12,000 Live in 400-Acre Apartment Complex : Swinging Singles in Dallas Can Mix It Up at the Village

DALLAS —  Oiled bodies loll beside the Olympic-size pool. Couples mingle at umbrella-decked tables. Others take to bar stools inside, or tennis matches, volleyball games and softball tournaments.

See and be seen, that’s the name of the game.

This is “the Village,” a city within a city, 400 acres called home by 12,000 people who might best be labeled “stuppies”--single tanned urban professionals.

Completed in July after 19 years of carefully paced construction, the Village has evolved into a Dallas institution. A product of the “swinging singles” side of 1960s city life, it has come of age as a monument to mixing and mingling in the 1980s, pairing up and moving out.

“If you don’t know anybody in Dallas, you move to the Village,” said resident Cindy Devaul, a sales representative.

32 Swimming Pools

The recently topped-off town is actually a collection of 14 apartment complexes bordered by four of Dallas’ busiest boulevards. The Village has 32 swimming pools, a dozen tennis courts, two ornamental lakes with paddle boats, two softball diamonds and a bandstand for outdoor concerts.

It has a health club, two bars and a restaurant at its “country club,” not to mention a shopping center and a grocery store--rated by local magazines as one of the best singles scenes in its own right. (The produce section is reported to be a favorite pickup point.)

According to Lincoln Property Co., the developer and manager, 85% of the residents are single, and 90% fall into demographic categories of either white-collar professional or sales-clerical.

Fifty-two percent are male and 90% are aged 22 to 34. Tenants under 21 are not allowed.

Average Salary $25,000

The average salary is about $25,000, and monthly rents range from $335 for a 420-square-foot efficiency to $1,050 for a two-bedroom unit in the newly completed section, the Lakes.

Grass is mowed twice a week, maintenance workers are on call 24 hours a day, a warehouse is stocked with replacement materials ranging from windows to washing machines, and fresh flowers are planted year-round.

With 7,115 apartments, the Village is so big it has its own greenhouse, its own mounted security patrol and its own interior decorating service.

There is a furniture rental company, and the Dallas transit system even has a “Village Express” bus line, packed at rush hour.

Parties Popular

But it is the management-sponsored parties that residents often mention first when asked about life inside the manicured compound.

“You can get worn out living here,” said resident Tara Pirtle, who was “laying out” at one of the swimming pools. “There’s parties every weekend. It can still be a swinging-single sort of place. That’s a lot of the attraction of living here.”

The residents, four-year Village veteran Don Chouinard said, are instantly compatible.

“The people are all of the same basic age group, socially inclined, athletically inclined. I hate to put it this way, but it’s a better class of people. You get better conversations,” Chouinard said.

“And,” he said, scanning the lounge chairs at pool-side, “you can’t beat the scenery.”

Pools Crowded

Pools are the center of much of the socializing, and the more expensive the complex, the more crowded the pool, residents say. “The Corners are the least expensive apartments and you can tell that laying out over there,” said Laura Semeta.

Parking lots are filled with foreign sports cars, some economy cars and lots of Camaros, bright-red Camaros. There are boats on trailers and fancy motorcycles. Fast times in Dallas’ fast lane.

“There’s a status attached to belonging to the Village,” Pirtle said. “These are old apartments, with the exception of the Lakes. They don’t have microwaves and they’re not very spacious. So you’re paying for status.”

Important Institution

To Dallas historian and author A. C. Greene, the Village has evolved into an important, if somewhat dubious, institution.

“It’s sort of a traditional stopping place for people moving to Dallas,” Greene said. “And at one time, it was the epitome of swinging single. Some very important people have passed through there before and after marriage.”

Some, like Greene, think the Village’s swinging has mellowed from its heyday 10 years ago.

“People still live here because it has the reputation of being a wild place,” said Sue, a schoolteacher who declined to give her last name. “I say to people that I live in the Village and they raise their eyebrows. They’ve heard all about it.”

Occupancy at 96%

Occupancy has stayed close to 96%, Lincoln Property says, despite Texas’ economic downturn and an average occupancy city-wide of 87%.

The company does little advertising for the Village, which it says is the nation’s largest garden apartment complex, but not the biggest overall--a high-rise complex in New York holds that title.