Otto and Norma Beutel married in 1916 and moved into a home on Hood St. in Dallas. Along with Norma’s mother and brother, the household soon added a daughter, Betty G, and a son, Jack Allender Beutel. In 1928, the four members of the young family moved to 4338 Vandelia St. in Perry Heights. Otto was a sales manager for P. F. Collier & Sons Publishing Company and Norma was a soprano in a singing ensemble. The two children eventually attended North Dallas High School. While in high school, young Jack began acting in the Dallas Little Theater, a community theater.
Otto had been born and raised in Dallas. His parents, Fred and Henrietta emigrated from Germany in 1872. They lived on Masten St. (now known as Maryland Ave.) in Oak Cliff. Fred and Henrietta raised eight children with the help of a housekeeper and a cook named Earline. Fred supported his family as a barber. As a teenager, Otto worked in a shoestore.
Fred and Henrietta BeutelThe full Beutel family with Otto.
Otto and Norma lived in the house in Perry Heights until the late 1930s. Betty married and moved out and Jack headed off to Hollywood to break into the movies. The empty-nesters soon moved to a different small house on Hood St. near their first home.
In Hollywood, Jack was working as an insurance clerk while auditioning for film roles. The 5’11” dark-haired, blue-eyed actor soon met millionaire and film producer Howard Hughes. Hughes was looking for an unknown to play Billy the Kid in his new Western to be called “The Outlaw.” In 1938 Jack visited Hughes at the producer’s new offices at 7000 Romaine Street in Hollywood where Hughes signed Jack to a $150 per week contract. Jack’s agent was Gummo Marx of the Marx Brothers and couldn’t strike a better deal. Hughes insisted Jack change his name Beutel to Buetel because Hughes was concerned that people would pronounce it “beetle.” Jack returned to Dallas briefly in 1939 to marry his high school sweetheart, Cereatha Browning then returned with her to Hollywood. The movie was filmed later in 1939 along with another unknown, Jane Russell, in the leading female role.
Although filmed in 1939, the film wasn’t released until 1943. It didn’t receive a wider release until 1946. The Hollywood Code censors had made significant changes to tame the film as the movie’s “sex” scenes, especially those in the hay, shocked them. The movie turned out to be a springboard for Russell, who became a major Hollywood star. For reasons not fully known, Hughes made sure Jack’s career did not take off. Jack had signed an eleven-year contract with Hughes and Hughes used him sparingly in roles. Hughes also refused to lend Jack out to studios that wanted him. Jack, meanwhile, collected his $150 per week from Hughes (the annual equivalent of about $165,000 in 2023). With little to do in Hollywood, Jack joined the Navy for a couple of years to fight in World War II.
Over the years Jack married and divorced several times. He married Cereatha, Jill Meridith, Gloria Jean Bailey, and then finally Joann Jensen in 1962. After his contract with Hughes was over, Jack returned to the movies in 1951 with “Best of the Badmen” and four other movie westerns. He later appeared on television in 1955 as Deputy Jeff Taggart in 39 episodes of Judge Roy Bean. He did several other television projects until 1961. In his later years, Jack lived in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Joann, and his mother, Norma. Joann passed away in 1984, followed by Norma in 1986. After a lengthy illness, Jack passed away in 1989 at the age of 71.
Luby’s Cafeterias and Dallas go together like peas and carrots. While Luby’s own company history calls San Antonio the birthplace of the Company in 1945, the reality is that there were Luby’s Cafeterias all over the Dallas area for years before then. So why the disconnect? Not surprisingly, the answer lies in family dynamics.
Earl Emerson Luby was the youngest of six boys (Frank, Clyde, George, Mack, Ralph, and Earl) and four girls (Opal, Hazel, Helen, and Lola) born and raised in Matoon, Illinois by Joseph E. and Jerusa Paradise Rosanna (Rose) Luby. Joseph’s brother, Andrew, had one son, Harry, and two daughters. Harry and his sisters were very close to their first cousins.
