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★★★★★
“Todd and his team simply do great work!”
VM
Vance Minter
Fort Worth, Texas
University Park, TX
LED 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.
Canopy
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.
Close Quarters
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.
LED
Why LED Matters More Here Than on an Ordinary Lot
Two things about a University Park property change the LED question from a running-cost conversation into a practical one. The first is where the fixtures are. On a lot defined by its canopy, a good share of the lighting is mounted high in the trees rather than sitting in a bed at ground level. A halogen lamp in that position is a ladder or a climb every time it fails. The same fixture running LED is not something anybody has to go up to on a schedule, and on a street of eighty-year-old trees that is the difference between a system you maintain and a system you visit.
The second is the neighbours. On a Park Cities lot your fixtures are visible from three gardens and several upstairs windows, so the useful thing about LED is not the wattage, it is the control: tighter beams, a narrower choice of spill, and the ability to put a precise amount of light on a trunk without washing the fence behind it. That is hard with a halogen flood and straightforward with the right LED optic.
Colour is the part most people are not warned about. Cheap LED lamps vary between units, and the variation shows the moment three fixtures light one facade — one reads warmer than the next and the elevation looks patchy. Keeping the colour temperature consistent across a system, and warm enough to flatter brick and limestone rather than make them look grey, is the single biggest difference between an LED conversion that looks better than what it replaced and one that looks cheaper.
Most houses here are old enough to be on their second or third system, which usually means halogen with some of it already failed. Where the cable and housings are sound, converting is a fraction of the cost of starting again — see LED conversion and retrofit for what that involves, and repair and maintenance for systems we did not install.
Recent Work Near University Park
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-one 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.
What Clients Say
What Clients Have Written
No University Park client has written to us yet, so rather than dress a letter from somewhere else up as a local one, here are three from elsewhere in the service area with the towns they were written from. All thirty-one are on the reviews page in full.
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★★★★★
“From start to finish, Todd and his crew have been nothing but professional. We found Todd to be very attentive and responsive and he exceeded our expectations. Our extensive landscape lighting project was planned in a timely manner and completed ahead of schedule…”
KJ
Kamal and Jennifer Ariss
Dallas, Texas
”
★★★★★
“TC Lighting recently redid my front and back landscape lighting. The proposals for lighting were better than what I had in mind when I called. The outcome exceeded all expectations. I have combination of up lights, pathway lights and down lights in the overhangs…”
RS
Ronda Smith
Plano, Texas
Where This Is
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
Everything We Do
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.
Common Questions
University Park Landscape Lighting Questions
Is University Park part of Dallas for your purposes?
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.
Have you photographed work in University Park?
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.
Our trees are huge. Is that a problem or an advantage?
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.
Our lot is small and the neighbours are close. Can this be done tastefully?
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.
Is it worth converting our halogen system to LED?
Usually yes, and more so here than on a flat lot, because a good share of the fixtures are up in the trees where changing a lamp means a climb. Where the cable and housings are sound the conversion reuses them, which costs a fraction of starting again. Where the cable has gone brittle it does not, and we will say so.
Will LED look as warm as what we have now?
It can, and that is a specification decision rather than a property of LED. The failure people have seen is lamps that read cold and vary between units, so three fixtures on one facade each look slightly different. Keeping the colour temperature consistent across the system and warm enough for brick and limestone is the part that matters.
Nearby
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.
Free On-Site Design Visit
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.