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Commercial Real Estate

The 100 Most Expensive Homes in Dallas 2009

Our biennial look at the sweetest spreads in town finds the new names that have joined the usual silk-stocking suspects.
By D Magazine |
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The 100 Most Expensive Homes in Dallas 2009

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1 //  Cinda and Tom Hicks
$41,462,030
On the one hand, the investor and sports team magnate looks to be in trouble: he recently defaulted on $525 million in loans, he’s trying to sell off parts of the Stars and Rangers, and this month the $400 million loan he used to buy Liverpool FC comes due. On the other hand: he lives in a 28,996-square-foot house on 25 acres, and last year he used 10 million gallons of water.


2 //  Lyn and John Muse
$30,208,470
The chairman of private equity firm HM Capital Partners used to fly higher when he did deals with Hicks (No. 1) at Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. Now, according to one finance journal, he has taken the firm “back to its pre-bubble sweet-spot in the mid-market.” He gets by with 24,932 square feet on Preston Road.


3 //  Joyce and Larry Lacerte
$28,742,300
The co-founder of Lacerte Software sold his business to Intuit in 1998 for $400 million. As of last year, his house was on the market for $45 million. As of this May, he was using its 23,151 square feet and 10 full bathrooms to throw a dinner party for DSO conductor Jaap van Zweden.


4 //  H. Ross Perot
$24,816,180

Forbes says the pie-chart-loving founder of EDS and Perot Systems is No. 68 on the list of richest Americans, with $5 billion. His family’s $2.5 billion Parkcentral Global Hub hedge fund evaporated in late 2008. His spread stretches across two lots, from Strait Lane to Inwood Road.


5 //  Harlan Crow
$24,087,440

The real estate mogul and son of Trammell Crow (No. 13) financed the effort to quash the city-owned convention center hotel.


6 //  Ed Cox
$21,832,500

The oilman and investor gave his name and part of his fortune to SMU’s business school.


7 //  Roxanne and Gene Phillips
$19,800,000

His might be the most interesting CV on this list. At his website, genephillips.org, you can read about his real estate ventures in South Korea and about his successful Balkan Energy Company. For fun, though, you should google his name along with the terms “mafia” and “indicted.” He lives on 14.2 acres next door to Hicks (No. 1) and George W. Bush. 


8 //  Gerald Ford
$19,289,970

Forbes puts the banker at No. 355 on its list of richest Americans, with $1.4 billion. With Ronald Perelman, he sold Golden State Bancorp in 2002 to Citigroup for $6 billion. SMU’s football stadium bears his name. And he owns Diamond A Racing, which bred the Kentucky Derby’s eighth-place horse, Regal Ransom.


9 //  Mark Cuban
$17,603,280

Forbes says the owner of the Mavericks is worth $2.6 billion, putting him at No. 161 on the list of richest Americans. On the Internet, there are pictures of his hip-replacement scar.


10 //  Gene and Jerry Jones
$17,343,200

Forbes puts his net worth at $1.4 billion, tying the Cowboys owner with Hicks at No. 355 on its list. His Preston Road house is right down the street from Crow’s (No. 5).


11 //  Nancy and Clint Carlson
$17,245,850
According to the DMN, in 2007 the president and CIO of hedge fund firm Carlson Capital paid about $20 million for TV entrepreneur Jim Hoak’s University Park house. His spread includes two lots.


12 //  Lisa Blue
$17,224,630

The trial lawyer was married to law partner Fred Baron, who died from cancer last year. Her house, a site of many Democratic fundraisers, has its own website. Baronhousedallas.com describes the style of the 15,254-square-foot home as “English Regency sifted through American Federal.”


13 //  Margaret Crow
$15,900,000

She was married for 66 years to Trammell Crow, who died in January. He founded the Trammell Crow Co., which in his lifetime built 100 million square feet of commercial buildings and shaped the Dallas we know today.


14 //  Mary Clare and Stanford Finney
$15,724,880
The head of brokerage firm SpyGlass Trading resigned last year from the board of cancer drug maker Genitope, which was subsequently delisted from NASDAQ. Oddly, according to appraisal district records, his 14,215-square-foot home has five fireplaces but no bedrooms.


