by A. W. Gray
Mrs. Vincent’s final hurrah in Park Cities came about over an incident with a plumber whom she employed to fix several leaky pipes. The job took several days while the plumber—an unsuspecting man from a downtown Dallas firm who didn’t have the slightest idea what he was getting into—crawled about under the sinks and beneath the house while Mrs. Vincent kept a watchful eye on him. On the third morning she accosted the plumber and held him at gunpoint, accusing him of making off with some of her jewelry. When the terrified man denied any knowledge of the bracelets, rings, and necklaces, Dame Vincent locked him in a closet and kept him on bread and water for two days, vowing to hold the man until he gave up his ill-gotten booty. Eventually the plumber’s distressed family filed a missing-person report, and the police rescued the fellow unharmed, but the incident created enough of a furor that Highland Park authorities could no longer sweep the wealthy lady’s activities under the rug. Commitment proceedings began, and then were dismissed when Mrs. Vincent voluntarily agreed simply to move. With the prospect of having Dame Vincent become some other community’s problem, Highland Park fathers breathed a long sigh.
The relief was short-lived. Mrs. Vincent wasn’t through with the neighborhood, not by a long shot. True to her word, she did put her home on the market, but added the stipulation that the only qualified buyer would be a black family with a minimum of five children, and agreed to fit her selling price to meet the family’s budget. Horrified, Park Citizens held a secret meeting and, in order to quietly relocate the community thorn in the side and at the same time protect themselves from African American invasion, quickly dreamed up a plan. One of the Highland Park family maids had a brother living in an integrated section of Dallas and, secretly backed by a consortium of Park Cities money, the brother appeared one day on Mrs. Vincent’s doorstep and made her a cash offer. Mrs. Vincent accepted with a triumphant cackle and quickly made the deal. The maid’s brother then immediately sold out, at double his investment, to the same Park Citizens who’d backed him to begin with. His pockets stuffed, the brother returned happily to his South Dallas digs, and Highland Park’s exclusivity was preserved.
While neither politically nor morally proper, Park Cities’ rigid Whiteyism caused University Park property values to skyrocket. The area now sported not only the rarity of all-WASP high school football and basketball teams, but some of Texas’ most incredibly expensive houses as well. In 1950, the average University Park home cost $15,000; by the mid-sixties the figure was $45,000 and climbing. In 1980, at the height of the real estate boom, a 1,600-square-foot home heated by floor furnaces and air-conditioned by window units, located in the four-thousand block of University Park’s Centenary Drive—and originally bought by its first owner in 1946 for $11,500—went for $265,000.
With the rise in home values, the makeup of University Park’s population changed as well. Greeted with the prospect of instant wealth, college professors who’d originally intended to live in their homes for life gladly sold out to the newly rich and moved to country cottages. The cash-drugged yuppies who bought the old homes thought the financial boom of the late seventies so permanent that they didn’t stop with the mere purchase of property. Obsessed with getting ahead of their neighbors, new University Park residents bulldozed the houses that had stood for decades on the 150-foot lots, and in their places erected castles that extended ludicrously from property line to property line. The Fords and Chevys that for years had paraded up and down Hillcrest Avenue in front of SMU were no more; Mercedes, Bentleys, and Jags were now the norm. By 1982, when Nancy Dillard married the boy from small-town Connecticut and the newlyweds came to Dallas from Harvard, to live in Park Cities was, so to speak, to die for.
9
Allan and Rosemary Lyon made the trek from Connecticut down to Texas for their eldest son’s wedding with unexplainably heavy hearts. The trip should have been a happy occasion for Richard’s parents. For one’s child to marry well is a parent’s dream, and Richard’s betrothed came from a background which made his folks the envy of Mansfield-Willimantic. Word had spread quickly through the gossipy little burgs that Richard was marrying into millions, and more than one of the locals had greeted Allan on the square or in one of the rural Connecticut coffee shops with handshakes and backslaps of congratulation. But as the airliner touched down at DFW Airport, and as the Lyons greeted the Dillards with smiles for one and all, both of Richard’s parents had misgivings about the wedding that they couldn’t quite put their fingers on.
