Next Weekend’s Lakewood Home Festival Features The Dilbeck Triplets

Every year we are completely amazed at what The Lakewood Early Childhood PTA (LECPTA) is able to deliver. Finding homes people want to tour, convincing owners to get their homes into tour-worthy shape, and let hordes of folks wander through — well, it’s a tall order. Yet, LECPTA has pulled it off for 42 years, and we can’t wait for this year’s Lakewood Home Festival because, let me tell you, it’s a humdinger! This year they have managed to score the famous Dilbeck Triplets for the first time in tour history!

We’d be excited to see any one of these Dilbeck Triplets on the Nov. 9-11 Lakewood Home Festival, but three at once has our hearts racing. One of the loveliest aspects of these Dilbeck Triplets is that the owners understand what they have purchased. They embrace these historic homes with open arms, hearts, and checkbooks! Each one of these Dilbeck Triplets has been lovingly cared for, updated, renovated, and received seamless additions. If you want to know more about Charles Dilbeck, one of Dallas’ most famous architects, check out our Dilbeck archives on CandysDirt.com.

If you want to see these beauties up close and personal — and you know you do — you can still purchase tickets to the Lakewood Home Festival, which features the annual auction party sponsored by Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate on Nov. 9, the candlelight tour on the evening of Nov. 10, and the Lakewood Home Festival tour on Nov. 10 and 11 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tour tickets cost $20 in advance, or you could win a pair on CandysDirt.com — stay tuned for the ticket giveaway next week!

6726 Lakewood Boulevard

I was lucky enough to see this Dilbeck when it underwent the first expansion and restoration. Architect Greg Lorie of Architectura invited me over to tour his latest project years ago, and I fell in love with this 1932 Dilbeck Tudor. Lorie worked with the talented Marcus Taylor, president of English Heritage Homes, on the remodel.

“It was the perfect marriage of owner, architect, and contractor working to preserve the integrity of the house while still making it a usable home for a modern-day family,” Lorie said. “The owners did not want to gut the house, but wanted to work with the existing language of the home where possible, and improve areas that needed it — the master suite, a larger kitchen, with a connection to the breakfast and living room — as well as improvements to the exterior. The garage was kept in the style of the main residence and connected with a covered walkway as it might have been originally designed. The primary goal was to make the addition blend as seamlessly as possible with the original house.”

When Clay and Karen Deniger purchased the house, they certainly weren’t looking for another large home. They had been there, done that, living in a large, well-known Dines and Kraft down the street for 18 years. With the kids grown and gone it seemed the right time to sell. So, they moved nearby into a new home for a little less than a year before fate drew them back.

“It was news when it came on the market,” Clay said. “After the major renovation, a new family had only owned it for only 18 months. Karen came home and told me the house was on the market. We went from thinking it was crazy to buy a big house with no kids at home to owning it in 6 days.”

The pool house, originally a log cabin, served as the neighborhood meeting place and was dubbed the Lakewood City Hall back in the early years of the home.

The Denigers added their own touches and asked Marcus Taylor back to do the updates. Caring for and restoring a Dilbeck requires contractors and architects that understand these homes. There is an expectation you will honor the bones, the character, and the history. But of course, you still want to live in a home that delivers the amenities you’d get in new construction.

“We were torn in that there was beautiful millwork throughout the house,” Clay said. “But, it was dark, and we needed something a bit lighter. We painted out the millwork, and walls to brighten things up and redid the bathrooms. It’s amazing how naturally the house transitioned to a more contemporary feel.”

There are 6,000 square feet in the main house. There is also the large pool house and a spectacular backyard wonderland. “It’s big, but it lives smaller,” Clay said. “It feels intimate, and that’s a testament to the design. It’s also a great blend of indoor-outdoor living. The grounds, in general, are an oasis. In the back, it has a field that has a bit of an East Dallas feeling and also a bit of not being in Texas at all. We disappear into the backyard. It hooked us!” 

6738 Lakewood Boulevard

The middle sister of the Dilbeck Triplets was built by Dines and Kraft in 1932. Mandy and Charles Townsend were living in a new house nearby, but longed for more land, and Mandy has always loved Tudor-style homes.

The Townsends are no strangers to renovations and updates. They had lived in, and made improvements to, a Clifford Hutsell-designed house in the M Streets that was once the architect’s home. They’d also lived in and gutted a 1950s ranch.

When they purchased their Dilbeck Triplet, they decided to push out the back of the house, knock out some walls and open up the family and kitchen area. The downstairs expansion gave them the added ability to expand upstairs. They did some innovative rearranging and moved the laundry room upstairs as well as renovated a bathroom.

“It was a great house to begin with,” Mandy said. “The Bauers lived here before us and are our friends, so we knew they were about to put the house on the market. We were there the day they bought it and walked it before they did any renovations. They added a master suite, a back house with three rooms, a two-car garage, put in a pool, landscaped, and made a great backyard entertaining area. When they decided to sell, we were the first or second people to see it and were lucky to get it as four offers went in immediately!”

“The majority of our time is spent in the back of the house,” Mandy said. “It’s such a comfortable family home.” The Townsends did a terrific job of creating a modern, exciting home that pays homage to its history.

6748 Lakewood Boulevard

The last of our Dilbeck Triplets is a French Tudor and has one of the most beautiful plaster embellished living room ceilings in Dallas. It was also built by Dines and Kraft in 1935. Julie and Jay Teinert bought the home in 2016 and immediately started a complete renovation.

“We love historic homes and had lived in a 1935 home in Rockwall before to purchasing in Lakewood,” Julie said. “We kept as much of the character as possible, did not tear down any walls, and left a couple of the bathrooms intact. I like things light and bright, open and orderly.”

“Fortunately, the family that owned the house before us did an amazing job with the additions. They added a third or more of the square footage. We modernized it.”

“I call the master bedroom my treehouse,” Julie said. “It has a lovely deck with French doors to one side and a huge arched ceiling. All I see are trees around me when I wake up!”

We think Charles Dilbeck would love knowing the Dilbeck Triplets are as cherished and cared for today as they were when he built them.

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Karen Eubank is the owner of Eubank Staging and Design. She has been an award-winning professional home stager and writer for over 25 years. Karen teaches the popular Staging to Sell class and is the creator of the online course, The Beginners Guide to Buying Wholesale. Her love of dogs, international travel, history, white paint, champagne, artificial turf, and Tudor homes knows no bounds. Her father was a spy, so she keeps secrets very well! Find Karen at www.eubankstaging.com