15 //  Suzanne and Patrick McGee
$15,660,300

The co-founder of private equity firm Brazos Partners (see Randall Fojtasek, No. 43) is married to Perot’s daughter (No. 4). Prior to Brazos, he was a principal at Hicks, Muse (Nos. 1 and 2).


16 //  Debbie and John Tolleson
$14,944,500

The founder of First USA (merged with Bank One) now runs Tolleson Wealth Management, whose website notes: “For parents and children alike, substantial wealth raises questions and challenges few would ever anticipate.”


17 //  Carol and Steven Aaron
$14,216,830

The CEO of refrigerated trucking company Stevens Transport runs the 32nd-largest private company in Dallas, with 2008 revenues of $574 million.


18 //  Rhonda and Troy Aikman
$14,167,250

The former Cowboys quarterback and current TV broadcaster has lived in a Highland Park home for some time that would put him at the bottom of this list. But he recently bought the adjacent house from low-income developer Brian Potashnik, ensnared in the Dallas City Hall corruption case. Are these merely two separate houses? Or do they comprise a giant Aikman compound? For now, we go with the latter.


19 //  John McReynolds
$13,319,990
The director of natural gas pipeline outfit Energy Transfer owns Chateau de Triomphe, the 73,000-square-foot Strait Lane mansion destroyed in a 2002 blaze.


20 //  Cheryl and Billy Don Henry
$13,100,000

According to appraisal district records, the CEO of commercial insurer McQueary Henry Bowles Troy does not have a wet bar in his 11,846-square-foot house.


21 //  Lisa and Kenny Troutt
$13,029,820

Forbes puts his worth at $1.3 billion, tying him for spot No. 377 on the list of richest Americans. He founded MLM firm Excel Communications in 1988 and sold it 10 years later for $3.5 billion. Half his home’s value lies in his 4.36 acres on Strait Lane.


22 //  Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones
$13,000,000

Forbes pegs him at $2 billion, putting him at No. 227 on the list of richest Americans. His Chief Oil & Gas was one of the first to drill in the Barnett Shale and sold to Devon Energy and Crosstex Energy in 2006 for $2.6 billion. In 2008, Quicksilver Resources bought more Barnett assets owned by Hillwood and Chief for $1.3 billion, netting Rees-Jones $400 million. Last year, he donated $25 million to Parkland. He bought his Turtle Creek Boulevard home from B. Edward Ewing, founder of buyout firm Ewing Management Group.


23 //  Sharon and Terry Worrell
$12,725,220

The founder of Sound Warehouse now runs Worrell Investments, a real estate investment company, and is a director of Titanium Metals Corporation and chemical company NL Industries. His servants quarters measure 2,450 square feet.


24 //  Trudy and Bob Ladd
$12,715,810

The co-founder of Duncanville’s Quality Cabinets sold out to Masco and eventually retired in 2004. The next year, he came out of retirement to become the CEO of Arlington-based Choice Homes—just in time for the mortgage meltdown.


25 //  Tracy and Richard Cheatham
$12,520,150

The publicity shy oilman worked at Hunt Oil and is now associated with Tsar Energy—if LinkedIn is to be believed, his wife Tracy owns the company. The Cheathams bought their house from Westcott Communications entrepreneur Carl Westcott and his wife Jimmy. (In 2007, the house was on the market for $16.9 million.)


26 //  Nancy Marcus
$12,328,170

The ex-wife of Marcus Cable founder Jeffrey got to keep the house. The divorce also cost Jeffrey an ambassadorship to Brussels. In 2003, four days after being sworn in to the post, he was forced to resign.


27 //  J. Baxter Brinkmann
$12,197,430

The founder of Brinkmann Corp., maker of outdoor grills and many other consumer products, is a large Frisco landowner. His spread includes two lots off Jourdan Way, and it overlooks a pond.


28 //  Phil Romano
$12,078,940

Though he’s known as a restaurateur (Fuddrucker’s, Macaroni Grill, Eatzi’s, etc.), he made his first fortune by investing in a heart stint invention. His appraisal jumped $4 million, perhaps because he has his Strait Lane home on the market for $17.5 million.


