Lakewood

Welcome to Lakewood

Lakewood sits in East Dallas, northeast of downtown and right up against White Rock Lake. The core is roughly bounded by Mockingbird Lane to the north, Abrams Road to the west, Gaston Avenue to the south, and the lake to the east. The housing is mostly single-family, built from the early 1900s through the 1950s, with English Tudors, Spanish and Mediterranean Eclectic homes, Craftsman cottages, and early ranch houses, many in native Austin stone. Newer custom builds are mixed in on teardown lots. This is a premium market: recent reports put median prices around a million dollars and up, so the honest trade-off is cost of entry. You buy character and location, not a bargain.

Lakewood is served by Dallas ISD (Trustee District 2D), and the Lakewood feeder pattern is a big part of why families pay to be here:

• Elementary: Lakewood Elementary (K-5) is the namesake campus, but the area splits among several Woodrow-feeder elementaries depending on the address, including Mockingbird, Geneva Heights, William Lipscomb, and Mount Auburn.
• Middle: J.L. Long Middle School (6-8).
• High: Woodrow Wilson High School (9-12), which runs the IB Diploma Programme.

This is the opposite of a district that's light on green space. White Rock Lake Park wraps the eastern edge of the neighborhood, more than a thousand acres of open water, shoreline, and picnic grounds. The loop trail runs about nine miles around the lake and is the most-used trail in the Dallas park system, linking dog parks, boathouses, and Civilian Conservation Corps-era pavilions. Across the water on the far shore sits the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, 66 acres of gardens a short drive around the lake.

The signature event is the Lakewood Home Tour, run by the Lakewood Early Childhood PTA every fall since 1976 to raise money for the three neighborhood schools: Lakewood Elementary, J.L. Long, and Woodrow Wilson. The 2025 edition was the 49th, with seven homes open across a November weekend, including a 1925 Dines & Kraft house on Lakewood Boulevard that turned 100 that year. Beyond the tour, White Rock Lake carries most of the neighborhood's outdoor calendar, from paddling and cycling to weekend runs along the loop.

Daily life centers on the Lakewood Shopping Center near Abrams and Gaston. Cock & Bull has been the neighborhood pub there since 1997 (6330 Gaston Ave), and Mi Cocina anchors the Tex-Mex end just off La Vista, alongside other everyday spots and shops. The landmark you can't miss is the Lakewood Theater, a 1938 building with a 100-foot Art Deco neon tower that still marks the corner, though it's been closed as a venue since 2015 while a city landmark designation works through the process.

Lakewood started as farmland and wooded estates on the edge of Dallas in the early 1900s. Development picked up through the 1920s and 1930s, pulled along by White Rock Lake and the Lakewood Country Club, and Lakewood Boulevard filled in with mansions from that era. Two names shaped the look: the Dines & Kraft construction company, known for the brick Tudors, and architect Clifford Hutsell, known for the Mediterranean and Hollywood-style homes. The Lakewood Theater opened in 1938 as a first-run movie house, a 1,100-seat room that cost $125,000 and premiered with "Love Finds Andy Hardy." Up on Lawther Drive, overlooking the lake, stands Mt. Vernon, a scaled-up replica of George Washington's estate once owned by oilman H.L. Hunt. That mix of old money, lake frontage, and pre-war craftsmanship is still what defines the neighborhood.

Lakewood fits buyers who want a real neighborhood with mature trees, lake access, and the Woodrow feeder pattern, and who are comfortable in a market that runs seven figures. The tip we give clients: the elementary zone is not one-size-fits-all here. The Woodrow pattern pulls from several elementaries, and the assignment can change from one block to the next, so confirm the exact campus for a specific address before you get attached. Watch the age of the housing too. Many of these homes are pre-war, so budget for a serious inspection on foundation, plumbing, and electrical, and price the renovated ones against the ones that still need work.

• Dallas ISD Attendance Zone Maps — confirm your address's school assignment

• White Rock Lake Park Loop Trail (Dallas Parks) — the lake loop and park facilities

• Lakewood Home Tour (LECPTA) — the annual neighborhood home tour and school fundraiser

• Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate — local neighborhood news