George Dahl was one of the architects who built Dallas. He certainly was the drive behind Fair Park, leading the planning and construction of 26 Art Deco-style buildings ahead of the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. He divided the park into four sub-districts, centered upon the 700-foot-long Esplanade that led to the ornate Hall of State.
The Neiman Marcus building downtown, the First National Bank building, the Statler Hilton, the old Dallas Morning News ‘Rock of Truth’ building, the News’ new digs in the old library, WFAA’s low-slung modern structure next door—all Dahl.
Which is part of why this magazine commissioned the writer David Bauer to follow the messy family saga that capped off the end of his life. His daughter, Gloria, and her husband, Ted, asked a court for guardianship of the 83-year-old architect in 1978. The Akins didn’t believe him to be competent to manage his finances and other business, and were concerned that his decision to marry the younger Joan Renfro was fueled by her manipulation. Dahl argued that his family was coming after the trust belonging to his late wife, of which he was the sole trustee.
The Akins wanted a court to remove Dahl as the trustee, which ultimately failed. A lower court affirmed the decision. Ten years ago, when we featured this piece as part of our 40 greatest stories package, my former colleague Jason Heid dialed the Dallas lawyer and judge Ted Akin, Dahl’s son-in-law.
He called the decision “one of the most tragic miscarriages of justice,” one that “changed precedent that dated back to 1750 in England.” The ruling resulted in the dissolution of the trust, and Dahl took control of its millions of dollars. Akin argued that the judges were hemmed to a Supreme Court ruling that made it “easier for plaintiff’s lawyers bringing similar suits in the future than in the true merits of the case.”
Here’s how Jason summed up the end of Dahl’s life, in the years after Bauer’s story was published: