A rare Dallas real estate find is on the market: A beautiful home designed by famed architect Cliff Hutsell and built in 1932 that's in nearly original condition.
Custom tile work at the entrance and on the exterior of 7226 Lakewood Blvd. gives a hint to what's within.
Located at 7226 Lakewood Blvd., it's an original Spanish Eclectic time capsule, on a rare double lot on stately Lakewood Boulevard, less than a block west of (and walking distance to) White Rock Lake.
According to the listing, the home is being offered for the first time in 48 years, with only three owners including the most recent family who've owned it since 1975. Asking price is $2.5 million.
The home has two stories and spans 2,285 square feet, with three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and one half bath. There's a mud room, a utility room, a 2-car garage, and a brick-laid patio.
But it's all the vintage details that make this house so special (the listing calls them "Artesian" touches, "Artesian" defined as "water that flows naturally from underground to the surface." Suppose they mean "artisan"? Or maybe the house really does have water features.), all still in mostly untouched condition, as follows:
- Batchelder tile fireplace
- Potter Ironworks staircase & gates
- whimsical light fixtures
- quarter-sawn narrow-gauge hardwoods
- plaster walls
- coved ceilings
- vibrant stained-glass windows
- colorful “pillow-tile” at the front entry & baths
- fresco landscape murals from White Rock Lake
- a rare Prohibition-style hidden bar with sliding walls and a trap door in the floor
There's loads of iron gates and stained glass windows and the bathrooms are especially eye-catching: One has a wall of tiles done in a random pattern in colors that include orange, teal, royal blue, and a mottled maroon, with a not-exactly-coordinating but nonetheless splendid black-and-white checkered pattern in the actual tub. The vintage sink and toilet are black.
The second bathroom is only slightly less psychedelic, with a 3-color scheme of goldenrod, aqua, and white, with a small-tile brown-and-white randomly checkered pattern floor, and fixtures - sink, bathtub, and toilet - in that period-era salmon orange.
Other distinctive features include some pretty far-out nature-themed wall treatments that, even for a buyer who would consider keeping the house and not just inevitably mowing it down, might be a challenge including wallpaper that looks like brown leaves in the kitchen, and a splotchy, woodsy pattern in the living room that's so complete, it's carried over to the doors, as well.
Hutsell designed and built approximately 50 homes in Lakewood from 1926 to 1941, many fanciful, most in a highly-personalized Spanish Eclectic style, after becoming infatuated with Spanish Colonial homes popular in Beverly Hills.
Neighborhood expert Doug Newby notes that, even though Hutsell did homes elsewhere in Dallas and Highland Park, he became almost synonymous with Lakewood.
"This incredible example of Hutsell's work can be restored, brought back to life and expanded to create one of Lakewood's premier estates," the listing says. Preach!
