Discover Architect Charles Dilbeck’s Personal Style in AD EX Exhibition

By Philip Henderson, FAIA
Special Contributor

Charles Stevens Dilbeck is a renowned architect who worked in Texas and Oklahoma from the late 1920s until 1970. Few architects have the imagination and skill to develop a personal style, much less two. Dilbeck is known for French Norman, which he would use throughout his career, and Ranch. His Ranch style established him as an architect of great skill, originality, and imagination.

A current exhibition at AD EX presents Dilbeck’s French Norman and Ranch styles, illustrating his skill of combining, then recombining, his signature elements with variations, symmetry, and asymmetry, to create many residences — both large and small — each recognized as a Dilbeck, each house unique.

Charles Dilbeck’s Personal Style

Dilbeck’s personal style began to evolve at age 15 as a draftsman modifying house plans for two Tulsa lumber yards and continued during his apprenticeship with two Tulsa architects.

Dilbeck’s father, John W. Dilbeck, was a building contractor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and found employment for his two sons on his construction sites. Here they learned to work alongside carpenters and master craftsmen.  In the 1920s, many homes were built using drawings from plan books. With the additional help of images taken from magazines provided by the client, the plans could be modified to meet their specific functional and aesthetic desires.  

Dilbeck’s father recognized that he could use his son’s drawing skills to make plan modifications for his clients. Charles became so proficient at modifying plans that, at 15, he was hired by the Long-Bell Lumber Company as a draftsman. For the next three years, he worked in two Tulsa lumberyards modifying house plans for builders.

At the Hanna Lumber & Building Company, Dilbeck worked under an architect who trained him to take over all the modification and design work. Many architects at that time received their training through apprenticeships like this, where they learned the craft by working in the office of a practicing architect.

Tulsa builders recognized Dilbeck’s talent for designing appealing homes that sold. In 1927, as a promotion for new residential development by Hanna Lumber & Building Company, the 20-year-old Dilbeck was asked to design a mystery house to be built under a tabernacle tent. The tent was removed on Announcement Day, revealing the completed house.

It sold within two hours!   

Dilbeck worked for two Tulsa architecture firms, where he completed his architectural apprenticeship. When he opened his first office in Tulsa in 1928, he was only 21. Dilbeck was already recognized as an architect who created attractive, welcoming homes. His practice was primarily residential and entailed designing multiple houses in new Tulsa subdivisions for developers and builders, private homes, and several large estates. 

Dilbeck Departs For Dallas During Depression

In 1932, the Depression-era Tulsa economy forced Dilbeck to move to Dallas, where he quickly became active in the city’s growth. As in Tulsa, Dilbeck designed builder houses in new subdivisions in Dallas, private homes, and large estates in Preston Hollow. His Dallas work also included tourist courts, hotels, and restaurants.

 In 1970, Dilbeck closed his office and retired from architectural practice with a body of work that included several hundred residences, numerous commercial buildings in Tulsa and Dallas, and over 50 large homes and estates throughout Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It is estimated that he created 600 projects in Dallas alone.

IF YOU GO

The Dilbeck exhibition is on view through September 30 at AD EX, located in Republic Center at 325 N. St. Paul St., Suite 150, at the corner of St. Paul and Pacific. Exhibition hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Phillip Henderson is a board member of the Charles Stevens Dilbeck Architecture Conservancy, founded in 2022 to promote and advocate for the preservation of Dilbeck’s architectural legacy. He is also the designer of the current exhibition at AD EX with Willis Winters, FAIA, and Carolyn Brown, whose photography class created the images.