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DILBECK’S DRAW

Kate Holliday, professor at University of Texas at Arlington and director of the David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture, explains more about why Charles Dilbeck’s work is celebrated in Dallas and in Lakewood.

Why is Dilbeck so significant as an architect?

Charles Dilbeck was a prolific architect who designed hundreds of homes in Dallas during its first oil boom in the 1930s. While much of the nation was in the midst of the Great Depression, Dilbeck churned out romantic, charming homes with eclectic echoes of English cottages, Spanish haciendas and modern Texas ranch houses. His careful attention to craft is evident in every detail of his designs, from the clean lines of the Belmont Hotel to the carefully crafted brickwork of Cochran Heights cottages.

6748 Lakewood Blvd.

• The large round chimney flue off to the left is “a Dilbeck signature element,” Winters says. “I’ve never seen a round chimney flue on a George Marble house, but I can show you 20 on other Dilbeck houses.”

• “The way the roof swoops down and fans out right above the front porch is a Dilbeck hallmark,” Winters says, and “the way the dormer windows interrupt the roofline, it’s different than the way other architects did it.”

• Dilbeck liked to trim windows in a contrasting brick color, “in this case, the orange brick,” Winters says. The half-timbering of wood and brick on the second floor also appears to him like a Dilbeck design.

Why is Dilbeck so significant for the Lakewood community?

Dilbeck designed smaller single-family homes as well as country clubs and grand estates. As more of Dilbeck’s work is demolished and altered beyond recognition, the Lakewood work gives us one of the few remaining windows into the world of 1930s Dallas.

What are the hallmarks of a Dilbeck home?

Dilbeck homes are intentionally quirky. They have changes in materials, changes in scale, and odd little details that make his approach distinct. Something might look out of proportion or like it was added later — but those are all parts of Dilbeck’s approach. He always seemed to be having fun rather than following the rules. —LISA KRESL

• Like 6826, the window dormers don’t vary from one to the other, Winters points out. “There are 20 ways to do dormer windows,” he says. “These are so uniform, and Dilbeck never would have done them the same way. That’s part of the picturesque effect Dilbeck was trying to achieve.”

• Here again, a very simple gable roof runs across the main volume of the house, while at 6748 Lakewood Blvd., “the roof profile, or silhouette, is much more complicated,” Winters says.

• The patterning of the wood against the stucco and the half-timbering area, “that’s not the way Dilbeck did his wood patterning,” Winters says. “This just comes from me looking at and studying hundreds of houses over the years.”