Authentic Person
Dale Sellers’ Phoenix 1 Breathes New Life Into Texas Icons
by David Preziosi
Historic preservation and restoration work can be a very challenging business. Thankfully, Texas has Phoenix 1 Restoration and Construction Ltd. which has become the premiere construction company for preservation projects of all sizes. Dale Sellers started the company in 1999 based on his passion for historic buildings and the notion that restoration and preservation play an important role in our cultural heritage and the entire built environment. He says, “we learn from the past and our history and that it is important that new generations and those moving to Texas can experience the places that are a part of that history.” Phoenix 1 has worked on a lot of those historic places, 500 to be exact, with everything from an 1847 one-room log cabin to the State Capitol, twice.
Sellers has had quite a ride to get where he is today. He left high school to join the US Navy’s Nuclear Submarine program in 1974 and after leaving the Navy, started the first Phoenix Restoration in 1981. He had 70 employees before the 1980s stock market crash, which dried up his business and forced the company to close. He then went to work for another construction company that also folded. After that, he became a consultant in the construction industry while attending the University of Texas at Arlington to get his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He continued work in construction and later attended Southern Methodist University, where he received an Executive MBA.
Post SMU, Sellers joined the Neogard Contract Division of the Jones Blair Company in 1998 as the general manager. Founded in 1928, the company manufactured industrial coatings for the oil and gas industry. The Neogard Contract Division specialized in applying the construction coatings, training other contractors, and performing any necessary warranty work. In 1999, Jones wanted to divest itself of the Division and after several rounds of negotiating, Sellers acquired the division. He renamed the company Phoenix 1 after his first construction company adding the “1” as that was easier to do than resurrecting the old name and company with the state.
Sellers grew the company to 300 employees with 30 to 40 projects a year and decided that was too big with too many projects and too much time spent managing personnel to be profitable. He scaled back the company to 80 employees and reduced the number of projects, which increased profitability. Sellers doesn’t see expansion as a priority for the company as they want to focus on quality projects and a better work-life balance for employees rather than the sheer number of projects. That has helped retain employees, with some there for 10 to 20 years. With such a dedicated base of employees, the company became employee-owned in 2022.
Most of Phoenix 1’s historic projects are places on the National Register of Historic Places or are Texas or local landmarks, requiring work to be done very carefully to not risk losing the building’s historic integrity. There are a finite number of people who know about historic methods of construction and how to work with materials that are decades or even more than a century old. Sellers has found those people and has built a highly specialized team of craftspeople that allows Phoenix 1 to work on the most complex preservation projects and buildings of all types and ages.
Word of mouth is how Phoenix 1 has grown its business. There is no sales and marketing team or business development division to seek projects. There is no advertising, other than having booths at conferences dedicated to preservation. The quality of their work has been their calling card and has served them well with the 2000 projects (historic and non-historic) they have completed across the state.
The first preservation project for the new Phoenix 1 company was the restoration of the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Dallas, erected in 1970 and designed by noted architect Philip Johnson. Sellers said he did the project more out of ego than anything else. He realized he had to do it once he read the memorial plaques and discovered that he was the same age as Kennedy when he was assassinated. The company completed the restoration in 2000 and donated the work to build its preservation portfolio, which helped to get its foot in the door with other larger projects. They still do regular maintenance and cleaning of the memorial to this day.
Above Phoenix 1 in the process of extensive renovations on the Texas State Capitol’s copper roof.
In Texas, more than 240 of the 254 county courthouses are historic by age, and about 80 are pre-1900. By the end of the 1990s, a great deal of the courthouses suffered from inadequate maintenance, insensitive modifications, and weather-related damage. In 1999, the Texas Legislature and Governor George W. Bush created the Texas Courthouse Preservation Program to address the deterioration putting the courthouses in jeopardy. With scant local funding, especially in smaller communities, the program provided badly needed funding to help restore courthouses. Phoenix 1 completed the restoration of the program’s first grant recipient, the Shackleford County Courthouse in Albany, in 2001. That led to Phoenix 1 completing the restoration of 32 other courthouses as the general contractor. Sellers said the Navarro County Courthouse was the most dramatic transformation of his courthouse projects. The crowning achievement of that project was the return of the Lady Justice statue to its original spot above the entrance pediment. Removed in 1940 and lost to time, a copper replica had to be fabricated and dramatically lifted by a crane to her perch on the roof.
