An ivory stucco home with a carved limestone entry, dark oak door, paired windows and clipped yaupon hollies beside stone steps.

The Lakewood Home Tour Turns 50, and Its Guest List Has Always Been the Houses

A PTA in East Dallas once ran a children's book fair that former Lakewood PTA president Cathey Hundley later called "pitiful." According to a 2016 Advocate retrospective, the PTA had been toying with the idea of a home tour, and that book fair in 1976 settled it. Hundley told the Advocate that the first year they "were off like a herd of turtles." They still persuaded five households to open their doors. PTA members served as docents, each with a memorized script for the room they covered, even though many of them "didn't know a Hutsell from a Dilbeck." The tour raised $200.

On Saturday, Nov. 7 and Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026, the Lakewood Early Childhood PTA holds the 50th Annual Lakewood Home Tour. For five decades it has put Lakewood's houses in front of the public, and taken together, those houses show how the neighborhood keeps, adapts and rebuilds what it has. This year's eight stops are the newest chapter, and they run from a 1929 estate to a new build.

From $200 to a Six-Figure Weekend

The first tour paid for Lakewood Elementary. Gail Roden, who helped lead it and later served as PTA director of finance, told the Advocate it started in the '70s as a way to raise money for the school. It now supports the Dallas ISD schools in the Woodrow Wilson feeder pattern, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The growth since then is easiest to see in the numbers. A 2014 Advocate feature reported that the previous year's festival raised more than $140,000. By then the weekend had grown into a home tour, an auction party, a holiday market and café, and a Candlelight tour, staffed by more than 400 volunteers. A longtime volunteer told the magazine the board had grown from about 20 people to more than 70. The houses on the route are what took it from five homes and $200 to that scale.

Every year the tour has needed homeowners willing to let ticket holders walk through their rooms. That makes its archive a record of which Lakewood houses got preserved, which got opened up and which got replaced.

What the Docents Have Been Pointing At

Roden summed up the tour's founding instinct in a single line to the Advocate: "I think that's what's so unique about Lakewood, is the people try to keep their homes as much like they were when they were first built."

The past lineups back that up, and they also show the habit stretching to fit newer houses:

2014: 6820 Avalon, a 1937 Charles Dilbeck house known as "Crabapple Cottage." Its French farmhouse design was repaired, upgraded and expanded.
2016, the 40th tour: 6624 Lakewood Boulevard, a 1929 English Tudor.
2025: 6635 Lakewood Boulevard, a 1925 Spanish Eclectic by Dines & Kraft. It kept its stained glass, a Rookwood fireplace and its original floor plan, and its high-ceilinged garage was converted into a guesthouse.
2025: 6927 Delrose Drive, built in 1975 by one of Dallas' first female builders and later reworked into a French contemporary residence.
2025: 6801 La Vista Drive, a new build designed by Richard Drummond Davis.

The 2025 lineup, as reported by PaperCity, put a 1920s house with its original plan intact, a 1970s house that had been reinvented, and a brand-new house on one route. The 2026 tour carries that pattern further.

This Year's Eight, Oldest to Newest

LECPTA revealed the full 2026 list in a video posted Sept. 25. Most of the descriptions are short, so the table below sticks to what the reveal and press coverage actually say.

Stop	What's been shared	Open
7030 Tokalon Drive	1929 French Eclectic, built by original owner Lester Lacy	Both days
6645 Country Club Drive, as listed in LECPTA's reveal	Spanish Colonial, nearly a century old	Both days
600 North Brookside	Nearly a century old, freshly updated	Both days
7210 Brennans	Traditional home with light-filled interiors, a parlor and a zero-edge pool	Both days
6823 Bob-O-Link	Stylish and relaxed, with a private den off the primary suite	Both days
7140 Wildbriar	Modern home with the owner's private DJ room	Both days
7059 Pasadena	New build	Saturday only
6819 Avalon	More than 7,000 square feet, designed by Collins Interiors	Sunday only

At least three of the eight are close to a century old, and at least two are modern or new. Twelve years after the Dilbeck cottage at 6820 Avalon was on the tour, the route returns to the 6800 block of Avalon for a house of a very different scale.

The Dallas Morning News describes the group as eight architecturally significant homes, and it names one address as "Country Club Circle." LECPTA's reveal gives the street as Country Club Drive. Check the guidebook that comes with your ticket before you drive there.

The House on Tokalon Points Back to the High School

The headline stop is the one that ties the tour back to its purpose. According to the PTA's press release, reported by the Advocate in August, 7030 Tokalon Drive was built in 1929 by its original owner, Lester Lacy, whose firm built Central Expressway, Woodrow Wilson High School and parts of Love Field Airport.

So the house leading the 50th tour was built by the man who built the high school the tour now raises money for. Every ticket sold to walk through Lacy's house goes to the feeder pattern that ends at his building.

The house itself shows the same mix the tour has been documenting for decades. The release describes formal rooms, intricate millwork and restored bathrooms alongside salvaged materials and a new chef's kitchen with a bar enclave. Outside there is a resort-style pool, formal gardens, a newly built guest house, a tennis court and a greenhouse. The Morning News adds that the estate sits on an acre of towering trees. Tour chair Whitney Huffman told the Morning News that the tour is "a tradition that has brought our community together for five decades, all while supporting the schools and families that make Lakewood such a special place to live."

Planning the Weekend Around Two Single-Day Houses

The split schedule is what matters most for planning this year. If you plan to see all eight stops, you'll need to go on both days.

Saturday, Nov. 7, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is the only day to see the new build at 7059 Pasadena.
Sunday, Nov. 8, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is the only day to see 6819 Avalon.
Tickets. The official LECPTA page lists the daytime weekend pass at $50, and that one pass covers both days. The Advocate reported a total of $57.95 once fees are added. A guidebook comes with every ticket. You can buy passes on the tour's ticketing site.
Candlelight. The Saturday evening tour runs 7 to 9:30 p.m. and includes food and wine, but as of LECPTA's current page every tier is sold out. That includes the $65 standard ticket, the $100 VIP ticket and the $2,500 full-bus buyout.
Getting around. The official tour materials don't include a parking plan for daytime visitors. Standard Candlelight guests arrange their own transportation, and only VIP ticket holders get a shuttle.

Fifth Third Bank is the presenting sponsor and Sewell Automotive is the exclusive automotive sponsor, according to the tour's ticketing page. In August the PTA said more "special activations" for the anniversary would be announced. So far, the published extras are the reveal video, the Candlelight program and a Sewell driver-experience raffle.

The docent tradition from 1976 is still going, too. LECPTA is recruiting volunteers through its home tour page, for anyone who wants to spend a shift inside one of these houses.

In one weekend, the tour lets you see how a 1920s Lakewood house was kept and how a new one was designed. If touring Tokalon or Pasadena raises questions about your own house, such as what to restore, what to update and what it might be worth, The Blackman Group is glad to talk through it. Request a complimentary neighborhood consultation, and we'll compare notes on the houses you saw.