RESOURCES

Charles Dilbeck’s architecture has been the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles through his long career. Below is a partial bibliography. Many other short articles in real estate sections exist for his houses that have come up for sale over the years. These articles are not listed here but please search for “Charles Dilbeck” online and enjoy reading these articles, most with photos.

ARCHIVES

Charles Stevens Dilbeck Collection, The Alexander Architectural Archive, The University of Texas at Austin Libraries, The University of Texas

https://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/collections/charles-stevens-dilbeck-collection


SAH Archipedia

[SAH Archipedia is an authoritative online encyclopedia of the U.S. built environment organized by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press.] https://sah-archipedia.org/Architects/Charles-S.-Dilbeck


HISTORICAL MARKER

Texas Historical Commission Subject Marker “Charles Dilbeck Homes in Cochran Heights”, 2013. Located in Dallas at the intersection of Henderson Ave and Willis Ave.

https://atlas.thc.texas.gov/

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=159079


CITY OF DALLAS LANDMARKS

W. G. Underwood Residence, 5310 Park Lane, Dallas, Texas 

Date: 1939 -1940


EXHIBITIONS

Evolving a Personal Style: The Architecture of Charles Dilbeck

AD EX Dallas, Nov 2019

Organized by: architect Philip Henderson, FAIA, architect and author Willis Winters, FAIA, and photographer Carolyn Brown. Participating photographers include: Daisy Avalos, Justin Curtsinger, Lyndall Dyer, Don Essmiler, Gabrielle Pruitt, and Frank Richards. Presented by: the Architecture and Design Foundation with additional support from Katherine D. Seale, Mrs. Nancy Shutt, Nancy McCoy/McCoy Collaborative, Phoenix I Restoration and Construction, and Sachson Art

https://www.dallasadex.org/events/the-life-and-work-of-charles-dilbeck/


HOME TOURS

“Homes of Charles Stevens Dilbeck: A Private Tour”, presented by Preservation Dallas, 1997

“Charles Dilbeck: Cochran Heights Homes”, presented by the Cochran Heights Neighborhood Association, 2016

“Charles Dilbeck in Dallas”, Fall Architectural Tour presented by Preservation Dallas, Fall 2018

“Four Sisters Tour”, presented by the Dilbeck Conservancy, May 2024


SELECTED NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES [chronological order]:

Eubank, Karen. “The Dilbeck Conservancy Launches with an Extraordinary Tour.”, Candy’s Dirt, May 17, 2024,

https://candysdirt.com/2024/05/17/the-dilbeck-architecture-conservancy-launches-with-an-extraordinary-tour/


Wendlandt , Catherine. “See Some of Charles Dilbeck’s Best Architecture on This “Four Sisters” Tour May 18.” D Magazine, May 14, 2024,

https://www.dmagazine.com/home-garden/2024/05/see-some-of-charles-dilbecks-best-architecture-on-this-four-sisters-tour-may-18/


Lamster, Mark. “100 Reasons to Love Dallas Right Now: A Critic’s List of the places that make the city and its architecture special.” The Dallas Morning News, May 15, 2020,

https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/architecture/2020/05/15/100-reasons-to-love-dallas-right-now-a-critics-list-of-the-places-that-make-the-city-and-its-architecture-special/


“13. The enclave of fairy-tale homes by Charles Dilbeck in Cochran Heights.”


Sherman, Rebecca. “Beloved Dilbeck Houses Face the Wrecking Ball in Dallas: The Treasures of a Renowned Architect are in Demolition Danger Even as His Legacy Looms Large.” Paper City Magazine, July 19, 2018,

https://www.papercitymag.com/home-design/horsehead-house-dallas-4100-university-boulevard-wrecking-ball-charles-dilbeck-architect/


Westover, Donovan. “Charles Dilbeck’s Phoenix Lobello House Rises Again.” Candy’s Dirt, Sept 20, 2018,

https://candysdirt.com/2018/09/20/charles-dilbecks-phoenix-lobello-house-rises-again/


Knodel, Jamie. “Dilbeck lovers using famed architect’s original blueprints to rebuild 9,000 square-foot Dallas home lost to fire”, The Dallas Morning News, Oct 18, 2018,

https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/lifestyle/2018/10/18/dilbeck-lovers-using-famed-architect-s-original-blueprints-to-rebuild-9000-square-foot-dallas-home-lost-to-fire/


Dallasnews Administrator. “Home Tour: Dallas’ hidden Dilbeck neighborhood”, The Dallas Morning News, Mar 28, 2016,

https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/lifestyle/2016/03/28/home-tour-dallas-hidden-dilbeck-neighborhood/