First of all, the Lyons were accustomed to friendly small-town folks who, while far too nosy at times, considered every resident of their community as part of one large family. Though the Dillards were polite, as fitted the occasion, Rosemary and Allan found Nancy’s relatives to be more than a little pretentious, and even a bit standoffish. The Dillards’ attitude made Allan and Rosemary uncomfortable, and to feel like outsiders whom the Dillards merely endured for the length of time required to get the wedding over with, after which the Dillards couldn’t wait for the country bumpkins to take the first plane back to New England.
Allan found Bill Jr. to be particularly offensive. During the entire time that the Lyons stayed in Dallas for the festivities before and after the wedding, Allan never saw Nancy’s older brother draw a sober breath. He tried to write Bill Jr.’s behavior off as that of a young man feeling his oats and having a good time, but any justification for the extent of the elder Dillard son’s drinking was hard to come by. Allan noted that at all parties, both at the country club and at the Dillards’ Rheims Place home, Bill Jr. never completely emptied his glass before having the help place a fresh drink in front of him. Anytime his cocktail was nearly gone, Bill Jr. assumed a look near panic, and the more he drank the louder and more obnoxious he became.
Allan attended the night-before bachelor’s dinner at Richard’s request, and found himself to be the only stranger in the group. Nearly all of the partiers were Bill Jr.’s friends, and Allan noted that all of the Dallas trust-fund kids at the dinner seemed to drink liquor as though there was no tomorrow, and also noted that more than one of the group would occasionally leave the party and return with telltale red marks beneath their noses.
Sometime during the evening Bill Jr. proposed a toast. He lifted his glass in Richard’s direction and, his words slightly slurred, announced loudly to one and all, “Here’s to my future brother-in-law. My sister is marrying a Yankee and a Yard man, but what the hell, drink to him anyway.” As Bill Jr. tossed off his drink in a single gulp, the trust-fund kids at the gathering broke up in glee.
Allan Lyon didn’t think the bogus toast a bit funny. As Bill Jr.’s words cut through him like a knife, Allan looked at Richard. He was smiling, but the smile appeared painted on, and his eyes were dead as flints. At that moment Allan felt like grabbing his son by the ankles and, forcibly if necessary, dragging him back to Connecticut and away from this Texas madness.
Rosemary Lyon was even more uneasy about the proceedings than her husband. She was uncomfortable around Nancy’s family to begin with, and the introductions to the wedding guests, emceed by Nancy’s mother, made Rosemary even more ill at ease. “Why, this is Tramell Crow,” Sue would say, and then cut her eyes and whisper, “He’s a huge developer,” or “This is Bob Short,” and then say softly in a condescending tone, “He owns the Texas Rangers, you know.” But not only did Rosemary not have the slightest idea who these Dallas bigwigs were, she thought the whole lot of them a bunch of snobs.
The wedding mass at the Church of the Incarnation, the Episcopal cathedral that towers over North Central Expressway and keeps watch over commuters to and from downtown, had Rosemary on pins and needles. The tears she shed when Richard completed his vows and kissed his bride were much more tears of grief than of joy. During the reception at the Dallas Country Club, Richard hugged his mom and asked her to pose with him for a photo. Rosemary obliged and put on her best joyous face for the occasion, but as Richard held her close and flashes
clicked, she squeezed her son’s hand hard enough to leave nail impressions in his flesh. And later, as the airliner bore the Lyons back home, Rosemary couldn’t stop crying. She was terrified that if Richard remained in Texas, her son would one day become a total stranger to her.
10
It is interesting, but neither surprising nor particularly significant, that both Nancy and Richard downplayed Big Daddy’s involvement in whatever success the young couple enjoyed. “He might have given me a start, but the rest was up to me” is a typical stand taken by the Rockefeller and Rothschild heirs of the world, though the declaration sounds as credible to the working-class listener as a seminar entitled, “Making It on Your Own,” conducted jointly by Nancy Sinatra and Jane Fonda.