29 //  Henrietta Schultz
$12,072,660

The 93-year-old is associated with Dallas-based oil and gas firm Schultz Companies. Her Park Lane home is 14 years younger than she is.


30 //  Myrna and Robert Schlegel
$12,029,250

The Canadian native and CEO of concrete landscape brick maker Pavestone can’t be pleased with his higher appraisal, especially considering that the FTC earlier this year kiboshed the planned $540 million sale of his company. The 19,223-square-foot house sits on 4.3 acres.


31 //  Amy and Malone Mitchell
$11,772,430
The chairman of Alberta-based oil and gas explorer TransAtlantic Petroleum Corporation bought Lamar Hunt’s house. Last summer, he donated $57 million to Oklahoma State University.


32 //  Laurence Lebowitz
$11,764,430

The chairman of hedge fund firm HBK and his wife Naomi live in a 12,057-square-foot home on Strait Lane.


33 //  Audrey and Erich Spangenberg
$11,548,500


Erich Spangenberg made his money the old-fashioned way: he sued the hell out of anyone within reach. Erich made his bones wringing money from patent portfolios, suing anyone remotely connected to the patents he bought and by forging licensing deals under the threat of lawsuit.

Audrey runs a firm called Acclaim Financial Group, which owns a small money-losing software company called FirePond. But Acclaim also owns a patent holding company that used to be named Plutus, after the Greek god of wealth, but which last year changed its name to TechDev Holdings. That’s where the action is.

In the business, they are called “patent trolls.” They buy patent rights but don’t actually use the technology—they just sue others who do. The Spangenbergs run a thicket of shell companies like TechDev out of the small town of Marshall, Texas. In the last five years, those companies have filed scores of patent suits against hundreds of companies. Most of their suits are filed in the Eastern District of Texas, to which Marshall belongs. The venue is considered friendly to patent plaintiffs. As one example of the Spangenbergs’ legal wranglings, they are both currently suing Google—he for patent infringement, she for trademark infringement. Court records show that the Spangenbergs have scored more than $72 million in such suits since October 2007 (not including a $34 million verdict they won in a 2007 trial against Hyundai but which is on appeal).

Not that it’s been all good for the Spangenbergs. After Erich won a big settlement from DailmerChrysler with the condition he not sue again, one of his shell corporations did just that. DailmerChrysler hit back hard and got a $4 million ruling against him.

When she’s not in court, Audrey is active in Dallas philanthropic work, running the Spangenberg Family Foundation, which works for the benefit of children’s education and medical research.

The couple bought their home from Altsys founder Kevin Crowder.

34 //  Elaine and Trevor Pearlman
$11,603,420

The toxic tort lawyer founded private equity firm Tregan Partners, then launched Las Vegas development company Edge Group, which bought the Bourbon Street hotel in 2004 and sold it to Harrah’s a year later for $40 million profit. In 2007, Edge cancelled its planned W Las Vegas Hotel.


35 //  Al Hill Jr.
$11,596,340

The grandson of H.L. Hunt (see Amend, No. 55) is a former tennis ace and dater of Bond girls. A well-publicized lawsuit filed against him and other Hunt family members by his son Al Hill III did not stop the sale of Hunt Petroleum last year to XTO Energy for $4.2 billion.


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illustrations by Michael Witte
36 //  Thomas Dundon
$11,384,440
Tom Dundon and his wife didn’t set out to build one of the most remarkable homes in Dallas. They really just wanted a great place for their growing family to enjoy. They wanted a place the kids would want to invite other kids over to, so they would get more time with them. That’s what they told Mark Molthan, the designer who built their previous two homes when they looked at the raw land that constituted their little plot.

Molthan took that cue and ran with it, building less a home than a vacation resort. It features the following: a swim park, indoor-outdoor tennis courts, a baseball infield, a dance studio, an automated batting cage (one of their youngest boys was hitting whiffle balls over the fence at their previous home by the time he was 4), a putting green, a go-cart track, a gym, and an indoor and outdoor slide from the second to the first floor. There’s also a stocked lake.