Shortly after the turn of the last century, Harry and his wife Julia were living in Decatur, Illinois, where they owned and operated a millinery store. One day Harry found himself in Chicago eating at The Dairy Lunch, a diner. It was there he had the vision of opening lunch spots in the nation’s growing downtowns. Harry and Julia soon moved to Springfield, Missouri to open the “New England Dairy Lunch” in 1911. They opened a second location in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1914. His cousin, Earl joined him in 1919 and they soon expanded the business into Oklahoma, with a third location in Muskogee. It was the Muskogee location that first used the family name – Luby’s. It was also the first location to catch the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan didn’t like the fact that the cousins employed African American workers to cook and serve. Harry and Earl were told to fire their workers and join the Klan. The cousins didn’t share those views and decided to close the location at a loss and leave town. Next stop: Dallas.
Harry’s first cafeteriaThe first Dallas Luby’s in the Southland Ins. BldgAn interior of the first Luby’sEarl E. Luby in the 1920’sThe Farmer’s Market downtown Dallas where Luby’s managers would go to order fresh food for the week.
In 1929 Harry and Earl opened their first Dallas location downtown in the Southland Life Building on Browder St. It was called Luby’s. The cafeteria provided fresh food served in the quickest time possible in pleasant surroundings and included tablecloths and staff to fill glasses and keep the restaurant clean. Each dining room had an organ or piano. The cafeteria was a hit with the downtown crowd who usually had less than an hour to have lunch. An organist would play songs of the day while patrons ate their lunch. A locally famous organist named Miss Inez also played for a sponsored radio segment each day sponsored by Luby’s. Most of the Luby family came to work for the Dallas cafeteria and used the downtown location as a training model for the other locations soon to be opened across Dallas.
In 1925 Earl bought the home at 4327 Vandelia St. in Perry Heights and lived there with his first wife, Bulah, and her mother, Daisy Fisher. They lived in the house until the late 1930’s when the couple divorced and moved out. Earl married Marge Laughlin, who was widowed with a son, in 1941. Marge’s son, John Pat, would eventually join the family business. Marge died in 1957. Earl married a third wife, Dorothy Rose Haber, in 1958 and they remained married until his death in 1990.
By the mid-1920’s, Harry had begun selling his ownership in the business to other family members and retired early. By 1953, Earl, Joe, and George Jr. owned seven cafeterias in the Dallas market and were drafting plans to open additional Dallas locations and cafeterias in Denver. The Dallas locations included one that opened in 1951 on Lomo Alto where Whole Foods sits today. The Lomo Alto location was fully air-conditioned.
Earl’s stepson, John Pat, was asked to participate in the family business as an investor and manager of the new Lockwood Village location. In order to open more locations in Texas and Colorado, the family eventually allowed non-family owners in as franchisees at a 60/40 split.
In the early 1950’s Harry’s son, Bob, founded Cafeteria’s, Inc. in San Antonio. He did not involve any of his cousins or other family members. In 1955 Cafeteria’s Inc. opened its first location in Beaumont. He quickly opened locations throughout the country. After buying numerous existing Luby’s locations from his cousins, Bob resigned his operational control in 1971 and the company went public in 1973. Bob’s company never had the rights to the Luby’s name in Dallas so he couldn’t open any new locations in the city. Because he felt his uncle Earl and Earl’s family never treated him well, Bob never approached his uncle and cousins to purchase any of the Dallas locations owned by them.
In 1970, Wyatt’s Cafeteria made an offer to Earl and his son to buy all but three of their locations in Dallas. This brought Earl’s involvement in the family business to an end. Earl’s stepson John Pat would retain ownership of the Lockwood Village location. The Dallas locations are now owned by Wyatt’s and still operate as Luby’s.
There will never be a cafeteria as special or as integral to life in Dallas as Luby’s. Thank you, Earl.
Thank you to Lawrence P. Luby’s Book “The Untold Story of Luby’s Cafeterias” for photos and some content.
Paul and Margarita Guerrero and their six children lived in New Braunfels and all played in the family band in the late 1930’s and 1940’s. They played dance-band music and Mexican boleros as they traveled regionally around Texas. The father, Paul Sr. also played trumpet and valve trombone in many top Afro-American bands, such as Cab Calloway’s, mostly due to Jim Crow laws at the time. At that time, African American bands could only have “non-white” band members fill in when the band needed local musicians. In the late 1940’s Paul Sr. moved his family to Dallas. His namesake son, Paul Jr. started playing the drums at 10 and by 14, he took his first job outside the family band, with the Marcelino Marcelena Orchestra playing live radio broadcasts. The Guerrero children went to Sunset High School and Paul Jr. then enrolled in North Texas State University (now, the University of North Texas or UNT) working towards a teaching degree. However, before he finished he was drafted. In the Army he played in the 4th Army Band and met such jazz greats as Vic Damone, Carl Fontana, and Jack Hanna (another great jazz drummer and band leader), who became a lifelong friend. After the Army, he went back to school, but his education was interrupted again by a huge break, an invitation to tour with the great Woody Herman Band. He said yes, but not before he asked his girlfriend and schoolmate, Celeste Roberts, to marry him and travel with the band.
