About the Douglas Newby Architecturally Significant Homes Website

Your Interest is My Passion

A huge thank you to my clients who have selected me to represent them when buying or selling a home, and to my many clients and friends who have recommended me to their friends, neighbors and associates. These generous people who have a passion for Dallas, neighborhoods, architecture and homes have, in effect, financed this website through their patronage.

Douglas Newby

The Three Purposes of DougNewby.com / Architecturally Significant Homes Website

DougNewby.com was created: to benefit the clients of Douglas Newby; to contribute philanthropically to the community; to help the business of Douglas Newby flourish. This three-pronged approach has provided an advantage and positive results to the clients of Douglas Newby who are selling a home and an advantage to the clients of Douglas Newby who are purchasing a home. DougNewby.com has philanthropically advanced the understanding and appreciation of Dallas and contributed to its positive advancement as it pertains to neighborhoods, preservation, architecture, architects, and the history and future of Dallas. DougNewby.com has also helped Douglas Newby’s real estate brokerage business to flourish, which allows increased benefits to his clients and additional underwriting of the educational aspects of DougNewby.com.

1. DougNewby.com Benefits His Clients

Douglas Newby created and crafted DougNewby.com to give his clients an advantage. When he represents a seller, he wants to ensure the seller’s home has the most local, national and international attention. It is well known that 95% of buyers first see the home they purchase on the internet. Douglas Newby focuses on his clients’ homes coming up first when a buyer searches for a home in a specific category, whether this be an architecturally significant home, a Dallas Modern home, a historic home or a home in a specific neighborhood.

In addition, since the DougNewby.com brand has an international reach and recognition, the credibility and endorsement value of Douglas Newby recommending a home is high. Large real estate companies might not come up as high in a Google search for a type of home, but more importantly when they do, the individual agents’ personal listings get buried in the hundreds of listings that a large real estate company is offering. DougNewby.com features the homes Douglas Newby is offering for sale and allows unlimited space for each of these listings to fully illuminate the home and its unrivaled attributes.

2. DougNewby.com Makes a Philanthropic Contribution

DougNewby.com was created to make a positive contribution to Dallas and to civilization. Douglas Newby has helped identify and define specific neighborhoods on this website. It allows people living inside and outside of Dallas to better understand the city. Cities are fragile. Recognizing neighborhoods helps them flourish. Architecture is our public art. The architectural landscape of Dallas attracts people to Dallas and helps retain people in Dallas rather than them moving to the fast-growing areas outside of Dallas. Architects are not really competing with each other but competing with builders who use plan books or much less resolved plans. Introducing architects on DougNewby.com and showing examples of their work generates a large number of architect-designed homes in the city which has the best collection of 20th and 21st century residential architecture in the country.

Douglas Newby has a passion for the city and a knowledge of the city which he is able to share on DougNewby.com. From his research and writings on Dallas when he earned his Master’s Degree in Public Administration from SMU, to his current writing and speaking about Dallas city policy and how it affects the fabric and future of Dallas, Douglas Newby continually works to improve Dallas. DougNewby.com provides a platform for his articles, op-eds, projects of others, and his musings on Dallas that will help Dallas move forward in the most beneficial way.

3. DougNewby.com Helps His Business as a Realtor Flourish

The success of Douglas Newby is a result of his clients that appreciate his knowledge, insights, commitment and efforts on their behalf and his contribution to Dallas. A successful business has allowed Douglas Newby to provide a more in-depth understanding of neighborhoods, preservation, architecture, architects, and the history and future of Dallas than nonprofits like Preservation Dallas or Preservation Park Cities or trade groups like the American Institute of Architects (AIA) that have to rely on a restricted budget and a turnover of interested volunteers. Douglas Newby has been able to initiate programs like the first Restoration House of the Year Award in Dallas, write the first book on Dallas neighborhoods, create the first citywide survey of architect-designed homes, and chair rezoning efforts in Old East Dallas and Deep Ellum that contributed to their revitalization. These efforts and projects were made possible by the success of Douglas Newby’s work as a Realtor.