“Mark just did an incredible job, on time and within the budget,” Dundon says. “We didn’t plan on this being so prominent from Northwest Highway. When we saw the frame up in the winter when the trees were bare, we realized how big it looked from the street, and we said, ‘Oh, crap.’ We’re working on growing in the landscaping so it won’t stand out so much.”

Dundon made his money building and then selling Drive Financial Services, a sub-prime auto loan company that was acquired by Banco Santander Central Hispano SA for $636 million in cash in late 2006. Dundon is still an executive officer with the company.


37 //  Kanika and Vinay Jain
$10,948,370

The Baylor doctor is an authority on malignant lymphomas and founded CURE magazine, with a circulation of 425,000, and Physicians’ Education Resource, the country’s leading oncology education company.


38 //  Tavia and Clark Hunt
$10,716,360

The chairman of Hunt Sports Group (K.C. Chiefs, FC Dallas) is the grandson of H.L. Hunt (see Amend, No. 55) and son of Lamar Hunt (see Mitchell No. 31). Barrett Wissman, his partner in hedge fund firm HFV Management, pled guilty in April to felony securities fraud and agreed to pay a $12 million fine. His wife Tavia was Miss Kansas ’93. The couple’s estate sits on two lots in Highland Park.


39 //  Marianne Plancke and Issam Karanouh
$10,639,240

The couple operates Plano-based Intermandeco, one of the largest residential developers in the area. Their estate climbs the list because the appraisal jumped and because we’ve accounted for their two lots, which total 4 acres on Strait Lane. Their 12,984-square-foot Italian villa has a 3,423-square-foot garage.


40 //  Dee and Charles Wyly
$10,638,850

He made billions in computers with brother Sam (whose $6.5 million house misses the cut) and founded craft store Michaels. In Senate hearings last summer, the brothers drew fire for their creative use of offshore tax shelters. Perhaps some of the savings made possible the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre.


41 //  Rita and Bill Clements
$10,587,310

The former governor of Texas made his money in oil, founding SEDCO, which was at the time the world’s largest offshore driller. George Bayoud, one of his former secretaries of state, told the Austin American-Statesman in May that the 92-year-old Clements is spry and still driving. His two lots on Turtle Creek Boulevard abut Frank Branson’s estate (No. 83).


42 //  Leanne and Richard Malouf
$10,478,750
The head of All Smiles Dental and Orthodontics opened a clinic last year in a Carnival grocery store. He bought his Strait Lane home from Comer Cottrell, founder of Pro-Line ethnic hair products.


43 //  Ola and Randall Fojtasek
$10,372,470

The former Hicks Muser (see No. 1) co-founded private equity firm Brazos Partners (see McGee, No. 15). He bought his home in 2007 and has seen its appraisal jump more than $4 million since. His father Joe Fojtasek, founder of window and door manufacturer Fojtasek Companies, lives next door to Shlomo Sam Finn (No. 90).


44 //  Amanda and Brint Ryan
$10,325,920

The founder of tax services firm Ryan spent a lot of money to lose the May Dallas City Council election in District 13 to Ann Margolin. He owns a Lamborghini Gallardo and has racked up a number of speeding tickets. The Ryans made the list by building a new house.

45 //  Elysiann and Michael Bishop
$10,298,960

The founder of Lewisville-based cosmetics company Active Organics runs it with his wife Elysiann and lives in the only Frank Lloyd Wright home built in Dallas (and the last home built before Wright’s death).


46 //  Joe Garza
$9,664,010

The bond lawyer is a name partner of Garza & Harris, a small but busy firm that does work for the state of Texas (among others). He bought the house on Beverly in 2004 for $9.6 million from Mark Bunting, the two wound up in a protracted legal battle over the sale, and Bunting moved into a house just one block away.


47 //  Candice and Robert Haas
$9,987,170

He started with Hicks & Haas (see Hicks, No. 1) and made millions merging Dr Pepper with Seven Up and selling the combo to Cadbury Schweppes. He now runs another buyout firm, Haas Wheat & Partners. He has also published books of aerial wildlife photography, including several with National Geographic. 


48 //  Richard Bass
$9,981,280

The oilman (not related to the Fort Worth Bass clan) was the first to climb the highest mountains on seven continents. He and Herbert Hunt (uncle of Al Hill Jr., No. 35; brother of Lamar Hunt) run controversial PacRim Coal, which is working to develop Alaska’s largest coal strip mine.