As Richard was later to tell a packed courtroom, the newlyweds did spend their first four months in Dallas living in a one-bedroom apartment, but they were hardly roughing it. Big Daddy footed the rent. The apartment was a newly refurbished pad with a heated pool, and was only a stopgap residence while Big Daddy helped the young couple search for a house. While they lived in the apartment, Richard passed his idle time familiarizing himself with Dallas from one boundary to the other while Nancy, who’d been raised in the city and knew every nook and cranny, occupied herself with the Dallas Historical Society and joined the Junior League. The Richard and Nancy saga is hardly “Love on a Rooftop.” Prudently—and at Big Daddy’s insistence—the couple finally settled on an M-Street duplex.
Actually, the duplex purchase was as much an investment for Big Daddy as it was an aid to the kids. The M-Streets—McCommas, Monticello, Marquita, all running east and west and joining North Central Expressway just east of the Highland Park city limit—became trendy addresses in the seventies. They are narrow, tree-shaded avenues, and the modest brick houses in the area stood virtually unnoticed by real estate speculators for a half century or more before the restoration trend set in. Before the outset of the refurbishing stampede, M-Street homes were mostly occupied by retirees on pensions who had lived in the houses since they’d been new. No one recalls the name of the first Park Citizen, tired of the modern-but-lacking-in-personality castle in which he lived, who decided that old M-Street houses restored to their original state would make a nifty project, but by the time Richard and Nancy went house hunting in the neighborhood, retirees had already sold by the dozens. The remodeling costs were several times the houses’ original purchase prices, but that didn’t stop the trendsetters. The duplex that Richard and Nancy selected for their first home cost $84,500, of which the couple put up zero as a down payment. The mortgagor for the entire sum was William Wooldridge Dillard Sr., and given the increase in property value once the old house had new floors, updated wiring, and central air and heat installed, Big Daddy’s loan was well collateralized.
Once moved in, the newlyweds set about contracting for plumbers, Sheetrock installers, and roofing contractors. Richard and Nancy personally supervised the remodeling job, with Richard, shirtless much of the time, doing some of the work himself and Nancy, hands on hips, keeping a watchful eye on the construction crew.
Although the refurbishing of the seventy-year-old duplex kept Nancy quite busy, she had other things on her mind as well. The M-Street address was trendy and with-it, and quite satisfactory as a starting point, but the Park Cities boundary was still a few blocks to the west, on the other side of Central Expressway. Until she’d assumed her rightful place among the Park Citizens, Nancy Dillard Lyon wasn’t going to be satisfied.
It might seem that buying a home before one finds a job is putting the cart somewhat before the horse, but Richard and Nancy weren’t subject to the same rules as most of working America. For a large portion of the new graduates, job hunting consists of a series of nail-biting interviews, the careful weeding out of a number of potentially bad choices, and finally settling on the best position available at the time. For the Lyon newlyweds, locating employment was simply a matter of Big Daddy holding a few breakfast meetings.
Dallas business people have always lagged years behind established LA and New York City practices, so in 1982 the inclusion of breakfast and dinner, in addition to lunch, as tax-deductible meals was still somewhat of a novelty to Texans. How much business the moguls conduct amid the tinkling of stirring spoons, the glassy clink of china cups on saucers, and the hustling to and fro of jacketed waiters bearing sterling half spheres concealing scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit cups is subject to debate; the IRS hasn’t as yet received clearance to bug the linen-draped tables to find out exactly what is going on. Big Daddy breakfasts often, well, and with good company; one of his regular dining cohorts is the legendary Dallas developer Tramell Crow.