After two years of touring in the early 1960’s, the couple settled in the house on N. Hall St. in Perry Heights. The Guerreros remained close to Woody Herman, and he occasionally would stop in Dallas and play with Paul Jr. at the club where he would be locally famous, the Bagatelle Lounge in One Energy Place on Greenville Avenue. Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, and Brasil 66 would also stop in as they passed through town. Most nights in the 1970’s and ’80’s, The Guerrero Quintet played with a vocalist, Jeannie Maxwell. To hear, click here (Dale McFarland posted a few of these performances).
Paul Jr. later completed his education with a doctorate degree in Music. He taught at North Texas State as well as Southern Methodist University, where he developed the University’s first stage band program. He also taught at Richland College. He did all of this while still playing with such stars as Henri Mancini, Sonny & Cher, the 5th Dimension, Vikki Carr, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He wrote the jazz curriculum for the Dallas Arts Magnet School. Paul Jr. died of Leukemia in March 1989. The West Dress Circle Stairway at the Myerson Hall is named in honor of him as a professional musician, educator, friend, and promoter of young jazz players and as a mover in the Hispanic community. Richland College and UNT established scholarship endowment funds in his name. Every November 5th (his birthday) is Paul Guerrero Day in the state of Texas, County of Dallas, and City of Dallas.
His wife, Celeste, was a big personality in her own right. After Paul’s passing, Celeste moved from the house on Hall St. to a townhouse in Park Place and lived there until her death in 20121. Celeste was very involved in Perry Heights. She was a driving force in getting Herschel and Prescott streets closed off to cross traffic in the 1970’s.
To celebrate that event, Paul’s band played for the neighborhood. She also was one of the founding officers of the neighborhood association. She donated much of her time to working with undocumented families in the 1980’s and 90’s, making good use of her fluent Spanish.
Emilio’s House 4327 Hall, as it looks now.3318 Hawthorne where Celeste moved in her later years.
Paul Jr.’s brother, Emilio Guerrero lived across the street from Paul and Celeste on N. Hall St. He and his wife of 61 years, Angelina, had two daughters. Emilio, also Korean war veteran, was a well-respected businessman in his own right. For 55 years he was the owner and operator of Guerrero Barbershop on Lemmon Ave. Brownie’s Barbershop now occupies that space. Emilio passed away in 2015.
Our beautiful park, as you know, was donated to the City of Dallas by the Craddock family in 1922 when Gordon Perry platted Perry Heights. It was the first privately donated tract of land for the purpose of a public park in the City’s history. The land was just short of 10 acres and it was highly valuable. But what did Lemuel Craddock do to make all of his money? Who were the Craddocks?
Lemuel Craddock was born in Alabama in 1847, served in the Confederate army in 1864 and 1865, and moved to Dallas in 1875 where he opened a distribution business at Main and Austin Streets. He married Nanie Legg of Cleburne, Texas and had one son and two daughters.
So as we walk under the trees and breath some fresh air, which industry should we thank for this lush gift of a park? Oil, lumber, grocery stores, or maybe cotton? No, we should be thankful for liquor, specifically whiskey.
Craddocks Whiskey and Liquors was the largest direct to consumer shipper of whiskey in the South by the start of the 1900s. Craddock was well known for having the best whiskeys and Cuban cigars. Mr. Craddock was making massive amounts of money until one historical point in history arrived, Prohibition. He quickly sold off his inventory and retired to Denver, Colorado. He returned to Dallas often, including the visit he made to gift the park to the City. The one condition: it would be a public park. In 1922, the land was valued at about $90,000. Adjusting for inflation, that would be $1.6 million in today’s dollars, but it’s doubtful that it would sell for that little in today’s real estate market.
