO GO, A BELOVED 82-YEAR-OLD DILBECK COTTAGE IN THE PARK CITIES FACES AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE. HERE WE LOOK AT THE LONG STORIED HISTORY OF THIS MASTER ARCHITECT. B Y R E B E C C A S H E R M A N Charles S. Dilbeck, circa 1930, in front of a Dallas motel he designed. Photo courtesy Willis Winters. Wisteria in full bloom over Dilbeck's horsehead gate, March 2018.