49 //  James Beckett III
$9,813,420

The one-time statistics professor founded baseball card empire Beckett Publications, which he sold in 2005 for $20 million, as estimated by the New York Times. Last year he bought a newly constructed home on Preston Road.

50 //  Mary and Albert Huddleston
$9,547,600

The granddaughter of H.L. Hunt and daughter of Nelson Bunker Hunt is married to the CEO of Hyperion Energy, which has plans to build a controversial $10 billion oil refinery in South Dakota.


51 //  Berry Cox
$9,468,770

The son of oilman Ed (No. 6) married Jeanne, daughter of late Senator John Tower. He was a director of Home Depot until his 2005 retirement.


52 //  Judy and Thomas Neuhoff
$9,664,390

His family once ran the largest independent meatpacker in the Southwest, Neuhoff Bros., then Neuhoff Oil and Gas. The couple lives in an 8,331-square-foot home on Armstrong Avenue in Highland Park.


53 //  Tandy and Lee Roy Mitchell
$9,538,340

The founder and chairman of Cinemark USA lives in a 14,341-square-foot Preston Hollow home with 21-seat movie theater.


54 //  James Dondero
$9,491,230

Co-founder of Highland Capital Management suffered massive losses last year and had to shutter two funds, prompting a lawsuit filed by UBS that claimed $745 million in losses. He’s a big-game hunter and once told the DMN: “Giraffe makes very tasty jerky.” Not only does he own this house, but he owns another on the list, No. 97. (Bordeaux, $7,374,240)


55 //  Teresa and John Amend
$9,478,400

The head of real estate firm Amend Group lives in the old H.L. Hunt Mount Vernon estate on White Rock Lake. The home, with a 16-car garage and a bowling alley, was briefly on the market last year for a rumored $50 million.


56 //  Lucy and Henry Billingsley
$9,475,760

She is the only daughter of Trammell Crow (No. 13). She and her husband run the Billingsley Company (One Arts Plaza, etc.).


57 //  Carol and Jeffrey Heller
$9,472,220

The former vice chairman of EDS is now a director of Austin-based paper products firm Temple-Inland and of insurer Mutual of Omaha. He lives in a 9,480-square-foot home on Lakeside Drive.


58 //  H. Doug Barnes
$9,460,500

The founder of eyeglass retailer Eyemart Express built a 20,649-square-foot house (not including 6,389 square feet of enclosed patio) that backs up to Robert Haas’ property (No. 47). He took a liking to the walls with windows in them at the Nasher Sculpture Center and had one built at his house, too, to the consternation of the ducks that use his pond.


59 //  Denise and Larry Wolford
$9,443,700
The Baylor craniofacial surgeon implanted a titanium prosthetic jaw in jazz singer Megan Birdsall in 2007. He lives with his wife in a South Florida-style pad on Lakeside Drive.


60 //  Timothy Eller
$9,388,790

The chairman and CEO of homebuilder Centex earned a total compensation of $13.2 million in 2008. This year Centex merged with Pulte to become the country’s largest homebuilder. Together, the two companies lost about $916 million in the first quarter.


61 //  Fay and Newt Walker
$9,214,260

The real estate broker enjoys not one but two wet bars in his 9,094-square-foot Lakeside Drive home.


62 //  Marion and James Moore
$9,095,990
The president of Moore Diversified Services, a senior-living consulting firm, is also an author. His latest book is Assisted Living Strategies for Changing Markets. His 15,016-square-foot Preston Hollow home with three wet bars looks like a good place to retire.


63 //   Ann and Cary Maguire
$9,062,710

The chairman and president of Maguire Oil Co. is a self-taught painter and sculptor, and the founder of the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility at SMU. For his 80th birthday party last summer, he built a glass pavilion over his Park Lane backyard so that it could be air conditioned.


64 //  Judith and Stephen McCarthy
$8,815,180

The 71-year-old Stephen McCarthy Jr. remains a mystery to us. But his wife Judith we have pegged: every year she hosts a National Scrapbook Day gathering at her home, which has an 1,170-square-foot converted attic—perhaps for all those scrapbooks, eh?


