Built in the neo-classical revival style, the Belo Mansion was built in the late 1800's by Colonel Alfred Horatio Belo, who founded the Dallas Morning News. The house was said to be patterned after the family home in Salem, North Carolina, and conceived as a tribute to Colonel Belo's wife, Nettie. The contractor was Daniel Morgan, who, in 1893, completed the Dallas County Courthouse now known as "Old Red." Construction on the home was completed in time for the wedding of the Belo's son, Alfred Jr., to his bride, Helen Ponder. The Belo home at Ross and Pearl Streets became a city showplace as the family was active in civic and cultural affairs.

Colonel Belo died in 1901 and Alfred, Jr, in 1906, but Nettie Belo lived in the mansion with her daughter-in-law and two granddaughters until her death in 1913. In 1922, Helen Ponder Belo was forced to leave Dallas due to ill health, marking the end of the occupancy of the mansion by the Belo family.

In 1926, the building was leased to George Loudermilk and Will Sparkman, who operated it as a funeral home for fifty years. Extensive remodeling occurred in that year, and again in 1936, when an addition was built onto the rear of the home as well as a chapel on the eastern portion of the property. One of the most infamous events held during that time was the 1934 funeral of Clyde Barrow, of the Bonnie and Clyde gang.

In 1977, the Colonel's granddaughter, Helen Belo Morrison, agreed to sell the property to the Dallas Bar Association. She had been born in the house in 1902 and felt the Bar's plan to restore the home as the Dallas Legal Education Center was in accordance with family principles and feelings. The Dallas Bar Association connected the historic home and the chapel with an expansive, glass-roofed atrium.

In 2003, The Dallas Bar Association victoriously concluded its capital campaign which resulted in the addition of the exquisite Pavilion. Once again, the past was linked to the present and future through innovative design and distinctive architecture.

Spanning three centuries, there has always been one Belo Mansion.