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57 Winters, who has written extensively on Dilbeck, spent the last 12 years working on a monograph about the architect. In October, he's slated to give the keynote presentation during the Preservation Dallas tour of Dilbeck homes. It all comes down to economic pressures, Winters says. The hotter the real estate market, the more dangerous it is for old houses, regardless of who designed them. And the threat is greater than it has ever been: Dallas is booming, and land value in the Park Cities continues to skyrocket. "Dilbeck built 20 houses on Bryn Mawr [in University Park]," Winters says. "One or two get torn down every year." That said, some people would rather preserve an old house than tear it down. Malee Helm, who purchased the Dilbeck duplex on University in 1995, had previously lived in a Dilbeck on Park Lane for 10 years. (That house, which included horse stables, has since been torn down.) "I was enamored with the peculiarity and charm of his houses," Helm says, happy to co-exist with the quirks and age-related issues an old house inevitably brings. For the house on University, she upgraded bathrooms but kept the original tile. The duplex's two kitchens almost look like time capsules from the era, with original cabinets and other details. Peeling linoleum floors were replaced with black- and-white tile. Initially, Helm used the two-story duplex as a single family home and installed an elevator inside a closet for her daughter. "I was always careful not to make changes that would interfere with the wonderful, original details," she says. When Helm moved to Bluffview 15 years ago, she rented out the house. She listed it last summer with Ebby Halliday Realtors for $1.2 million. "It's one of Dilbeck's best works," Winters says. "All of Dilbeck's vocabulary was in full bloom — inside and out." C harles Stevens Dilbeck designed hundreds of houses during his long career. Between the 1930s and 1960s, he built French farmhouses and ranch houses throughout Dallas, particularly in Preston Hollow and in the Park Cities. His romantic cottages were influenced by old French and Irish architecture, along with early Texas structures. He was on par with other great architects of the era — Hal Thompson, Anton Korn, Fooshee & Cheek, and George Dahl — who all made significant contributions to the Park Cities with classical revival and Tudor styles. But Dilbeck stood out. "He was the most individual and iconoclastic of them all," Winters says. "There is charm in Dilbeck's work you don't find in the more straightforward design of the others." Mostly self-taught as an architect, Dilbeck didn't travel to Europe to see the houses that influenced his work. Instead, his inspiration came from books and a fertile imagination. Born in Arkansas in 1907, he grew up in Tulsa, where he helped his contractor father on job sites. He was a prodigy from an early age: At 11, he helped design and supervise the construction of an African-American church in Tulsa. At 15, he went to work as a draftsman for a lumber company, preparing and modifying house plans. Still a young man, he began designing entire subdivisions of cottages for developers. "As he gained experience, his style began to blossom and emerge," Winters says. In Tulsa, that style was primarily French with a touch of Irish. "He did 200 to 300 houses in [Tulsa's] Florence Park. Each one is extraordinary." In 1929, after two years of formal study in architecture at Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma State University), Dilbeck dropped out to work for a Tulsa developer. There, he built modest spec homes along with grand custom residences for the town's elite. The Great Depression scuttled his young business, and he moved to Dallas in 1933. The 26-year-old worked briefly with George Marble, an established Park Cities architect, before going out on his own. "He became popular right away by doing work for Dallas oil barons, building estates on Preston Road and Northwest Highway," Winters says. "A couple of them are still around." Dilbeck, who died in 1990, was extraordinarily prolific, building more than 300 houses throughout Dallas including Lakewood, Preston Hollow, Bluffview, and Oak Cliff. He built a subdivision of 14 small cottages — all still standing — in Cochran Heights east of North Central Expressway along Henderson Avenue. He also built apartment buildings, hotels, shopping centers, and country clubs. Only a handful of his commercial buildings remain, including the refurbished 1947 Belmont Hotel in Oak Cliff. One of his most colorful is the Hotel El Rancho in Gallup, New Mexico, built for Dallas–based movie theater mogul R.E. Charles Dilbeck, right, with unidentified man in Tulsa, 1933. Photo courtesy Willis Winters. Center right: The house on University Boulevard, after it was built in 1937 and before the wisteria was planted. Photo courtesy Willis Winters. Right: Guest house originally designed for Ted Dealy in 1942. Photo by Carolyn Brown. Covered courtyard on University, reminiscent of an ancient French stable.