Stafford, Brit. “Preserving Dallas’ Structural History”, People Newspapers, Nov 2, 2016,

https://www.peoplenewspapers.com/2016/11/02/preserving-dallas-structural-history/


Cullum, Lee. “Architecture Critic David Dillon on Dallas Houses.” D Magazine, March 13, 2006,

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-home/2006/march-april/architecture-critic-david-dillon-on-dallas-houses/


“[Dillon] “Some of my favorite houses in Dallas were designed by Charles Dilbeck, who was a very fanciful architect who did tract housing as well as fancy estates. He built them by the dozen all over the city, and most of them are wonderfully quirky. I like Dilbeck’s work a lot. He took chances, didn’t mind being laughed at sometimes, yet usually managed to create at least one special room in most of his houses.”


Vardon, Susan Gill. “Historical Westlake home to be reassembled in about two years.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Nov 2, 1998.


INTERVIEWS

David Dillon, architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News interviewed Dilbeck in 1984


ADDITIONAL ONLINE RESOURCES

https://dougnewby.com/architect/charles-s-dilbeck/

What Makes a Dilbeck?


It is almost impossible to offer a standard “recipe” for typical Dilbeck houses and other buildings due to the wide range of their architectural styles (primarily French Norman and Ranch, but also Colonial Revival and Moderne) as well as their size (ranging from small, compact cottages to the most elaborate, sprawling estates). However, here are a few clues to search for if you believe you have found a potential house designed by Charles Stevens Dilbeck:


On the Outside

  • Look for houses with complex massing and composition…
  • Irregular rooflines and silhouettes…
  • Complicated roofs that might have a sagging ridgeline or that might “flair up” at the end, where they meet the gable wall underneath…
  • Elaborate chimneys and round chimney flues…
  • Dormer windows that interrupt the roof cornice…
  • Roofs made of wood shake shingles…
  • Round towers that may be an entry hall or a stairwell…
  • Covered vehicular passageways that separate the house from the garage…
  • Exterior walls made with “drunken brick” masonry, rough fieldstone, “klinker” bricks, or half-timbering…
  • Round masonry columns…
  • Porches and entryways with hewn wood columns and support brackets…
  • Dutch entry doors, four-feet-wide…
  • Windows trimmed with masonry that contrasts with the surrounding wall…
  • Bay windows and windows shaded by a shed roof…
  • Real shutters that are sometimes hung crooked...
  • Grilles in exterior masonry walls…
  • Exposed wood rafters under the roof eaves, with rounded ends…
  • Balconies supported underneath by diagonal brackets or limb poles…
  • Exterior screen walls and balcony railings with a strong geometric pattern…
  • Dovecotes (both real and false)—on the roof or built within a masonry wall or exterior wood trim…
  • Low, masonry walls that extend outward from the house (often, a half-circle in plan) to enclose a garden court.

If you are able to get inside the house, look for these features

  • Multiple level changes, with “step-ups” and “step-downs” throughout the rooms on the ground floor…
  • Abundant use of natural materials on the floors, doors, paneling, trim, and ceilings…
  • Exposed wood beams and trusses in the principal rooms…
  • Astounding masonry fireplace hearths in the ranch houses, with large openings, multiple stepped “shelves” or platforms on each side, a fire box to pass through logs from the outside of the house, and hand-wrought iron accoutrements… 
  • Dramatic timber staircases in the entry hall, or curving plaster staircases in the round tower, often with solid wood blocks at each riser...
  • Built-in shelves and cabinetry, with unique wood trim designs…
  • Window seats, especially in the corner of the room…
  • Wood, square-shaped, panel ceilings in the dining room (usually made with stained pecky-wood cypress) …
  • Leaded glass windows…
  • Round breakfast rooms, with cozy, built-in seating…
  • Screened-in porches or “lounges” with an exterior fireplace or grill (note: many of these have been enclosed by later owners).

DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE A DILBECK?

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Dilbeck in Detail

  • Lobello Residence

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  • Meeker Residence

    Photo By: John Doe
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  • Morse Cottage

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  • Dealey Residence

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    NEWS

    In our mission to support the preservation of Charles Dilbeck’s work, we are actively searching for homes that may require saving, are currently listed for sale, or that have been found by enthusiasts. 

    Should your Dilbeck be a landmark?

