Dallas has always had its share of colorful real estate entrepreneurs.
Heck, a land speculator who died in the nut house founded the whole town.
Ira P. DeLoache at the Idlewild Ball in 1962.
But few local land jockeys have ever risen to the heights of Ira Pleasant DeLoache.
Born on a North Carolina plantation, DeLoache came to Dallas in 1903 to sell cigarettes.
He married the daughter of a prominent Texas cattleman and by the 1920s was doing real estate in Big D.
In the early years he developed a few buildings in downtown Dallas and along Knox Street near Highland Park.
And in 1924 DeLoache turned one his father-in-law?s ranch properties near Lubbock into the small town of Whiteface.
But DeLoache?s lasting success was the Dallas County town of Preston Hollow.
The area on the north side of Northwest Highway is now home to some of Dallas? most affluent neighborhoods.
Back in DeLoache?s day, it started out as just farmland with few roads and almost no utilities.
DeLoache built his little country real estate office in 1926 at the corner of Preston Road and Northwest Highway and began selling two-acre lots as ?rural home sites.?
By 1939, the area had incorporated as its own separate town.
Preston Hollow lasted as a stand-alone community for only about five years before residents voted to join with the city of Dallas.
But by then Ira DeLoache was already legendary in local real estate circles.
?I remember he wore a vicuna coat and a slouch hat and was charming as he could be,? said Mary Frances Burleson, CEO of Ebby Halliday Realtors which has owned DeLoache?s old Preston Road office since 1964.
Realtor Ebby Halliday remembers seeing DeLoache at the country club.
?He played gin rummy daily in the east room,? said Halliday, who will be 102 early next year. ?He would speed up Northwest Highway and Preston Road in his convertible.?
DeLoache died in 1965 at the age of 86.
DeLoache's old home on Preston Road in Preston Hollow. (DMN archives)
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