Tramell Crow needs no more introduction to Dallasites than Trump to New Yorkers; while Crow’s personal life is not nearly the grist for the rumor mill as is the Donald’s, Crow’s business dealings are certainly more successful. Tramell Crow Partners’ office buildings, shopping centers, and huge residential developments span the length and breadth of Dallas County, and while the Donald has battled Ivana, trysted with Marla, and played the bankruptcy courts like lit-up pinball machines, Crow has quietly and profitably acquired a tidy chunk of Manhattan as well. Just as J. C. Penney built his empire by establishing his original stores as a series of partnerships, Tramell Crow believes equally in doling out pieces of the action; he founded his business on the theory that people will work harder if their eventual reward comes in the form of equity ownership as well as increased income. The system has proven successful; Tramell Crow Partners numbers several millionaires among its work force. So, at breakfast one morning, Big Daddy mentioned to friend Tramell that the Dillards’ baby girl was out of Harvard and looking; Crow accommodatingly popped a business card face down on the tablecloth, scribbled his hotline phone number, and told Big Daddy to have Nancy give him a call.
Actually, Crow wasn’t being altogether charitable by offering his friend’s daughter a job. Nancy’s education credentials were, after all, on the cutting edge, and she’d been second in her class at the Harvard School of Design. Furthermore, along with all of her other attributes, Nancy was female. Being a qualified woman in the eighties—or nineties, or seventies, or at anytime within our nation’s memory—translated to cheap labor. At the age of twenty-eight, as a Harvard graduate with a master’s degree, Nancy’s beginning salary with Tramell Crow Partners was thirty thousand dollars a year.
And if Nancy was willing to work for peanuts, Richard fared even worse than his wife in the way of salary. His own Big Daddy–influenced position was as a project-manager trainee with the Rosewood Company, which is the main business interest of Caroline Hunt Schoellkopf. In addition to having a husband who is a tycoon in his own right, Mrs. Schoellkopf is the daughter of H. L. Hunt—who in his day fought it out with J. Paul Getty for bragging rights as the world’s richest man—and also is the sister of Lamar Hunt (who owns, among other things, the Kansas City Chiefs football club), and two of her other siblings, Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt, once dual-handedly turned the national silver market upside down. If nothing else, Richard’s and Nancy’s jobs put them in a position to drop a few names.
But, prestigious or not, Richard’s job paid only twenty-six thousand, and coupled with Nancy’s income gave the newlyweds a combined total of fifty-six per. Not a bad starting point for a couple with no children, but as the Dillards’ daughter and son-in-law, they had a certain standard of living to maintain. The payments to Big Daddy on their original duplex loan exceeded a thousand dollars a month, and within two years they were to add a second duplex that would double the monthly obligation. It is true that the duplexes were partially rental property, but the rents derived from the two units didn’t come anywhere near to covering the payments, and the soon-to-come recession was to make it difficult to keep the places rented at all. Additionally, as part and parcel of their social position, Richard and Nancy had to attend the right parties—and bear the accompanying expendi
ture for the proper clothing for same—drive the right cars, and participate in (and donate to) the proper charities. From the onset, from the day that Nancy and Richard went to work, it was apparent to Big Daddy that he had some subsidizing to do. Seven years later, when Richard and Nancy filed, then subsequently withdrew, their divorce petition, an inventory of their community property listed a debt to William Wooldridge Dillard Sr. of two hundred fifty thousand dollars. By any set of standards, it wasn’t hay.
If keeping Richard and Nancy’s standard of living up to snuff was to cause some runoff in Big Daddy’s resource lake, solving Bill Jr.’s problems would very nearly rupture the dam. At the time Richard and Nancy moved into their M-Street duplex, the eldest Dillard boy was at the height of his drinking and involvement in drugs. The faster the Dillard land company—which Bill Jr. and his partners had bought with a loan from Big Daddy—brought in money, the faster Bill Jr. seemed to make the money disappear. As long as business boomed, as it did in the seventies, Bill Jr.’s lack of thriftiness was a mere irritation to Big Daddy, but there were times during the real estate collapse of the eighties that bailing out his son became a near catastrophe.
So intertwined did the Dillard finances become at one point that the various trust funds which Big Daddy had set up for his children came into play. One particular rescue of Bill Jr. from the clutches of poverty required that Nancy cosign a note for her brother in the amount of $86,000. She executed the note on the Lyon kitchen table in front of her husband, and though Richard had little to say about the matter, he took precise mental notes. Richard has a very good memory, and he would one day trot out Bill Jr.’s personal and financial problems for all the world to see.