911 Elm as it looks today911 Elm with a third floor, now gone.
Mr. Craddock was a great Dallas philanthropist in many other ways. In addition to giving the parkland, he worked with other civic leaders to help establish the Texas State Fair at the current fairgrounds. He opened a theater on the second floor of his liquor business on Main Steet. The Dallas Opera used this space from 1878 to 1883. The opera house was rather primitive and only held 500 seats, yet it kept the company together to thrive and it brought international artists to the City. He was also a senior member of the Dallas Lodge of Odd Fellows, which is philanthropic club that is still active in Dallas today. He held a deep belief that he had a responsibility to improve the lives of others.
Around the turn of the century, Mr. Craddock moved the business to a larger building at 911 Elm St. This building still stands today. The name of one of the more recent owners, Milliniar’s Supply Company, is still painted on the front. Mr. Craddock’s turn-of-the-century home at Ervay and Cadiz St. has long since been torn down. After his first wife’s death, Mr. Craddock married Mattie Long in 1881 and then after he was widowed a second time he married Belle Christy Craddock. He died in 1933, three days before the repeal of Prohibition.
Mr. Craddock would be disappointed that his donated park would be threatened several times over the following 100 years. First, in 1966, the city built a tollway along the unused Cotton Belt Railway that ran behind Perry Heights and the park. Dallas North Tollway bought 91,881 square feet of the park to put in exit and entrance ramps. Dallas sold that land for $213,762. (In 1970, the City park board decided to hold some of this money, along with donations from other private businesses in a park fund totalling $200,000.)
In 1985, developer Harvey McLean had plans to build a small “city” on 41 acres near the corner of Lemmon Avenue and the Tollway that would have taken even more of Craddock Park for an additional exit ramp. Thankfully, Cay Kolb, a Perry Heights resident at the time, led the charge to have the plan rejected by the city.
The park has held many memories for nearby residents. They remember the formal rose garden from the 1940’s to the 1960’s, the baseball diamond, the playground with a merry-go-round, and the picnics. Some residents even chose to have their ashes spread in the park. It is up to our neighborhood to preserve and improve this gift of a park so future generations can enjoy this slice of nature and a place to walk and sit under the trees.
Catherine (“Cay”) and Nathaniel (“Key”) Kolb moved into the house at 4402 Rawlins in 1964 and in it raised three boys and three girls. They had met in Dallas in 1958 while Cay, who had just graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, was working as a buyer for Sanger-Harris and Key had just graduated from Texas A&M University. After receiving his Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, Key began a distinguished career with the Omniplan firm designing commercial retail, office, and university buildings nationwide and serving as the firm’s president from 1972 to 2000. Key was president of The Institute of Architects in 1979 and was active in Dallas civic affairs such as urban design, historic preservation, the arts, and the environment. Key Kolb also served on various boards such as the Urban Design Task Force, Neighborhood Conservation Alliance, Dallas Ballet, Fidelity Bank, Peacock Alley, and DART. He served as chairman of the Dallas Historical Landmark Committee, helping the West End, Cedar Springs Fire Station, and the Mobil Building achieve landmark status. One of the couple’s three sons was Franklin Dial “Bubba Kolb”, a jazz pianist, and trombonist who, from 1975 to 1981, led a jazz trio, “The Bubba Kolb Trio.”
Cay shared many of the same interests and devoted herself to civic contributions in order to preserve and protect inner-city neighborhoods and advance the quality of life for its residents. She started by joining a few others in forming the Oak Lawn Preservation Society in 1973. The Society was formed in response to increased commercial development efforts to redevelop Oak Lawn’s quiet neighborhoods, such as turning Turtle Creek Boulevard into a highway. She became a neighborhood activist and community leader fighting for responsible land use, public transportation, airport noise abatement, and zoning.
In the 1970s, several houses bordering Perry Heights on Lemmon, Cedar Springs, and below Wycliff were being demolished and replaced with strip malls, fast-food businesses, and office space. The entire area was declining with absentee landlords not keeping up their properties, and an increase in crime, drugs, and prostitution. The Kolbs knew they would have to protect Perry Heights and the surrounding area so they formed what would become the Perry Heights Neighborhood Association. Their first challenge involved a house in the 4400 block of Vandelia, owned by an absentee landlord that had inherited the property and wanted to offer the house as a transitional home for recovering addicts that would spend six months living in the house. Their group raised money for an attorney and successfully denied the owner that specific use of the home. Cay and Key also knew they need to restrict access through the neighborhood if they were going to preserve it, so they worked toward closing off three intersections on Herschel and Prescott to vehicular traffic. They were finally successful in 1975 after some opposition from outside interests and even a lawsuit brought on by other Perry Heights residents. They first began with barriers and then after the city council approved it, the neighborhood created concrete curbs with flower beds that cut off the streets to traffic. The Kolbs and 100 other neighbors celebrated with a block party while a few longtime neighbors who objected continued to complain. Later, in the 1980s, another push to cut off pedestrian traffic at those intersections was also successful, led mostly by David Wagner and other neighbors to further reduce crime in the still transitional neighborhood.
