Landscape Lighting in University Park, TX — Small Lots, Enormous Trees
A separate city inside Dallas, with the oldest canopy in the service area and the least room to work in.
University Park is its own city, enclaved within Dallas alongside Highland Park, about five miles north of downtown Dallas. It is also the most distinctive lighting problem in the service area, because it combines two things that rarely occur together: a canopy of eighty to hundred-year-old trees, and lots small enough that everything you do is visible from three neighbours' windows.
The Trees Came First and They Still Run the Property
The Park Cities were laid out in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, and the live oaks, pecans and cedar elms that went in then are now enormous — arching over streets, spanning whole back gardens, in many cases larger than the houses they shade. Nothing else in the service area has canopy of that age at that density.
For lighting, that is the whole opportunity. These are the ideal moonlighting hosts: high mounting positions, dense layered crowns with real interior structure, and enough spread that light coming down through them covers most of a small garden with the branch pattern carried in it. A tree like that lights a property more beautifully than any number of ground fixtures, and it does it from positions nobody can see.
It also means the design happens upward rather than outward. On a fifty or sixty-foot lot there is very little ground to work with and a great deal of tree, so the proportion of downlighting to uplighting here is the reverse of a typical suburban property. The trees themselves are protected by the city, and getting fixtures and cable into a mature specimen without harming it is careful work rather than quick work.
Everything You Install Is Visible From Three Neighbours' Windows
Park Cities lots are tight, the houses are close to the property lines, and most blocks are alley-loaded. A fixture aimed a few degrees high on a side boundary is not a subtle problem here; it is somebody's bedroom.
- Lower levels than people expect. The street has light, the neighbours have light, and the eye is not adapting to real darkness. A level that would read as timid on an acre reads as elegant here.
- Shielded fixtures and tight beams throughout, with aiming checked after dark from the neighbours' side of the fence as well as from your own door.
- The alley is shared. A rear fixture that lights the whole alley is the fastest way to annoy an entire block.
- Access is genuinely tight. There is rarely side-yard room to bring equipment through, which shapes how the work gets staged and how long it takes.
University Park is also a strict city with its own permitting and tree requirements, separate from Dallas. It sets those rules; we design to them, and we confirm what applies to your address rather than assuming.
What This Looks Like on the Ground Near University Park
We have not photographed a University Park installation yet, so every photograph below is from Preston Hollow — the nearest documented work, on the same ground and the same kind of property. Each one is captioned with the town it was actually taken in. All are TC Lighting installations, shot after dark on the property. Click any of them to see it full screen.
The full gallery is grouped by town, and the reviews page carries thirty client letters in full. If you are in University Park and want your property to be the first photograph on this page, the design visit is free.
University Park, TX — and How Far It Is From Us
A separate city enclaved inside Dallas, about five miles north of downtown. Free on-site design visit, and Todd comes out himself.
University Park, TX · inside the TC Lighting service area · free on-site design visit
All Eight Services, Available in University Park
Landscape lighting is the bulk of the work, but it is not all of it. Every service below is available on a University Park property, from the same crew and the same licensed Texas electrical contractor.
Landscape Lighting
Design and installation — uplighting, moonlighting, path and specimen work.
Read more →Holiday Lighting
Seasonal install, maintained through the season, taken down and stored.
Read more →Permanent Festive LED
Govee-type colour-changing track set into the eave line. Invisible by day.
Read more →LED Conversion & Retrofit
Halogen to LED on an existing system, keeping the runs and fixtures worth keeping.
Read more →Pole, Site & Hardscape
Car parks, drives, steps, walls and seating areas, residential and commercial.
Read more →Interior Lighting
Inside work from the same licensed electrical contractor.
Read more →Ring Camera Installation
Cameras and doorbells fitted and wired properly.
Read more →Repair & Maintenance
Diagnosing and rebuilding failing systems, including ones we did not install.
Read more →Or start here: the home page for the whole picture, about Todd Cormier for who turns up, the photo gallery for the work itself, reviews for what clients say, and contact to reach us directly.
University Park Landscape Lighting Questions
Geographically it is surrounded by Dallas; administratively it is a separate city with its own rules, which is why it has its own page. It sits about five miles north of downtown Dallas. Highland Park next door is likewise separate and has its own page.
Not yet, and we would rather say so. The nearest documented work is Preston Hollow, five minutes north, where thirty-two photographed projects sit on very comparable properties — mature canopy, established architecture, high expectations.
It is the single biggest advantage a property can have. Eighty-year-old live oaks and pecans are the best moonlighting hosts there are: fixtures go up high, light comes down through the branches, and the shadow pattern does the work. On a small Park Cities lot that is worth more than any amount of ground-level lighting.
That is most of the job here. Lower levels than people expect, shielded fixtures, tight beams, and aiming checked after dark from the neighbours' side as well as your own. On alley-loaded blocks we look at what the plan does to the alley too, because it is shared ground.
Where Else Todd Works Near University Park
- Landscape lighting in Preston Hollow
- Landscape lighting in Highland Park
- Landscape lighting in Dallas
- Landscape lighting in Plano
- What the work involves, in detail — design, conduit, day-set and night-set.
- Repair and maintenance, including systems somebody else installed.
Ask Todd About Your University Park Property
Four fields, about fifteen seconds. Send the address and what you are hoping to light. Todd walks the property himself, in daylight, and you get a written plan with a fixed price and dates before any work begins.
- Free, no-obligation design visit and written plan
- Licensed Texas Electrical Contractor — TECL 41495
- Conduit-protected wiring and daily site cleanup
- Every fixture day-set, and a night-set on most projects
Prefer to talk? Call (972) 345-1180.