Mad Men Fun in this Family-Friendly French Mansard, Inwood Estates

Sometimes, there really IS more to a home than photos. There are sounds. I have often advised people to drive to a neighborhood they are interested in, park the car, roll down the windows and LISTEN to the neighborhood.

Of course, this being the Dallas urban suburban clone we have become, you will hear traffic, sirens, ambulances, firetrucks and honks. It’s part of what I call the urban waterfall: it lets me know that others are nearby. As much as I love my ranches and the country, sometimes the quiet out there is just spooky.

But there is another sound you don’t get in every part of town, or you hear only faintly: church bells. Nothing is as soothing or beautiful, at least to me. Perhaps it brings back memories of the home my grandmother had (owned 100%, Roosevelt helped her save it, she said) right next to a Catholic Church. The bells rang every hour on the hour.

So when I left 4939 Harvest Hill Road, I paused to hear the bells of Jesuit clearly — not over-powerful, but beautiful chimes you would hear every day if you lived in this neighborhood. That, to me, is a huge plus for this home and neighborhood.

4939 Harvest Hill is one of those darling mid sixties homes when Mansard roofs were the rage and the nation was having a Francophile attack in architecture. Usually, you had a French poodle, white French provincial furniture, and scalloped cabinets to fulfill the image that your 3,158 square home was in reality a little French chateau.

4939 Harvest Hill Road definitely started out life this way. But somewhere along the years, she matured, spread out a little, and grew into a family home with five bedrooms. Which is what she is now, ideally situated within walking distance of Jesuit and St. Rita. But she still has her original Saltillo tile in great shape, higher ceilings in the Great Room, and tons of space for a growing family. I know, I know, there are too many room colors and not enough sense of a design flow because of that but hey, there is this cheap thing called PAINT!

And she has some surprises. Yes, you walk into the conventional formal living (or study) on one side, the formal dining on the other. Straight ahead is what builders today would call the Great Room, only this one has a nice Mad Men bar with closet! tucked away in the corner that the kids could never find.

Gotta love the fifties and sixties, when people started their martinis strong and at 4 p.m. EST, and every home had a sit-down bar with ashtrays. God, you could smoke without asking if your neck was going to be wrung. I’m not saying go back to this, because I now die when exposed to cigarette smoke, likely because I tried menthols when I was 15, puffing out my bedroom window until the neighbors called the fire department thinking our house was on fire.

What I’m saying is there s a Mad Men coolness to this home even though it is so family perfect. So when you put the kiddos to bed, you can definitely have a life here.

The kitchen is flawless, efficient, decked with stainless appliances, and features a breakfast area. There is also a generous laundry room that I would add a sink to, which I think would be a piece of cake to do with the kitchen nearby.

The back of the house is all glass, floor to ceiling, with French doors, yielding a 100% view of the back yard and shaded patio piped for a gas grill. Two giant oak trees anchor each end of this pool-worthy dirt, and would not have to be chopped down to accommodate.

Now the garage: was a two car, but a previous owner turned it into a large bedroom/playroom/office — a very spacious room with a large closet to fit bikes, lawn chairs, file cabinets. With the rear entry from the alley, the two cars park nicely behind this structure. Some people don’t need garages to collect the boxes of crap they end up collecting. If you must, I say turn it back into a great garage or better yet, a dual purpose room (see 4231 Merrell, remember Naked Sushi?) that could be both  garage and a flex room. Or add on a garage, or fence the whole caboodle in to make the yard even more spacious: the lot is .24 of an acre.

All bedrooms are upstairs, which they should be if you have children. There are four bedrooms up, plus two full baths including the en suite master with large walk-in closet. Powder room is downstairs.

The children’s bath is in the hall, exactly as I was raised: two sinks, you learn to share.

Now if you don’t have a brood of children, why not take one of those upstairs bedrooms and expand the master?

Finally, there is a closet under the staircase that has been transformed into a Harry Potter closet for the kiddos. This neighborhood is so coveted because everything is close by: LibertyBurger down at Inwood and Forest, Rusty Taco, and soon, when plans get underway for the former Valley View Mall, lots and lots of kid-friendly restaurants and retail, or so promises MidTown developer Scott Beck.

Dave Perry-Miller agent Tony Petriccione has this happy home listed at $549,000, reduced from $625,000 at the very get go, April 29. Sellers are motivated, but not leaving the neighborhood: they too, love the sounds.

This house will be open Sunday afternoon for your viewing pleasure.