65 //   Mary and Donald Huffines
$8,775,640

The co-owner of residential developer Huffines Communities flew a huge Ron Paul banner outside his Highland Park home, a pink granite “modern Richardsonian Romanesque masterpiece” called Coram Deo that is on the market for $10 million.


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illustrations by Michael Witte
66 //  Cathy and Ralph Oats
$8,769,700

After two decades of driving a truck, ralph oats had had enough of the daily grind, of barely getting by. So in 1984, facing college tuition on a single income of $38,000, the Nashville-born high school dropout and his wife threw caution to the wind, and Cathy started selling water filters through a multilevel marketing plan. The goal was to earn a little extra cash, but within a year they projected an income from her part-time MLM work to exceed his full-time income. Ralph quit driving and joined his wife, building up a network of sellers.

By 1992, the Oatses had something like 687,000 distributors selling more than $1 billion worth of product. The two retired to Florida in 1990, but the downtime bored them, so they set up their own multilevel marketing company, Wellness International Network, which focuses on meeting the vanity desires of Baby Boomers with products promising better health and youthful energy. They hooked high-profile sports celebrities to endorse their products and their MLM line, and offered the usual MLM promises of expensive cars, cruises, mansions, and bling to those distributors who were top sellers.

The Oatses will tell you—repeatedly—that theirs is a classic Horatio Alger story. But their fairy tale has a dark subplot. There’s been no shortage of controversy over the Wellness International Network’s aggressive marketing of ephedra-based products back in the late 1990s and early 2000s before ephedra was outlawed, and a dozen lawsuits filed by two score distributors who alleged deceptive business practices, fraud, breach of contract, and RICO violations, according to a report in Money magazine. More than a dozen of the lawsuits were settled out of court with confidential terms.

Still, under the Oatses’ guidance, Wellness International Network has gone, well, international, and it’s a long way from their humble beginnings. Lawsuits or not, from their corporate headquarters in Plano’s Legacy Park, WIN is considered a leader in the MLM world and has a corporate longevity that escapes most MLM business models.

67 //  Kathy and James Tucker
$8,684,420

The plaintiff’s lawyer has a house on Strait Lane next to Richard Malouf (No. 42). It’s on the market for $7.95 million and is described as a columned mansion “inspired by an historic 19th-century Louisiana plantation.” It was built in 2006 and has three stories with an elevator.


68 //  Sherry and Brooks Reed
$8,668,280

Chairman of Bestway Rent-to-Own is also the CEO of Palm Beach Tan. In 2003, the couple temporarily put their house on the market for $13.75 million. It’s on Turtle Creek and has two elevators, a stone bridge, a boathouse, a watchtower, and a soccer field.


69 //  Nancy and Clay Mulford
$8,626,080

The daughter of Ross Perot (No. 4) is married to a former partner at the Jones Day law firm. He’s now the CEO of Tom Luce’s nonprofit National Math and Science Initiative. The couple’s estate abuts those of Clint Carlson
(No. 11).


70 //   Martha and Donald Miller
$8,478,690

The daughter of Charles Wyly (No. 40) is married to investor Donald. Their property is dwarfed by neighbor the Finneys’ spread (No. 14).


71 //  Deborah and Royal Carson
$8,472,040

The founder of Carson Petroleum sold to Devon Energy in 1982 is now the chairman of Carson Private Capital and an advisory board member of HM Capital (see John Muse, No. 2). His home sits between Henrietta Schultz’s (No. 29) and Lee Trevino’s (No. 78) on Park Lane.


72 //  Mitzi and Jim Lucas
$8,366,190

It appears that last year a mysterious couple from California bought First Broadcasting CEO Ronald Unkefer’s house on Lakeside. At one point, it was on the market for $15 million. The house was built in 1918 but taken down to the studs and rebuilt over a three-year period, starting in 2000.


73 //  Michelle and G. Houston Hall
$8,316,300
According to appraisal district records, the money manger for the Falcon Fund lives in an 11,102-square-foot home that was built in 2003 and is in “excellent” condition.


