Best of 2021: With The Sale of This Luxurious Hillcrest Estates Home, I’m Going to Really Miss my Neighbors

[Editor’s Note: While the CandysDirt.com team takes a hot minute this holiday season to recharge the ol’ Energizers, we’re serving up our very favorite stories from 2021. Enjoy!]

Candy: One of the best things about this year has been the Real estate market. It was fast and furious, agents working 24/7 if their bodies would allow it, reams of documents circulating, and a lot of cha-ching as values pointed upwards and commissions clang.

But you know what’s kind of sad? Every single one of those stories we wrote in 2021 has a red-blooded family and beautiful people living inside it. One of the most beautiful homes in Dallas — and two doors down from me — is this beauty that I had the pleasure of watching as it was built.

It sold quickly, and soon I will be getting great new neighbors, but I sure will miss the folks who are leaving. You could not order better neighbors or people: they were always generous lending their beautiful homes for events, including us, even offering to let friends stay there overnight when a tragedy struck our family and friends flew in from everywhere needing accommodations during an ice storm.

I think about that a lot when I write about these homes. Who lives there? What are their lives like? That is why I so believe in good house juju — and this one is loaded with it!

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Beautiful homes are works of art, a collaboration of talented artisans and professional teams who put in weeks, months, years to achieve the perfect end result: a home that will last forever. Baked into the home’s spirit is what makes some rise up from the cacophony of multi-million dollar listings to a residence of beauty and comfort. People here love, grow, and nurture what is most important to them: their family. Such a breathtaking collaboration is 11333 West Ricks Circle in Dallas.

Built in 2008, the home is as perfect and pristine as a just-completed custom build. Designed by renowned architect William Briggs, built by Bill Manning of Manning and Snelling, the home is a study of ideal living space, purposeful use of windows, light capture, rock-solid construction, detail, and the very highest of amenities.

“I have always been especially proud of the Ricks Circle house,” says Briggs. “The sequence of spaces is perfect. It’s an arrangement of rooms and room relationships that we always strive to achieve but not always can, because of lot and budget limitations. But in this house, every room relates ideally one to the next. It’s nearly perfect.”

From Kolbe & Kolbe insulated windows to quarter-sawn, hand-scraped Oak flooring, engineered pier and beam foundation by Frank Reedy and Jensen Engineers, and Phillip Jeffries and De Gournay wall coverings, not only was the home built with top of the line materials in every molecule, but it has also recently undergone an extensive interior refreshment with two Dallas design icons: Dallas-based Cynthia Collins and Laura Birnbaum with Collins Interiors.

Perched on a wooded 1.16-acre lot, the home consists of just under 11,000 square feet of thoughtfully planned interior space. The impeccable landscape design by John Armstrong further compliments the overall manicured exterior of the property. The home utilizes the sweeping lot to its maximum. Walk through iron doors by Iron Age Studios and your eye is led to the full expanse of the acreage and the rectangular swimming pool with water fountain features and a chiller to keep it refreshing in August.

The foyer takes you straight to the formal living room with raised coffered ceiling, which extends into the covered verandah. Another example of the home’s pristine architectural design: French doors throughout bring the magnificently landscaped lot indoors, from the formal living to the great room to the primary bedroom.

Bearing right from the foyer is the remodeled gourmet kitchen with double dishwashers, beverage and freezer drawers as well as commercial refrigeration and Viking stove united by a huge island, wet bar with ice makers, Butler’s pantry, and wine cellar.

An oversized dining room is graced with De Gournay hand-painted wallpaper and an Italian Murano hand-blown glass chandelier. Opposite the dining room, the large library or office has book-matched Honduran Crotch Mahogany panels sweeping the walls, complemented by the African mahogany ceiling. An additional office is located upstairs.

Bearing left from the foyer, through an open conservatory with a grand piano under the sweeping marble-floored staircase with Iron Age Studios railing, is the Primary wing for the owners of the home: a generously sized bedroom with Cowtan and Tout silk wall coverings, sitting area graced by bay windows overlooking rear grounds, and French doors to the verandah and pool.

The oversized bath is floor-to-ceiling marble with more than abundant storage, a Waterworks vessel tub and faucet, a four-head shower with bench and hand spray, and his/her closets.

There are six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms, and two half baths, including a pool bath. Each bedroom is ensuite with walk-in closets and full baths complete with Sonoma hand-made tiles and SICIS tile inserts. Ann Sacks tiles are abundant in the kitchen and primary bath with Waterworks fixtures, and the pool bath showcases all Waterworks tiles. All bathrooms on the first floor have heated floors.

Upstairs are four oversized bedrooms all with ensuite shower baths and chandeliers, two featuring Phillip Jeffries wall coverings. There is a living room with a wet bar and a sitting area between bedrooms, a flex space that could be utilized as a home theater or exercise studio, and a back staircase to the family wing. The home is purposefully fitted with a residential elevator.

In addition, there is a large laundry room downstairs with a linen storage closet, plus a second laundry room upstairs, an upstairs and downstairs office, and a back family mudroom. This is the landing spot coming in from the four-car, 1469 square-foot garage complete with a Tesla charging station, more storage, and room for lifts. Outside the garage is a hard-surfaced play area with a basketball court, completely gated.

Behind the home and a true focal point is the turquoise 54-by-20-foot pool with attached hot tub surrounded by oceans of Pennsylvania bluestone rock. The stone starts at the exterior French doors and flows to the back green space where a giant video screen can easily be installed for movie nights by the pool.

This home is incredibly well-constructed of hand-cut Granbury stone brick-stacked and cast stone, with a Spanish slate roof and copper gutters. Perhaps the most special (and irreplaceable) feature, however, is the home’s secluded location in an exceptionally quiet cul-de-sac nestled off Northaven Road.

The area is called Hillcrest Estates, just north of Preston Hollow. There are 135 acres of approximately 60 heavily wooded homesites, where all homesites are at least an acre in size with no sidewalks, huge setbacks, and extreme privacy. For the last 20 years the sprawling ranches built in the fifties, considered outposts at the time, have been replaced with exquisite custom-built homes. In fact, a 15,000 square foot home with subterranean parking is under construction on the eastern end of the Circle, on the lot once owned by former City Councilman Lee Kleinman. The neighborhood is a quarter-mile walk to the Northaven Trail with a private police patrol for incredible security. Yet another benefit is that the home is situated across the street from a park-like setting dotted with imported wildflowers, trees, and greenery.

“The one-acre park-like setting across the street makes this home more than unique,” says listing agent Ryan Streiff. “It extends the already huge front yard from one end to the other. It creates visual depth to the property, without adding one square inch to the tax rolls.”  

11333 West Ricks Circle is listed with the Perry-Miller Streiff team at Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate for $9.995 million.