Royal real estate

Chip and Joanna Gaines' Fixer Upper castle in Waco goes up for auction

Bidding begins July 20.

Photo courtesy of Magnolia

Hear ye, hear ye: The most famous castle in all of Texas is seeking new owners. By royal decree (aka Facebook post), renovation king and queen Chip and Joanna Gaines have revealed that they're auctioning off the historic Waco castle that they spent years rehabbing and made the focus of a special Fixer Upper series on Magnolia Network.

The Gaineses' Magnolia Realty posted on June 24 that the Cottonland Castle will be offered through Concierge Auctions. Bidding will begin at 3 pm July 20, and there's no reserve. A $100,000 bidder deposit is required.

"In 2019 — after 20 years of dreaming about the chance to renovate this castle — Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines finally did. They aired the whole process on Magnolia Network last summer, then opened it up for guests to tour. Now, they’re ready for someone new to write the next chapter in this historic home’s story," the Facebook post says.

The three-story, 6,700-square-foot residence at 3300 Austin Ave. has four bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, seven fireplaces, and sits on 1.5 acres in the heart of Waco. Construction was started in 1890, finished in 1913, and modeled after a Rhine River castle in Germany.

The Gaineses purchased structure in disrepair in 2019. According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, the price they paid was not disclosed, "but the property was listed at $425,000 and had a tax appraisal of $350,700 at the time."

The couple and their Magnolia team designed and executed a regal flip that added a conservatory, library, butler's pantry, card room, and more. It was opened to the public for tours in summer 2022 before being featured on a multiple-episode special called Fixer Upper: Welcome Home – The Castle, in October 2022. Rooms of the castle also have been featured in The Magnolia Journal.

In the ultimate modern touch — a branding opportunity — a 17-page “Castle Sourcebook” listed design elements and products and where to buy them. A “Colors of the Castle” paint collection also was created and released through Magnolia.

According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, the property was appraised this year at $1.7 million, including land - nearly $700,000 more than its $1.03 million appraisal in 2022. The castle is also being offered for sale at $2.9 million by Magnolia Realty, and a representative for Concierge Auctions told the Waco newspaper that "there remains the chance a pre-auction offer would be tendered."

The Gaineses reportedly had planned to sell the castle immediately after the series aired in the fall. But after a three-year renovation, they got a little attached, they said.

"This is a project that I was pursuing for 20 years. The reality is we need to sell it and we should sell it," Chip Gaines told Entertainment Tonight in October 2022. “But I wonder if it’s not one of those things 10 years from now you don’t look back and wonder, ‘Gosh, should we have kept it? What if somebody in the family wanted it?'"

CultureMap was one of the first to step inside the castle for a tour. Check out some of the spectacular surprises in this story.

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Anna Land Buy

Cox Family sells 116 acres in Anna for mixed-use development

Courtesy photo

Anna, Texas

A major land sale in Anna is paving the way for new mixed-use development. According to a release, Frisco-based Rockhill Capital & Investments struck a deal with the Cox Family to acquire 116 acres at County Road 371 and SH-5, approximately two miles east of US-75.

Younger Partners Executive Managing Director John St. Clair, Vice President Tyler Hemenway, and Associate Davis Willoughby represented the seller in the transaction. The sales price was not disclosed.

Rockhill will sell fully entitled tracts of land to homebuilders, multifamily, and commercial developers.

The single-family portion will be built in phases with development of 325 single-family lots, says Rockhill Chief Development Officer Brent Libby in a statement.

“Construction will likely begin early in Q2 2025,” Libby said. “We’ve already sold 82 of the 116 acres to homebuilder Taylor Morrison and they should break ground first.”

The remaining acres are already being snapped up including 9.5 acres on SH 5 that is under contract to a commercial developer, and interest from a user/developer on the remaining 24 acres, which is zoned for multifamily.

The Cox Family owned the land for decades and had received multiple offers on the property over the years, but were never ready to sell.

“Ultimately, the family wanted to capitalize on the land market before unforeseen market factors took place,” said St. Clair of Younger Partners. “This deal took place at the right time with the right buyer.”

The acquisition nvolved a lengthy zoning process to acquire the land. Rockhill created a Public Improvement District (PID) on the single-family portion of the land, which helped the deal move forward.

Rockhill already has land holdings in nearby high-growth cities of Howe, Van Alstyne, and Sherman, and it ain't stopping here.

“We’ll continue to source and acquire land in the area where we can add value through entitlements, and either develop the property or hold it for some time and exit to another developer or end user,” Libby says.

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