In the early 1980’s Cay also thwarted attempts by one developer to take additional land from Craddock Park to create a northbound entrance to the Dallas North Tollway and another developer to build a large-scale rental development on Lemmon.
The then-owner of the plantation-style house on the corner of Rawlins and Hawthorn was the Director of the Dallas Museum of Art at the time and was also involved in that fight. When his family left the neighborhood, he gifted his neighbors a drawing showing how much he appreciated the strength of the neighborhood association in preserving Perry Heights. One of our neighbors found it in a recent estate sale.
The gifted drawingWhat our neighborhood would likely resemble without the Kolb’s activism
Cay was involved in the Dallas Homeowners League, Love Field Citizens Action Committee to hold Love Field accountable for airplane noise, Friends of the Katy Trail, and the Oak Lawn Preservation Society. Cay spearheaded the push for the Katy Trail, starting with a petition and then pushing the new trail through the city. Cay was also behind the first tree preservation ordinances in the City of Dallas. She played a vital role in developing the master plan for Oak Lawn known as Oak Lawn Planned Development District No. 193, which was designed to protect the neighborhoods of Oak Lawn and provide limitations on new commercial development. PD 193 is still in effect today and the committee that Cay formed is upheld by the Oaklawn Committee. She was the chairperson and president through the 1980s and 1990s.
Cay was also involved in some controversies in her time.
Catherine (Cay) Kolb
She was the OLC president in 1991 when a push from the city council representative, Lori Palmer, to hold bars in her Oak Lawn district, which included many gay bars, to conform more to PD-193 by providing more parking for patrons. This caused many gay bar owners and gay rights activists to protest. Cay stated that this was not a targeted gay community issue, but unfortunately, it was taken as one. One of those bar owners was another Perry Heights resident, Howard Okon. The campaign was soon dropped. In recalling the controversy, Howard stated, “Cay was a tough cookie, but we always got along great. She had no problems with the gays.”
The Kolbs led the adoption of the Rawlins Conservation District in the early 2000s. Initially, the Kolbs and a few other neighbors wanted to preserve the character of Perry Heights by changing the zoning for the entire neighborhood into a conservation district. There was a great deal of opposition from homeowners on Hall and Vandelia streets. Those residents were concerned that they would be limited in what improvements they could make to their homes. After months of contentious meetings, the Kolbs along with supporters living on Rawlins decided to break off and make Rawlins the one street in the neighborhood protected by a conservation district. Some homeowners on Hall and Vandelia felt either abandoned by that decision or upset that a conservation district was pushed, and blamed the Kolbs. Still, the decades-long work that Cay and Key put into preserving Perry Heights as a quiet spot within Oak Lawn and establishing PD 193 has helped save Perry Heights from being transformed by developers in ways we see every day in the areas surrounding us. We continue to be a smaller, but cohesive, historic neighborhood at 100 years and counting.
Cay and Key were married for over 47 years until Key’s death in 2006. Cay passed away in 2014.
Cay Kolb deserves a collective thank you from each of us who enjoy this special neighborhood, Perry Heights. We also should feel a responsibility to preserve it and protect it for future generations.
Advertisement for Dallas Grocery Stores from 1939 in the Dallas Morning News
Perry Heights Grocery opened in 1929 just outside the neighborhood down Wycliff on the corner of Hartford boasting of their new refrigeration system. Felix Alfieri was the owner of the grocery which was a two-story building with the grocery on the ground floor and an apartment on the second. The grocery was sold to James DiCarlo in the early 1940’s. His name may sound familiar. James is the “Jimmy” of Jimmy’s Italian Grocery on Bryon Street in East Dallas.
