My Fair Fairview: Southern Plantation Dream House With a Price That Would Sink a Yank

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Every so often I come across a house that touches my heart, makes me go home and think about packing it all up to move out. Most of the time they are multi-million dollar mansions that are waaaay out of our budget, but hey, a girl can dream, right?

But then, I saw 751 Creekwood Drive North in Fairview. I call this home a Trip to the Very Possible!

Maybe you’ll feel like you’re a little far out, but surprisingly, you’re only about two minutes from civilization at the Village at Allen and Village at Fairview. There are more than 3 million square feet of restaurants, boutiques and big box retail, plus entertainment nearby. Take in a hockey game at the Allen Event Center or sharpen your golf game at Allen’s Top Golf, both right down the street.

Best of all, the home is located within the highly acclaimed Lovejoy ISD school district. It ranks right up there with Highland Park and Southlake year after year.

This gorgeous Southern Belle exudes grace and Southern hospitality. It feels like country, but it’s right in the middle of all the action. It’s the complete package.

And then, the price: I walked into this house and it blew me away. I thought, after going through every custom nook and cranny — chronicling all the treasured architectural elements and antiques — I thought (at least) $3 million.

2264839_origThis home is priced at — please do sit down or grab smelling salts, I really needed them — $1,291,000.

Maybe a glass of Chardonnay will do. I am going to take you on a trip to the very possible. Who needs to spend $6 million on a teardown? Here is a stunningly beautiful, period perfect almost new home built in 2007. 6476 square feet of Southern hospitality on a  heavily wooded one acre lot in the River Oaks area of Fairview that meanders down, rambling, overlooking a quiet creek. With a custom-built greenhouse to match the main house right down to the fish scales:$1.291.

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First of all, you will notice from the exterior that this house is not your typical (boring) Mediterranean or Austin Stone whatever. Hope this doesn’t shock, but there are NO TURRETS! There is a beckoning white front porch, a proper red brick walkway, white columns, balustrades and Greenbrier-style green shutters. Sit for a spell in one of the white rockers. The look is old but maintenance is new with Trex plank floor and Hardie-board siding. The owners built this home from scratch with home builder John Young. It was designed to replicate the home the lady of the house grew up in, in a small town in the heart of Alabama. They spent years searching for antiques and architectural accents collected from numerous trips to the deep South. Each piece is lovingly displayed in this home.

In fact, 751 Creekwood North is a veritable Southern Plantation, all wrapped in tradition on the exterior, but stuffed like a Civil War turkey with 21st century niceties and updates. Scarlet would be in heaven.

You start by walking through a custom made solid Oak front door cut with beveled-edge clear pane window. No ordinary doorbell here, there is a Victorian-style door chime and hardware. Leaded glass side panels and top transoms with thick, buttery trim surround the door and light the entry.

Dorothy, are we really in Fairview? Get ready, there are transoms, transoms everywhere.

The home has four bedrooms, four full and two half baths, four living areas, four fireplaces, back porch, sun-room, craft room, downstairs master AND guest room — take that Highland Park — study, upstairs flex space overlooking the one acre wooded lot.

Fairview is as treed as Preston Hollow. With cascading topography, there is a sparkling pool and spa, and a back greenhouse, all overlooking a creek. To reproduce this house in the Park Cities or Preston Hollow would be about $5 million.

I repeat: asking price is $1,291,000 reduced from $1,391,000. And wait till you see what’s inside.

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GetMedia (5) GetMedia (4) GetMedia (2) In the foyer, you meet an expanse of dark-stained, oak hardwood floors surrounded by thick, painted moulding. An antique glass chandelier that could have come out of Tara (really came from Alabama) is suspended from the ceiling and wall sconces define an arched doorway that opens to the grand staircase.

And grand it is: trying having a Deb perform the Texas curtsy here.

The custom made staircase features heavy newell posts and turned balustrades with stained handrails. The steps are extra wide stained hardwood treads with painted risers. Again, stairs in the usual place but created with a different twist. Transoms, transoms everywhere.

Off the entry are the formal dining room, complete with antique brass chandelier, and the formal living room with antique glass chandelier, wall scones, and a  full masonry fireplace featuring a polished marble tile hearth. The mantelpiece is painted millwork with a side leaded glass door display cabinet for display. Living and dining are across from each other in classic fashion. Off the living room, through divided light pocket French doors, is the 16 by 13 foot beamed study with exposed brick floor. Loaded with built-in bookcases and storage, there is also a shortcut door to the Master Bedroom closet.