74 //  Vicki and Doug Rippeto
$8,312,800

The president and CEO of South Carolina-based real estate firm Compass Group also maintains homes in Hilton Head and Beaver Creek. Over his fence, he can see the enormous spread of Larry Lacerte (No. 3). His appraisal has skyrocketed.


75 //  Marilyn and William Oates
$8,311,160
The founder of business services provider Global360 sold his firm in 2006 for $200 million. Besides this Lakeside Drive estate, the Oateses bought a pad on Beverly last year (valued at $5.8 million) and a cottage on Dartmouth in 2007 (valued at $1.6 million).


76 //  Jerry Freeman
$8,296,540

Just as the car business is going into the tank, the owner of the Freeman auto dealerships saw his appraisal leap almost $2 million from 2007.

77 //  Gladys Carr
$8,205,590

The 90-year-old CEO of auto parts wholesaler W. Plack Carr Co. likes to donate money to Republicans. Her house on Forest Lane might be the most singular on this list. It was built in 1966 and is 5,234 square feet—but it sits on nearly 9 acres.


78 //  Claudia and Lee Trevino
$8,194,300

The famed golfer, nicknamed the Merry Mex, told the DMN in May that he could help Tiger’s game by teaching him to hit a power fade. He lives next door to Royal Carson (No. 71) on
Park Lane.


79 //  Aileen and Jack Pratt
$8,159,140

The founder of Hollywood Casinos is now the head of the Texas Gaming Association, which failed this spring to get legislation passed that would have brought casinos to Texas. He is a hero.


80 //  Randall Van Wolfswinkel
$8,140,030

Last year, Builder magazine ranked his First Texas Homes as the 36th-largest homebuilder in the country. Appropriately enough, he bought his house in 2007 from Timothy Eller
(No. 60).


81 //  Roberta and Dick Snyder
$8,035,410

The founder of HVAC manufacturer SnyderGeneral Corporation sold in 1994 for more than $400 million and now runs private equity firm SnyderCapital. He lives in the remodeled former Park Lane home of Ted Strauss.


82 //  Emmanuel Ubinas-Brache
$8,028,800

The plastic surgeon specializes in hand surgeries and lives on Lakeside Drive next door to Newt Walker (No. 61)—for now. The house is on the market for $9.5 million.


83 //  Debbie and Frank Branson
$8,007,330
The personal injury lawyers run a high-profile eponymous firm and live next door to Bill Clements (No. 41) on Turtle Creek Boulevard.


84 //  Terry and Robert Rowling
$8,000,000

Probably the wealthiest man in Dallas, Rowling is worth $6.2 billion according to Forbes, putting him at No. 55 on their list. His father founded Tana Oil & Gas, which they merged with Texaco (now Chevron) in 1989 for $480 million in cash and stock. He bought Omni Hotels in 1996 for $500 million. He also owns Gold’s Gym. For a man of vast wealth, he lives in a comparatively modest 10,838-square-foot home on Beverly Drive.


85 //  John Carona
$7,971,170

The senator’s official page on the Texas Senate site says, “Senator Carona has been a resident of East Dallas since early childhood.” Except in 2007 he bought this 12,014-square-foot house with three wet bars on Deloache Avenue, and Deloache doesn’t run through East Dallas.


86 //  Deedie and Rusty Rose
$7,891,590

The founder of the Cardinal Investment Company and onetime Rangers co-owner earned the nickname “The Mortician” for finding overvalued stocks and shorting them. His secluded home sits between the two Crow estates (Harlan and Trammell, Nos. 5 and 13). His home has a tar and gravel roof, which sometimes can cause maintenance issues. IJS.


87 //  Diane Gibby and Rod Rohrich
$7,835,580

He’s the chair of the plastic surgery department at UT Southwestern. She, too, is a plastic surgeon and started the Women’s Center for Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery at Medical City. The appraisal on their 20,538-square-foot home jumped about $2.1 million.


88 //  Carolyn and Ronald McCutchin
$7,814,770

The publicity-shy inheritor of oil money is an investor associated with RLMC Inc., which controls a Honolulu-based women’s apparel concern called Step-N-Up. His home’s appraisal jumped about $2.3 million from 2007.
 