    April 9, 2025
    BY NANCY MCCOY This charming pool house and residence built in 1940 is located in Preston Hollow and is significant architecturally as the work of Charles Stevens Dilbeck, for its landscape design by the Lambert Landscape Company, and for its original owner, W G Underwood, who was influential in Dallas’s movie theater and film distribution industries and the developer of the first drive-in theaters in Texas. It is also significant as the very first, and to date the only, Dilbeck residence to be landmarked in Dallas. If that is not shocking news, it should be! The current owner of this property chose to landmark it in order to deter a future owner from tearing it down. The city’s landmark ordinance protects properties like this one from demolition by requiring an arduous process before demolition can be permitted. The landmark ordinance also protects from inappropriate additions and changes, requiring review by the city’s historic preservation staff and the Landmark Commission. The process to become a landmark takes approximately 6 months or more, but the city can guide a homeowner and will help prepare the nomination through its Designation Committee of volunteer professionals. Alternatively, an owner can hire a professional to prepare the nomination. Answering the question “Should your Dilbeck be a Landmark?” is a complicated one but the Conservancy is here to help guide you. There are many Dilbecks out there that are worthy of landmark status, but perhaps their owners are unsure of the process and implications of pursuing this avenue of protection. For more information on the landmarking process in Dallas, see the next post here on that subject or contact the Dilbeck Conservancy and we will respond to you directly. Or visit the Office of Historic Preservation online: Home For more information on this property, see the landmark ordinance: Underwood House .

    Restoration Stories

    April 4, 2025
    BY ERIKA HUDDLESTON Dilbeck’s residential millwork from the 1930’s was a mixture of custom and stock. But, today, replicating his millwork is a custom process. Hardware stores and lumber yards do not stock the precise profiles found in Dilbeck’s homes from almost 100 years ago. This 1936 house in the Cochran Heights neighborhood, for example, featured a master bedroom and bathroom addition from the 1970’s—resting on cinder blocks and unpermitted!— and when that aging structure was removed during the restoration, there were resulting missing lengths of baseboard, window stool, and door casing inside the original house footprint. It was an easy fix to remove a section of the original millwork and bring it to Davis Hawn Lumber’s millwork shop. Michael Morris there organizes a steel “knife” to be cut in the correct profile and then an unlimited length of trim can be cut to order. To match the old growth longleaf pine in the house from the 1930’s, the wood species Douglas Fir was specified for the new millwork. The grain is very similar to old pine when stained and it is denser than new pine. Matching the trim profiles seamlessly integrates a new addition with the original house — if that is the goal. Or it can imperceptibly restore a door or window.

    Clueless Teen’s love of Charles Dilbeck Architecture

    October 16, 2023
    BY BEVERLY RAY Growing up in Fort Worth, my friends and I loved to drive around and pick out our favorite houses dreaming of someday owning one like it. Mine was a beautiful limestone home on Simondale Drive on a big lot with a huge oak tree, flagstone walkway and a warm and inviting entry. Lovely diamond-shaped leaded glass windows on one side of the entry added to its charm. There was a big turret that came up the side with a rustic balcony accessed by French doors. The turret and roof were covered in wood shake shingles randomly applied and topped with a copper cone. An outdoor rustic wooden staircase led up to a second floor area that teased the imagination about what would be found at the top. Many, many years later my life moved from Texas to New York and on to California. My new husband and I were looking for a small home in Dallas, and the realtor was urged to show properties similar to that teenage dream house in Fort Worth. That picture in her mind led to finding and falling in love with a house on Lorraine, exactly as we’d described. It turned out to be a 1940’s Charles Dilbeck-designed one-story with the same shake roof, diamond-shaped leaded windows, and built of Texas limestone with heavy wood trim and latticework, screening one side of the porch. The typical Dilbeck round brick pilasters bordered the steps with flat tops for flower pots full of color. Another front entry was topped with a gabeled roof and the heavy wood columns and brackets typical of Dilbeck designs. Both wood entry doors had black iron decorative hinges and metal peek holes to see who was knocking. The big hexagonal chimney was magnificent with a round one attached, smaller and stepped down. There was a small iron door to the side for the firewood, just one more fanciful Dilbeck doodad to charm your sox off. Just imagine, It even has a stylize dovecote in the gable over the garage. Learning finally, that my long-loved teenage dream house was actually the work of noted Architect, Charles Dilbeck was enlightening. Once you learn the unique trademarks of his designs you will realize this architect’s intent was creating a warm and welcoming aura of hospitality to his homes. You’ll be happy to learn that there will soon be a book of Charles Dilbeck’s Homes by Willis Winters, the true fan and expert on CSD’s work, pointing out the many unique markers of this famed architect’s work. It will be a must-have photographic record and inside knowledge of the remaining Dilbeck Designs for all of us rabid fans to pour over while we continue the dream.
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