But walk straight ahead into the family room with its plank-paneled lined dormer and divided light windows in the peaked ceiling. You first have to pass through reclaimed antique double doors with etched glass, circa 1800’s, one of the owner’s finds from a store in Frankston, East Texas. The stunning aqua is the original paint. The family room has a small foyer, and then you are there: a massive 22 by 18 Great Room open to the kitchen, breakfast and hearth rooms. The floors are variable plank oak in the same rich stain we met back at the front door.

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There is a walk-in wet bar with beverage cooler and ice maker, a large southern-style Butler’s pantry with a Miele drawer dishwasher, an amazing kitchen, plus breakfast and hearth room.

But my favorite room of all is off this family room — the sunroom. Exposed brick floor, paneled walls with white paint, thi is where you start your day. The room is outlined with premium clear pane, roll-out windows with thick casements. Two doors lead to separate porches, and an additional door leads to one of two half baths. 1647729_orig

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Then there is the porch, overlooking the pool, spa, greenhouse and creek. Stunning white, the porch ceiling on both sides of this house are painted sky blue to deter mud wasps, a common trick in the South, says the homeowner.

“They think it’s the sky,” she says.

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Have to tell you about the kitchen: it’s open to the Hearth and breakfast rooms, and family room, and has access to the Sun Room and Craft Room (which was used for sewing!).  Cabinets are premium with antique nickel hardware, the slab is Granite and subway tile covers the backsplash. I love the ceramic farm sink, and the appliances are all name droppers:  Miele, Sub Zero, Viking, Kohler.

Look at the center island: it’s red with an antique chandelier above! There is also a unique custom built-in china cabinet in soft blue with bead-board paneling and glass door display cabinets. The walk-in Pantry has a painted re-claimed door with a top glass pane window. The kitchen totally pulls of the southern charm effect while offering top of the line of everything.

And talk about antiques, the light over the table in the breakfast room was actually a gas lamp that had to be electrified to work

Off this great central room, the heartbeat of the family, are the crafts rooms and first floor guest suite, sporting an original claw foot bathtub in the guest bath.

“My mother loved those tubs,” says the owner.3050095_orig

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GetMedia (10)GetMedia (7)GetMedia (6)An interesting aspect of this home, to me, is the use of mini foyers within to “announce” special rooms. We saw that with the Family Room, and we see it with the Master Bedroom. Resplendently huge, there is a built-in coffee bar with painted cabinets and Granite counter, and I think a sink.  The master sitting area has unobstructed views of the pool area and wooded creekside. Is the fireplace an everyday fireplace? Oh no. Try a Valor Windsor Arch “coal-burning” gas fireplace with brick hearth and antique stained Oak mantelpiece with mirror. The master bath has it all, huge Jacuzzi tub, walk-through shower, his and her vanities, huge closets for him and her, including a cedar closet within, and that door back to the study at the front of the house.

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Upstairs are two bedrooms with en suite baths, a sitting area, and an exercise gameroom that doubles/triples as a media room. A wall of divided light windows provide views over the pool area and wooded rear property. Two or more giant flat screen television sets are connected.

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Let’s face it: 701 Creekwood Drive looks like the house was plucked from the pages of Southern Living magazine and plopped on a quiet, low traffic street under a canopy of old-growth native trees. There is even a sweeping, circular driveway.

In the back, all rooms have eyes upon the Lagoon-shaped pool. The raised spa has pebbled surface with decorative tile border and stone coping, a center fountain and waterfall that empties into the pool below.  A flagstone path from the pool area leads around to the side porch that leads into the Sun Room and connecting Half Bathroom. An additional flagstone path from the pool are extends through the sizable lawn area to a charming bridge placed over the rock-lined creek-bed to the custom built Greenhouse, measuring 26 by 13.

I don’t have to tell you about the numerous old-growth trees placed through the rear property, many magnolias and oaks. In fact the subdivision is called “River Oak”, appropriately.

The owners tell me they moved here from Preston Hollow and have never looked back. Now grandparents, they will downsize but stay in the very same area. The only crime in these parts comes from the coyotes and bobcats. Listed with the man who knows Lucas and Fairview real estate better than any other, Tom Grisack: visit the home online and learn more about Fairview and Lovejoy ISD.

Candy Evans, founder and publisher of CandysDirt.com, is one of the nation’s leading real estate reporters.

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