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illustrations by Michael Witte
89 //  Karen and William Seanor
$7,800,540

If it seems incongruous that a man running a plastics company with just $5 million in annual sales owns an $8 million home, you have to remember that William Seanor’s Overwraps Packing is his post-retirement enterprise, and the man has for years followed the advice that Dustin Hoffman’s character didn’t in The Graduate. At 67, Seanor has more than 43 years in the plastics business, from the United States to Europe. He started at 24 with Mobil and moved on to build Vanguard Plastics, which had plants all over the country and produced carry-out retail sacks. You know when you’re buying groceries and they ask, “Paper or plastic?” That second choice was his company’s product. Four years ago, he sold the 850-employee company for a bundle, retired, and quickly got bored. That’s when he found Overwraps, bought it up, and went back to work.

Seanor wouldn’t call it a hobby. He’s serious about growing the company that currently has only a fraction of the massive plastic wrapping industry. But he does joke that “it keeps him off the streets.” Just how massive an industry is plastic overwrapping? Think of pretty much everything you buy from the shelves in a grocery store that’s not in a cardboard box. It’s a $25 billion annual business.

“We provide flexible packaging for everything from salty snacks to dried fruits and nuts,” Seanor says. “We’re a small player in the business now, just 60 employees, but we’re looking ahead.”


90 //  Margaret and Shlomo Sam Finn
$7,761,010

The neurosurgeon recently had his home on the market for $12.95 million and then lowered it by $3 million but still couldn’t sell.


91 //  Tiffany and Mike Mullen
$7,748,470

The oilman famously went hunting for a wife on Oprah in 1998 and is now married to his third. His property abuts Mark Cuban’s enormous Preston Hollow estate (No. 9).


92 //  Joni and Michael McCoy
$7,630,000

He did gas deals with Jerry Jones (No. 10) under Arkoma and was a minority owner of the Cowboys. Joni once told the DMN that her wardrobe was 99 percent Escada. The couple lives across the street from Richard Strauss (No. 96).


93 //  Norma and Harry Longwell
$7,619,850

In the 1930s well-known architect Charles Dilbeck built a 3,600-square-foot house on this property. It was torn down in the mid-’90s, and now former Exxon executive vice-president Longwell lives in an 11,976-square-foot home on Park Lane.


94 //  Jim Graves
$7,500,000
The CV: managing director and partner of Erwin, Graves & Associates, a management consulting firm; director of private equity fund BankCap Partners; VP of financial services technology company Financial Strategy; and a partner in Haverfield Homes, which built his 15,402-square-foot Deloache home. It’s on the market for $6.9 million and is described as being “constructed on a grand scale, yet conveys a rare sense of intimacy throughout its living spaces.”


95 //  Scott Ginsburg
$7,451,900

The CEO of electronic advertising firm DG FastChannel founded car dealer Boardwalk. In 1994, the SEC busted him for violating insider trading laws while he was the CEO of Evergreen Media, and he was fined $1 million. In 2003, his Park Lane house was appraised at $10 million. Then a fire, aided by locked gates that prevented access by firemen, destroyed it.


96 //  Diana and Richard Strauss
$7,451,440

The CEO of real estate developer Republic Property Group gives a lot to charity and lives on Park Lane across the street from the McCoys (No. 92) and next door to the Longwells (No. 93).


97 //  James Dondero
$7,374,240

See No. 54.


98 //  Dorothea Kelley
$7,358,120

The 103-year-old former violist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra helped start the Dallas Chamber Music Society, of which she is still the artistic director. Her husband Bartram, a pioneering helicopter engineer with Bell Aircraft, died in 1998. The modernist home overlooks Hackberry Creek and has a two-story music room that accommodates two grand pianos.


99 //  Trea and Richard Yip
$7,304,990

The Yips started the U.S. division of porcelain importer Oriental Accent. Trea’s great-grandfather started the business in Beijing, China, in 1880.


100 //  Marcy and Stephen Sands
$7,275,420

The director of Rosewood Corp. (the Mansion on Turtle Creek) is fortunate enough to have Caroline Rose Hunt, daughter of H.L., for his mother. The couple lives on Beverly.

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