Clients, Philanthropy and Business Emphasis are Intertwined

Douglas Newby created DougNewby.com/ArchitecturallySignificantHomes to benefit his clients, highlight and nurture neighborhoods, bring attention to good architecture, architects, and to encourage Dallas to thrive in the best possible ways. Douglas Newby continuously gives heartfelt thanks to his clients and members of the community who have supported him in these endeavors.

Philanthropic Inspiration

The origin of this website came from a philanthropic inspiration. I did not have the resources to build a museum, a bridge or a university stadium, but I felt I could contribute to Dallas in a meaningful way by creating a website. The inspiration for this website came in the mid-1990s when the internet was just moving into a more public domain. Virtually no real estate agent had a website then and the concept of sharing real estate information with the public was counterintuitive. In the 1990s Dallas still had MLS books that could not be shared even with a realtor’s client. So it really was a counterintuitive idea to share so openly information that historically would have been held in-house, especially for a very private person like me.

I first realized this when Jamiel and Adriana Akhtar, who were newly engaged, called me.  Jamiel, a young partner with HKS, said that he and Adriana wanted to meet with me to discuss representing them purchasing their first home.  They said the reason they contacted me was because I had a website and they wanted to work with someone with an internet presence.  This began a business relationship in which I helped them buy and sell a home in Northern Hills, in Turtle Creek Park, and then ultimately an estate home on one of my favorite streets in Preston Hollow where they have raised their children.

Early Publications Became Foundation for Website Initiative

Munger Place

My first experience with boosting value for a neighborhood by identifying it was with Munger Place. Munger Place was a downtrodden, forgotten, unnamed neighborhood. By burnishing its identify with its proper name, its origin, history and potential future, Munger Place began to thrive.

A Guide to the Older Neighborhoods of Dallas

Having initiated, wrote and produced A Guide to the Older Neighborhoods of Dallas, I knew there was great interest in neighborhoods, their origins and history. Also, as a real estate broker, I came to recognize that when a neighborhood has a strong identity, a formal name and specific boundaries, the homes within the neighborhood became more valuable.

SMU Press

SMU Press had agreed to publish a book, Dallas, 50 Significant Homes, that I was in the process of writing and I had an architectural photographer take all the photographs for the homes to be included. The book cover had been designed along with some of the book chapters. The funding for the book was well on its way, including a generous donation from Margaret McDermott and the McDermott Foundation. Ten years earlier, I had written and produced a book for the Historic Preservation League, A Guide to the Older Neighborhoods of Dallas. This book, published in 1986 for the Sesquicentennial, was a real success, it was number two on the Dallas non-fiction bestseller list. However, as the internet was emerging, I thought if I could publish these homes and the information about them on my website, while it may not be as prestigious as an elegant coffee table book, it could bring more attention to the homes, architecture and architects than a book.

My Architecturally Significant Homes Website Could Be the Perfect Vehicle to Identify Neighborhoods

My next thought was that the internet and my website could be a perfect vehicle to help identify the finest neighborhoods in Dallas, but I did not want to identify neighborhood areas like as it is done in MLS (Park Cities, Bluffview, Preston Hollow, Lakewood, East Dallas). Instead, I wanted to identify specific neighborhoods and even the sub-neighborhoods of each neighborhood. Here was a chance to identify small niche neighborhoods and give residents of Dallas a greater understanding of their city. Also, it would be a way for those from out of town who were considering a move to Dallas to have a quick understanding of its neighborhoods. I have always considered a neighborhood to be the foundation of what makes someone love their home. Whenever I have a client coming in from out of town, rather than quickly showing them a dozen houses, I will spend the morning or afternoon showing them a wide range of neighborhoods and the nuances of each one.