James DiCarlo and his father bought Morningside Super Market on 2nd Avenue in Dallas as well as Perry Heights Grocery on Wycliff. Shortly thereafter in 1946, James met Marie Anna Duca and married her. James and Marie lived above the Perry Heights Grocery and started a family. She made a good meatball from her family’s recipes and James started selling them in his grocery. They kept the grocery until the 1950’s when the pair concentrated on Morningside and in 1966 opened Jimmy’s Food Store.
So, yes, there was a Perry Heights Grocery at one time and you can still find Marie’s meatballs at Jimmy’s, where the family is still running the now Italian-focused grocery.
Home of first Perry Heights resident, Mr. and Mrs. Milburn Hobson after being model home for summer campaign.
“Fighting for your neighborhood is just a part of living in this area of town,” said Wendell Patterson, incoming president of the Perry Heights Association, an Oaklawn neighborhood interested in the proposed ordinance. “If you don’t fight, you’ll wake up some morning and find you’re being bulldozed.” February 10, 1986
The proposed ordinance he was discussing would allow areas that have significant architectural or cultural attributes to become conservation districts. They would be similar to historical districts, yet not need to be as old or stately, and the restrictions on owners’ rights on what they can do with their homes would be much less rigid. Rawlins Street eventually became a conservation district that would help protect the street from future development.
There have been several times Perry Heights had to fight. Here is a quick timeline of some of the events when our Perry Heights Neighborhood Association was essential in giving us a voice.
1975– Perry Heights neighbors get three street closure barriers to traffic approved and installed. The traffic cutting through our neighborhood was so bad during the construction of the Wycliff/ Douglas split construction to the tollway entrance that neighbors had trouble crossing the street in their neighborhood. After the barriers, the traffic was cut to a quarter of what it was.
1985 – Keeping Craddock Park Intact. A developer wanted to create an extensive mixed-use project that included building a tollbooth and a northbound entrance to the tollway using more of Craddock Park. The neighborhood had to hire an attorney to prevent this from happening and eventually the project was defeated. Key and Cay Kolb along with many others in the neighborhood are credited with protecting our neighborhood and the park.
1987-91 – The same developer who was defeated foreclosed on the buildings in the planned block creating a slum that was described as a war zone, Beirut, and a drug-infested eyesore just over the tollway from Perry Heights at 4500 Cedar Springs. prostitution was also so common that the city was considering posting the names of the “johns” arrested each week.
2001– A serial arsonist had set several fires in and around Perry Heights before spreading to East Dallas. The arsonist was eventually caught and prosecuted.
2001– Perry Heights Neighborhood Association and the Oaklawn Committee defeat tearing down what was described as the last historic block in Oak Lawn along Rawlins for a townhouse complex. The defeat was only temporary. The city eventually allowed developers to take pieces of the block and built a few different townhouse complexes.
2012– Developers started an apartment project on Wycliff and Cedar Springs. The developer worked with the Oaklawn committee as well as the Perry Heights Neighborhood Association to come to some concessions on heights, access, and parking. Nancy and Howard Weinberger were essential in representing our neighborhood’s concerns to a better outcome.
As Mr. Patterson told us, there are bound to be challenging times in our neighborhood’s future. It is so important to stay involved and know our neighbors. Perry Heights is a rare, 100-year-old idea of a beautiful urban neighborhood and it will take us all to protect it and nurture it so future families can enjoy it. Please be involved in the board, committees, and events in the coming year to build a more vital Perry Heights. Make an effort to meet your neighbors and talk about how unique this lovely six-block retreat is to us.
The house was built in 1924 and almost made its 100th birthday. The house will be demolished due to fire and structural damage over the last few years and a new chapter at that address will begin. Luckily, current Perry Heights residents have purchased the lot and will be rebuilding in 2023.
However, for close to 70 years, the house was home to the Chantly’s who are best known as the owners of one of Dallas’ favorite seafood restaurants of the 1950’s and 1960’s on Lemmon Ave.
