Waterslide, Waterfalls, Tennis Court, Dog Spa, and The Biggest Dang Swimming Pool in Texas

This is one for the record books. 3620 Ranchero in Ranchero Estates, Plano, has to be one of the most loaded homes in North Texas. I’m talking rivalling and actually surpassing Champs D’Or as far as interior over-the-top amenities. Champ, which is under contract, by the way, was more like living at the Broadmoor. You would need a staff of thousands and have to be thanking someone every two minutes. Ranchero is a home, a big home, yes, 17,306 square feet, but a homey home, a place that was built with absolutely anything and everything you could think of to make life as comfy as possible for a family and then some. Like, for example, the waterfall in the bridge overlooking the pool. A room just for the dogs that opens to the garage through double doors so you don’t have to bring them into the house from the car. This room has a custom dog bath off of it, all tiled with a drain, so you can wash the dogs right there. This leads to a spacious doggie yard of turf with built-in cleansing sprinklers. Urinals. I know, not a pretty word, but I swear the best Valentines gift you could give a woman would be to install a urinal in every bathroom in the house. That and some diamonds. There are urinals in every bathroom in this house — all nine of them — with the exception of the little girl’s room. Even daddy gets one! That is one example, one wee (sorry) example of the detailed thinking, planning and expense that was poured into this home: price was no object. I have a feeling that when the builder, DFW Fine Homes, said to the owner hey, we can do this but it costs extra the owner said DO FIVE OF THEM. And so you have an estate that is elegant, beautiful, live-able, and loaded. Where to begin? The drive-up in Ranchero estates, one of the top two gated communities in Plano, is dramatic and a Downton Abbey moment. You have an expansive circular cobblestone driveway with a fire pit pot in the center. The huge, sprawling mansion hugs this driveway. Robbie Fusch of Fusch, Serold & Partners  knew what he was doing when the starchitect created this on blueprint. Robbie, if I’m not mistaken, also designed Chateau de Triumph on Strait back in the 1990s because I see a few traits in Ranchero, much like you see glimpses of mom or dad in a baby. The foyer is the center of the home, and circular, with an arched iron and glass front door, built-in stone seating and more windows. To the left is the dining room and the eating wing of the house. To the right is the huge living room, study through see-through fireplace, master bedroom to end all master bedrooms,and a guest bedroom. From here you also go up a flight of solid limestone steps to the second story. The home has five bedrooms, three up and two down, ten bathrooms (9 with urinals), a pool locker room, a 7 bay garage that can accommodate 5 lifts to make it 12 cars, an indoor kitchen, a catering kitchen and an outdoor kitchen, quarters (one bedroom, bath and living area), study, two laundry rooms (one up, one down, a media room, billiards room, gym, wrapping room, second story deck and seven fireplaces. There’s a safe and safe room. There is an estate managers office. There are three sets of stairs and an elevator. Even the grass is superior — drought tolerant! If you don’t find it in this house, it doesn’t exist. The first thing I noticed was the quality and beauty of the flooring — all walnut. The floors are wide-planked walnut, BOTH floors and baseboards. “I have never seen anyone wrap and MATCH the wood grain around the baseboards with this incredible precision,” says the agent, Clay Stapp of CLAY STAPP + CO. Me neither. The floors and baseboards are all walnut, and even the closets have the same walnut baseboards as well as walnut shelves and veneer on the walls. The closets! Other details of obsession: the chandeliers are on pulleys that you can wind down for cleaning or to change lightbulbs — same deal I saw at Triumphe. The walnut floor has specially custom-designed patterns, not too loud, but softly delineating areas. The groin vauletd ceiling in the long loggia is brick, as is the ceiling in the breakfast room. Everywhere you look there is either antique brick, stone or walnut, all 17,000 square feet of it. “The owner spent three years building this house,” says Clay. “Poring over every detail.” Not only did he supervise the job himself, he flew a helicopter over the construction site every week and filled a notebook for every year with the photos, which he will leave for the new owner. Every bit of home progress was chronicled from 2007 when the ground was first broken, to 2009 when the home was finally completed. The kitchen is large, loaded with a big dose of highest end appliances, anchored by a rare green granite on the counters. There is a catering kitchen and then a laundry room with a built-in washboard and two sets of stackable full sized units. There is the pool locker room with urinal, lockers and huge shower, designed to catch wet swimmers and guests. There is the aforementioned dog quarters. The room is large and carpeted, opens through a set of double doors to the garage, and leads to the turfed dog yard through the special dog bathroom. That room should win an award for brilliance — every dog owner would agree. There is also the estate managers office, and the garages. A port cochere between the bays provides storm cover as we found out when we toured the home. About the garages: 2300 square feet that were designed to hold a fleet of cars including four full-sized Suburbans with the doors fully open. As I have said, with five lifts you could store 12 cars and nary a door ding or scratch. Nor a flat tire: compressed air boxes are built into the garage walls by each car. James, a tire air check, please? Rather than steps down to the garage, the floor was ramped up for future “aging in place”. The master bedroom, which views the grounds, pool, bridge and afar tennis court, has a sitting area with wall outlets to accommodate lighted art or digital pictures. There is a bar off this room, as well as the 5000 lb.hidden safe. (You’ll have to pry the location out of me!) There is also a luggage closet all lined in walnut. There is an office. Oh yes, there is a bedroom — this is a true, self-sufficient master quarters, you could almost detach it from the house. The master bedroom has reclaimed beams. There is a dressing room for her and him, both fully veneered in walnut with glass cabinets and built-ins galore. Her side has a fold-out ironing board, his has a fold-down packing table. There are twin Kohler digital steam showers, centered by a huge vessel tub, two Toto NeoRest commodes in their own little rooms — these are the potties that wash and air dry your bum, maybe powder, too. Up one of the three flights of stairs is the study, wrapping room, and three bedrooms all with huge closets, anterooms and en suite baths. And urinals. There is a media and billiards room with a bar and kitchen to the rear, fully decked to make popcorn or a whole meal. The gameroom is up here and the floor changes from the walnut to Texas indigenous woods. Oh yes, there is also a spacious home gym. Over the garage is the quarters with a king-sized bedroom, kitchen, living area and bath. It has a lovely view of the front circular driveway. Truth is, there is not an UNLOVELY view from any room in this house. There is not an unlovely anything about it. It’s a stone Mediterranean castle with clay tile roof and enough cast stone to load a quarry. But the materials have been blended so warmly that the home doesn’t feel like “Citizen Kane” overload. It’s a big one, all right, a Texas-sized mansion with so many closets I guarantee you would not remember of tenth of what you own. But the walnuts and brick, woodwork and stonework melds together to create a feeling of warmth and family goodness. This is a one-owner home that was built with love and ready for Act II. Asking $8,750,000 which sounds like an arm and a leg, but with all the workmanship and materials, and 3. 32 acres, this estate could never be rebuild for that price. I may be spilling the beans, but I’m told the owner spent nearly a million dollars preserving the trees during the building process. Happy trees make a happy household, and this one is big Texas living at it’s finest. By the way, Clay had a VIP open house for top brokers here last week — he Ubered everyone up from Dallas. Now that’s class.