Company founder and president David Griffin says, “As a native Dallasite, I am always on the search to explore and know everything that is best and most stimulating about the city. What are the best neighborhoods, where are the coolest mid-century houses, which shops and restaurants are currently the best experiences?

“I grew up in what many consider to be one of the best neighborhoods Dallas has to offer, University Park. I attended all 12 grades in the Highland Park Independent School District. I studied English literature and hold a BA from Southern Methodist University. I did graduate work at the University of Texas in Dallas.

“When I was a kid, downtown Dallas was a vibrant place. By the time I was a young teenager, I was taking the bus downtown to go to the movies, bookstores, library and the record stores — my particular interests. I grew to love the bustle of downtown. All the things I loved the most were on a route I could walk on a Saturday. I also grew to appreciate the languor of the long Dallas summer, taking care of the yard, and the hominess of our 1920's Tudor that my parents had bought and remodeled in 1958 (and that my mother still owns). But the city and all that is urban was, if I am honest with myself today, what resonated most with me.

“I think I must have always loved looking at real estate. Maybe that is because my mother spent so long, when I was very young, house-hunting. I still remember a half a century later some of the houses we saw and what made an impression on me. I particularly liked buttons in the dining room floor where you could buzz the kitchen. Air conditioning units also held a fascination for me. Some were built into furniture and took up the whole end of a room — very fancy!

“After all these (and many more!) childhood experiences and school and college and part-time jobs, I found myself, courtesy of an aunt who loved to travel, able to go to Europe and backpack my way across Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Holland and Great Britain. Almost every day on the four-month journey, I thought about what to do next with my life. Do I go back to school and try and put my love of literature to some kind of remunerative use, or do I go into business? And what kind of career could I pursue with the education I had? The more I traveled, the more it dawned on me that what I probably enjoyed the most was getting to know people. I was meeting so many fellow student travelers, and after having gone to 12 years of school with basically the same kids, it was very expanding to meet and trade experiences with people from all over the world. A plan began to form in my mind that if I pursued real estate (and I thought from the very beginning residential real estate), that it would afford me the opportunities to meet all kinds of new people and yet remain near my family in my hometown.