Late Darwin Deason’s Four-Story Penthouse Listed for $18M

The late Darwin Deason’s four-story penthouse is up for sale.

Deason was an IT billionaire and founder of Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services, according to the Dallas Morning-News. Compass’s Jeffrey Lester is the listing agent for the penthouse at 8181 Douglas Avenue, and says that the interior details are built to look like a yacht.

“He wanted that European look, but if you look at it closely too, all that wood, it kind of feels like a yacht,” Lester told the publication. The price point for the penthouse is $17.5 million according to Zillow. Deason owned the penthouse for two decades and it was last appraised at $7.13 million for tax purposes.

The penthouse is just outside of the Park Cities and near the Dallas Tollway. The penthouse has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, seven half bathrooms and totals 14,000 square feet.

Deason also owned a cliffside mansion in La Jolla, California, though its listing was removed in May. The beachfront property is called “The Sandcastle,” and it’s modeled after the Versailles in France. The 35,750-square-foot property was listed for $92.5 million before Deason died.

There’s French influence in Deason’s penthouse as well: Lester described the feel of the area like a boutique hotel in Paris.

Deason founded Affiliated Computer Services in 1988 after leaving MTech following an acquisition. Eventually, the IT and service outsourcing company became a Fortune 500 fixture with $6 billion in revenue.

Xerox acquired ACS in 2010 for $6.4 billion following the settlement of a shareholder lawsuit centered around Deasons’ share price. Deason became the largest individual Xerox shareholder following the acquisition. He was also a conservative political donor, and gifted millions to Southern Methodist University, which is around a nine minute drive from the penthouse, according to the publicaiton. Deason died in Dec. 2025 at the age of 82.

— Hunter Cooke