The Website Was a Good Decision

It turned out to be a good decision. The money and time I would have spent on a book beautifully designed and printed in Hong Kong would have been gorgeous and informative. If it was widely popular, it might have sold 10,000 copies in Dallas. But my bet on the internet turned out to be the better choice as, eventually, I had 20,000 unique visitors to my website every month. With every real estate fee I earned representing clients, I was able to reinvest a good portion of that in hiring architectural photographers to photograph homes and web developers to create a platform for me to write about neighborhoods, architects, homes and the history of Dallas.

The Architecturally Significant Website Became Immensely Rewarding

My efforts with and investment in the Architecturally Significant website became immensely rewarding when people I just met said they had spent much time on my website learning about Dallas. I cannot begin to tell you how many people have mentioned they found their architect or their neighborhood from my website. In the early days of the internet, architects did not even have websites and, furthermore, the past generation of architects had been taught not to advertise. I enjoyed making architects more accessible to those who desired to build a house. For people who have never used an architect before, it can be an intimidating experience to begin the process to find one. Before the internet, unless you grew up in an architect-designed home or had a friend who used an architect, how would you begin to find one, much less one you would enjoy working with and reflect your aesthetic.

Today, my effort to bring attention to the best Dallas architects and the finest specific Dallas neighborhoods continues. If one does a Google search for “Dallas architects,” my Douglas Newby Architecturally Significant Homes website comes up first in search results, even higher than the website of the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Turtle Creek Park Neighborhood

Another good example of a neighborhood where the perception changed by identifying it was Turtle Creek Park. At the time, this was another unnamed neighborhood where one of my favorite friends and clients, James Shinn, the Dallas Director of International Affairs, and his wife, Patricia, lived. They had worked in the diplomatic corps and lived in glorious cities around the world and loved this small 33-home neighborhood of hills and curving streets framed by Rock Creek, Turtle Creek and the Katy Trail. It was not in Highland Park, so the real estate community greatly discounted prices in this neighborhood. However, once Turtle Creek Park was formally identified and promoted for its natural attributes, I began selling houses in Turtle Creek Park for more money per square foot than homes of the same size in Highland Park.

Mayflower Estates Neighborhood

Another example is Mayflower Estates, a neighborhood of only about 100 houses that was only known as a neighborhood on the wrong side of Walnut Hill to be considered Preston Hollow. Thus, appraisers gave the land half the value of the estate lots south of Walnut Hill. Ten years later, after I had identified the neighborhood as Mayflower Estates and promoted the attributes of the neighborhood and the architectural significance of the homes, one acre of land in Mayflower Estates sold for more than one acre of land in the heart of the Preston Hollow estate area.

Highland Park Neighborhoods

Old Highland Park is a good example. When one does a Google search for “Old Highland Park,” my website comes up first in the search results above the website for the Township of Highland Park. In fact, when the previous Highland Park town administrator, who served for 15 years, was first hired, he told me he spent the first few months on my website learning about the neighborhoods in Highland Park. Each section and each addition of Highland Park has a distinct personality and character. Everyone knows Highland Park is one of the most beautiful towns in the country, but where, specifically, would you most enjoy living in Highland Park?

Dallas Modern Homes

When the 20th century ended, a broader interest in modern homes emerged. In the 1900s, some great modern homes were commissioned by the avant-garde of Dallas. However, there was always a certain apprehension for buyers considering buying a modern home, that they wouldn’t be able to find another buyer when the time came to sell. Again, from being a real estate broker, I realized that there was more interest in modern homes than there was confidence in buying them. I thought if buyers came to know the names and the history and the architectural significance of modern homes, they could more easily embrace and purchase these Dallas modern homes with greater confidence. My website seemed like the perfect place to do this. I created a Dallas Modern Homes section that quickly became the most popular section on my website. Now it is hard to imagine that there was ever any reluctance to buy a modern home when even spec homes are now mostly modern.

My Website, Architecturally Significant Homes, as a Business Vehicle

While the inspiration for the website was civically oriented, it quickly became apparent that an Architecturally Significant Homes website could be a powerful business source.