What looked like the end for a dilapidated century-old house in Oak Cliff could be just the beginning for a portion of historic North Bishop Avenue.

The once-ramshackle house and one next to it were built around 1904. One structure originally was a single-family home, while the other was built as an apartment building with four separate units. It is believed to be one of the oldest buildings in Dallas built specifically for apartments.

Business partners David Spence and Trey Bartosh not only want to restore the decaying home, but several others in the thriving Bishop Arts District as well. They also want to build 10 new townhomes on three different sites there.

The still-unnamed $5.5 million project, which they said in the pre-development stages, would provide 17 owner-occupied housing units and one rental for the neighborhood.

"Our primary goal is that after it is completed and the last sign comes down, this whole development will disappear into the fabric of the community that's already there," Mr. Spence said. "We feel redevelopment of Bishop has to be done this way."

Mr. Bartosh, a design-builder who is an architect by training, said their plans are not for mixed-use development, but for what something they call "mixed-type."

"We're going to have condos in renovated houses, single-family renovated houses and new townhomes," he said.

The two men are considered pioneers in restoration efforts throughout the Bishop Arts District. Mr. Spence founded Good Space, Inc., which has restored numerous historic buildings in North Oak Cliff during the past decade. Mr. Bartosh restored his first building on Bishop Avenue in the mid-1990s. He also has been involved with new residential construction in East Dallas.

In part, their development was spurred by other recent efforts. Perry Homes has built several new townhomes farther north on Bishop, and Belclaire Cos. plans a mixed-use complex of residential units and retail shops at Bishop and Colorado Boulevard.

Mr. Bartosh said the idea for the "mixed-type" development evolved from seeing opportunities in places like Uptown, the M streets and the State-Thomas neighborhood. Large parcels of land usually are not available, and it often does not make sense to demolish sound old buildings to put in new homes.

"At some point, it just becomes rational that you would want to have good buildings to begin with," Mr. Bartosh said. "You couldn't reproduce them."

That is one of the reasons the two hope to rescue the wood-frame house that at one time was slated for demolition.

Edna Fory, whose father built the house and the one next door, lived in the apartment building most of her life before selling it to Mr. Bartosh in the late 1990's. He has since restored it to its original state. "She told me her father got the idea for apartments when he went to New York once," Mr. Bartosh said. "He came back home and decided to build one as a way for his daughters to have an income."

Both houses were built in the same grand style of the other homes of the time along the thoroughfare, which was a route for streetcars.

Mr. Bartosh said Mrs. Fory, who lived into her 90s, did come back once to view the house after he had restored it.

"We had a picnic out on the front lawn and everything. She went around the house with tears in her eyes," Mr. Bartosh said.

The house next door, however, had a different fate.

It had been sold numerous times over the years and in the 1940s, when housing was in short supply, it was expanded and divided into apartments. It also had severely deteriorated.

"It was about as bad as you could get," Mr. Spence said.

But now Mr. Spence and Mr. Bartosh hope to save the house by building four new townhomes on adjacent vacant land. They said that if they can get approval for the four new units, it would make good business sense to keep and renovate the older house and sell it as a single-family dwelling.

That way, the two "sister" buildings could continue to exist side-by-side.

Dwayne Jones, executive director of Preservation Dallas, said he is not familiar with the development plans but believes it's an interesting idea.

"It sounds like a very sophisticated approach for historic preservation, taking multiple buildings and thinking about how they relate to each other and to the greater area. That's rarely done," Mr. Jones said. Jack Keene, president of the Kidd Springs Neighborhood Association, said news of the proposed development has begun to circulate in the community.

"As with most projects, I'm sure there will be a handful of people who will be dead-set against it," Mr. Keene said. "But our primary concern is that the character of the neighborhood is maintained."