9807 Redondo Drive

Some houses get built. This one got kept. Since 1940, three generations of a single family have lived behind these Granbury stone walls, and eighty-six years of that kind of attention shows in the places attention usually does not survive. The hardwoods are original and they still gleam. Arched openings where other houses have doorways. Crown molding in every room. Built-in shelves in the hall, a china cabinet built into the dining room wall, the sort of carpentry nobody orders anymore. The kitchen was rebuilt for someone who actually cooks. A granite island with room to sit. Custom cabinetry, a plate rack, penny tile climbing the wall behind the range. Two bedrooms. Two full baths, both finished in stone, one of them holding a clawfoot tub in an arched alcove, the other travertine to a vaulted ceiling with a rain head overhead. Then the sunroom, which is the room people remember after they leave. Windows down both sides. White board walls, a panel of stained glass, and a beadboard ceiling painted the color of the sky. Outside the house turns generous. A third of an acre, most of it garden. A cedar pergola spans the back and opens onto flagstone, where a fire pit sits ringed by a curved stone seat wall. Mature crape myrtles throw shade over all of it. A greenhouse still in use. A garden shed. Beds that come back every spring because somebody has been tending them for decades. Wrought iron closes the back line and the creek runs past it, under a stand of trees this house has been looking at since Roosevelt. Walk to Casa Linda Plaza. Five minutes to White Rock Lake, the shoreline path, the picnic grounds, the Saturday morning water traffic. Eighty-six years in one family. The next chapter is yours to write.