Phoenix 1 beat out two very large national companies in 2015 to win the job of restoring 788 windows at the State Capitol. As part of the $5.8 million project, they repaired and stabilized the finely crafted wood windows, retaining significant elements of the original wood and plate glass. In progress now is the second Capitol job for Phoenix 1. They are working on replacing the entire copper roof, all two acres of it, with new copper because of decades of storm damage, deteriorated seams, and failed sealant causing leaks. They also had to repair the massive skylights over the chambers. Sellers said it was quite daunting to work on those while the building was being used. The project is nearing 70% completion, with plans to be finished in 2025.
Fair Park in Dallas is home to the State Fair of Texas and an impressive collection of Art Deco architecture from the 1936 Texas Centennial. It is a National Historic Landmark and City of Dallas Landmark, so projects require sensitivity to protect the historic fabric of the buildings. With Phoenix 1’s expertise in preservation work, they spent many years working on various buildings and sites in Fair Park, including the Magnolia Lounge, Big Tex Circle, State Fair Observation Tower, Tower Building, and the crown jewel—the Hall of State.
The centerpiece of the 1936 Texas Centennial was the Hall of State, erected to house exhibits that celebrated Texas. Designed by eleven Texas architects, the structure is one of the best examples of Art Deco architecture in the state. In 2017, the City of Dallas passed a $14 million bond for exterior and interior restoration work at the Hall of State.
Above The great Texas freeze of 2021 did considerable damage to the freshly-renovated Hall of State. With no heat in the building, the fire suppression system burst in the middle of the night. Water poured through the restored ceilings on the first floor down into the basement, including the archival storage area of the Dallas Historical Society, and out the front doors.
Phoenix 1 won the bid for the extensive project and work began in 2019 with modifications to the drainage system and site to keep moisture from entering the building. After years of biological growth had darkened the building’s limestone façade a careful cleaning took place. The exterior doors, windows, and light fixtures were carefully restored to their original finishes. The ornamental bronze entrance doors had to be removed and taken apart piece by piece for proper cleaning. Above the entrance, the Tejas Warrior sculpture had to be stripped of its tarnished finish for the application of new gold leaf. The ceilings in the Hall of Heroes and Regional Rooms required plaster repair and paint to match the original 1936 colors. The work completed in December 2020 earned Phoenix 1 the highest honor for restoration work from Preservation Dallas.
The great freeze that hit Texas in February 2021 caused significant damage to the Hall of State and undid much of the recently finished interior restoration work. The lack of heat in the building caused the fire suppression system above the ceiling to burst in the middle of the night. Water poured through the restored ceilings on the first floor down into the basement, including the archival storage area of the Dallas Historical Society, and out the front doors. Sellers and his crew were on site just a few hours later to contain the damage and pump the water out using generators. The damage was extensive to the ceilings, decorative finishes, artwork, and woodwork. The city selected Phoenix 1 shortly after to begin a multi-million-dollar project to restore the interior a second time. Their quick action to save the Hall of State from further damage and complete a second restoration garnered them another of the highest restoration awards from Preservation Dallas.
Phoenix 1 has also worked closely with the Texas Historical Commission (THC) on many projects, whether being reviewed by them as part of a project or completing projects at THC sites. They have completed ten projects for THC, including the restoration of the San Jacinto Monument after the previous contractor couldn’t complete the job. Sellers said he is proud of being chosen to work on THC projects, especially the 1830 French Legation in Austin, which is his favorite and the oldest building he has worked on.
Besides the larger projects, Phoenix 1 has also done many smaller projects around the state. Those include the restoration of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the rebuilding of the Sharrock Niblo Cabin built in 1847 by some of the earliest settlers in Dallas County, stabilization of the accompanying log barn on the same site, and work to buildings at the Opal Lawrence Homestead in Mesquite, the Sam Rayburn House Museum in Bonham, Halbouty Lecture Hall at Texas A&M, the Saigling House in Plano, and many more.
Sellers has contributed to historic preservation in other ways as he is a founding member of Preservation Texas and Phoenix 1 has been the principal sponsor of the Texas Historical Commission Real Places conference for many years. Phoenix 1 has also done pro bono work for many nonprofit preservation groups across the state.
Dale Sellers and Phoenix 1 have left an indelible mark on so many of our beloved historic sites in Texas. With their breadth of work on those sites and their devotion to high-quality restoration and preservation projects, the Texas Historical Foundation will present Dale Sellers and Phoenix 1 with the Star of Texas Award in April 2025. That is the highest honor that the Foundation bestows on an individual or organization. Sellers says there is great satisfaction in seeing the physical aspects of one’s work and that he loves to see his company’s handiwork on projects all over the state. Texas is lucky to have Phoenix 1 and its expertise to restore the important places of our past that connect us to our history
as Texans.
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