James Nicholas Chantly, the son of Nicholaos and Maria Tsantili of Terpsithea, Nafpaktos, Greece immigrated to the U.S. in 1909 when he was 17 and lived in Fort Worth, Texas with distant relatives. He worked hard and learned the restaurant business and planned to open his own restaurant. He returned to Greece to meet Vassiliki Panayotou of Patras, Greece (close to his hometown) and eventually married his young wife in Athens in 1945 and took her back to Texas. They opened Chantly’s Seafood on Lemmon Ave at Throckmorton in Dallas (where Taco Cabana stands today) which served mostly fried seafood. The restaurant was packed especially on Friday nights with patrons vying for a table. James and Vassiliki raised a family of two boys (Christos and Nicholas) and two girls (Maria and Pauline) in Perry Heights. The Chantlys were also involved members of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. The children went to T.J. Rusk and North Dallas High School with Chris on the football team and Maria on the Vikingetts drill team. The family lived in the Perry Heights home from the 1950s through 2022 when it was sold.
James bought the land and ran the restaurant from the late 1940s through the 1960’s. The restaurant had a huge second floor used for parties and groups where several special occasions in Dallas took place. James passed away in 1976 at 84 and his wife passed away in 1994 at age 85. In the years following, two of the three remaining children who inherited the home resided there. They died in 2019 and 2021, leaving only one surviving daughter who lived elsewhere in Texas to sell the home. The land where the original restaurant sat, is now a Taco Cabana and is still owned by the family.
The first photographed meeting of the Perry Heights neighbors
The Perry Estate facing Craddock Park
This photo was taken in the dining room of the neighborhood founder and resident, Gordon Perry Estate with what is believed to be the neighbors at the time. The second photo is colorized to show details of the subjects and the room.
The Perrys sold the big home and briefly lived in the house at 4327 Rawlins before moving to San Angelo. The estate has since been demolished in the 1960’s and now is the site of townhouse condominiums.
Thank you to Gordon Perry III for the family photos.
4327 Rawlins during the Perry’s residence 4327 Rawlins as it looks today
If you were lucky enough to get an invitation, your senses would be overwhelmed with garlic, lemons, and sweet oregano while listening to the chic couple talk about their adventures living all over Europe, singing in the most beautiful opera houses, and probably tennis. Plato and Dorothy Karayanis loved to entertain in their condominium at 3327 Prescott in Park Place. He came to Dallas hired by the Dallas Opera as the General Director to save it in 1977. The Opera company was at a low point financially and needed some new ideas to survive. Plato was able to increase donations tenfold and take the budget from $1.29 million for 12 performances of four operas to a budget of $9.5 million for 21 performances of five operas achieving record ticket sales with one of the highest subscription audiences in the country.
Plato was born in Pittsburg, PA. His parents were immigrants from Cyprus and Mytilene (Lesbos) and married and settled in Pittsburg. Plato was brought up bilingual and his mother made sure he knew how to cook the Greek classics. After seeing his first opera, La Boheme in high school, Plato became a member of the Pittsburg Civic Light Opera upon graduation and began training for a life in Opera. He worked his way through college studying voice and opera. One of his scholarships was to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where while learning stage directing, he met the love of his life, Dorothy Krebill.
Dorothy was a mezzo-soprano and soon after she married Plato in 1956, they went to Europe for eight years performing in opera houses in Germany and Switzerland. Dorothy and Plato then moved to San Fransico in 1964 where Plato started his management career. They joined the Metropolitan Opera National Company in 1965 where she was a leading mezzo-soprano and he was an assistant stage director and administrative assistant. Plato joined Affiliate Artists, Inc in 1967 before becoming the General Director for the fledging Dallas Opera in 1977 and staying 23 years to build it into a stunning success.
Dorothy KrebillPlato KarayanisPlato in his kitchenThe couple at one of many fetes and galas
Plato and Dorothy
Neighbors knew Plato by his bright orange BMW pulling into the complex and often washing and polishing that car on weekends. He loved tennis and regularly had tennis workouts until he was 89. He loved classical music, jazz, and hand-tailored suits. Dorothy was often compared to Mary Tyler Moore because of her beauty and her bright, dazzling smile. She loved to cook, entertain her friends, and of course, opera. Both Dorothy and Plato were also involved, neighborhood activists in Perry Heights, and often had their neighbors over for those delicious Greek feasts they both would prepare.
Plato retired in 2000, and the couple moved to Sante Fe, NM, and was active in the opera company and other arts groups there for years. Plato passed away in April of 2022 due to cancer complications and was survived by his wife of 65 years, Dorothy. The couple was known for their gracious hospitality and outgoing spirit. We should all be so lucky to have a couple like the Karayanis as neighbors, however, they give all of Dallas the gift of a world-class opera company.
