You Can Live, Work, and Swim at This Former Oak Cliff Publishing Company

Long before live-work spaces became trendy, repurposing an existing building gained traction in the early 1970s. Known as adaptive reuse, artists were transforming industrial warehouses in New York into loft living by the 1990s. Dallas may have been a little late to the party, but we got there. Now, the former 1942 Williams Publishing Company in Oak Cliff is a great example of adaptive use and reuse.

There are many stories floating around about this building on social media, but I went to the source, the present owner, Suzanne Felber, owner of Lifestylist® Inc., to get the dirt! 

“We were living in Tucson and loved the architecture, space, and stucco buildings and we were on an acre and a half,” Felber said. When we moved to Dallas, there was nothing similar in residential listings. I drove past this building, and I fell in love with it. My agent was trying to convince me that I did not want it. Jill Perez owned the building and when she eventually took it off the market I knocked on the door, talked to her, and we had a deal.”

Felber is only the third owner of the former Williams Publishing Company. It fit the Felbers’ wish list perfectly. At 9,332 square feet and on a 1.44-acre site along Cedar Creek, it is a historic mixed-use building that has quite the history.

Felber found that the first owner, Allan H. Williams, was a friend of Howard Hughes, who was an aviation enthusiast and one of America’s first billionaires. Apparently, when Williams decided to build a printing shop, Hughes had a concrete connection and said Williams could have all the concrete he wanted. So he erected a two-story building with the printing company housed on the first floor. The second floor served as a residence for the Williams family. With endless cement at his disposal, he had a pool constructed on the roof of a two-story building at the back of the main house, which became known as the pool room. 

This building has been a topic of interest on social media for years, with most referencing schoolmates who used to visit Williams’ daughters and swim in the pool.

“I went to Winnetka, Greiner, and Sunset with Virginia Williams. Spent many visits in the house and pool. Virginia was a huge Beatles fan before they were even popular in the USA. Her father ran the printing company and got fan magazines for her.”

“Her older sister was Aileen, Sunset class of 1965. A very nice family.”

One social media commenter claimed the property had a run-in with federal authorities:

“That house was raided by the feds in the late ’50s for pornography printed to look like magazines, such as McCall’s and Look. Also, they removed a large cache of Garand rifles.”

Now, in reality, the publisher was producing an aviation magazine called On the Beam that featured pin-up girls on its pages. So yes, there were what we might call questionable images today, but certainly not pornography. 

Felber has lived in the Williams Publishing Company building for 24 years and added her touch. She designed the barn doors using stained glass from the 1900s and installed a metal door from a diner in Kansas City, which still bears one of the original Lucky Strike cigarette ads.

“The massive lighting in the studio area and in the stairway was from a church that was being demolished in Fort Worth,” Felber said. “The wall of French Doors is something I designed to be able to keep the space open, but still not feel so overwhelming. I bought the doors at Habitat for Humanity (at the time, I think they were $10 each!) and made them so they could slide back or be open.” 

Williams was certainly ahead of the times, conceiving this building as a live, work, play space. Exactly what people love today. Felber is off to start her next adventure in New Orleans, so it’s time for another creative owner to take over!

Suzy Featherston with Jim Lake, Adaptive Urban Redevelopment, has the Williams Publishing Company at 1312 W. Clarendon Dr. available for $3.1 million.