Chad Hudson is an overachiever, and it shows in every square inch of his own home.
Three years ago, the Rockwall-based home builder and his wife, a corporate attorney, built the home of their dreams in the influence of their favorite architectural moment — Midcentury Modern — culling elements from every Frank Lloyd Wright home they had ever visited.
It all started when they purchased the lot over 10 years ago: one and a half verdant acres, gated within a gated community in iconic Chandlers Landing, a Rockwall subdivision about 20 miles east of Dallas. Like a blank canvas with the perfect base colors, they envisioned a home they loved with the land, on the land, seamlessly integrating interiors with the great outdoors.
No Substitute For Vision And Planning
Dallas-based Chase Corker, of Corker Designs, helped designed the home and attests to the tremendous amount of planning that preceded building.
“The home really defines who Chad and Lindsay are,” says the veteran home designer. “They are a very organized, ordered couple. When you look at the house, it feels calm and organized, and defines who they are.”
The couple owned the land for seven years before one stick went up, but the land did not lie fallow. Corker says Chad planted trees and landscaped the grass before anything was built. As a result, once they moved into the home, they had ready-made landscaping.
Multi-Function at Its Finest
Chad and Lindsay didn’t want fluff, extraneous, or unneeded rooms. They didn’t even want a second story. They just wanted a forever home that fit the family’s lifestyle with room for expansion should the desire arise. For example, they didn’t want an extra bedroom for the occasional overnight guest: instead, they super-sized the bedrooms and added custom features to make the rooms multi-functional.
“It’s a three bedroom, two and a half bath house, that’s all,” says their agent, Rod Holland, a Keller Williams broker associate in Rockwall. “No unused gamerooms and media rooms. This house is for the simple, quiet lifestyle — not a fast-paced soccer mom in her Suburban, not the place to have hundreds of people over for a fundraising event – although there is plenty of outdoor space to accommodate a crowd. Baby Boomers are loving it — particularly the one-story aspect: one story homes are near impossible to find.”
But 107 Independence Place in Rockwall was also built for a young family to stretch its wings with plenty of fully fenced yard to safely run around in and ample driveway space. There is also a completely separate home site adjacent to the main house lot for future multi-generational living or a compound retreat.
“The pad is ready for a home,” says Holland. “That’s one reason why we have had so much interest. Dallas buyers looking to bring their parents home from senior living are loving the possibilities of a homesite where everyone could hunker down, safely.”
Not Preston Hollow/Highland Park McMansion 2.0
The construction details would fill a handbook: before he specified it, Hudson analyzed everything with his engineering perception, from the largest room angle to the smallest little detail. He installed functional elements everywhere to enhance the living experience in the home: European cabinets and doors, an 1,800 square foot garage, floor-to-ceiling storefront window walls to fill the house with natural light, oversized hallways, and carefully placed mature trees for privacy.
He even installed synthetic grass around the pool so clippings wouldn’t interfere with the visual aesthetic or litter into the pool.
“I’m a perfectionist and a planner,” Chad says. “This home is over-engineered down to the last little detail, from functional elements that enhance the living experience and the home’s efficiency, to engineered commercial site design and drainage systems.”
They built it like they planned to live there forever.
The home is just over 3,800 square feet, with a large open living area/dining/kitchen. But there are oodles of storage, more than that found in homes twice the size thanks to the expert space design and custom closets. The laundry room is huge and functional.
“They came to me looking for an organized plan, and it became a very simple form, which ultimately made the house workable and more appealing,” says Corker, who has worked on other projects with Hudson. “That’s why I enjoy working with Chad: he organizes and orders everything., and that lives on in the house.”
White historic NorthPark brick (the same used on NorthPark Center and other homes of note in the Dallas area) clad several interior walls and all exterior, warming the rooms. The double two-car garage was designed for a quick and easy future room addition — bedroom suite, game room — of about 2,000 square feet. There is a safe room, and a large walk-in mechanical room so you will never have to stumble up an attic ladder. The home is completely foam encapsulated resulting in near-nothing utilities. The site design is commercially engineered with a commercial foundation and drainage systems. The walls are smart-home equipped with custom LED lighting inside and out, and the four-foot cedar eaves will outlast the owners.
As for the land, it’s the stuff dreams are made of – located in a lakefront community with a marina and yacht club with calming and restorative vistas all around.
“This is the kind of home buyers are looking for right now,” says Holland. “Buyers are wanting out of the city, and this home was built for them.”
Chad Hudson is Savoy Builders, an old-fashioned homebuilder, the kind who builds exactly as many as he wants to in a year, because getting each one perfect and right is more important to him than quantity. Or winning awards.
And so, he is doing it again, this time building his family’s next home one hour further east, heading to a beautiful lakefront property in Hideaway Lake, near Lindale, Texas. Hudson plans to etch out new territory in East Texas for his real estate development, building, and design expertise.
Which leaves 107 Independence Place for a very lucky buyer.
“This is a private gated estate in a private gated community, strategically located,” says Holland. “Very low maintenance. It’s for a buyer who loves that era of architectural history. This home and land would be priced at least double in Dallas. It’s such an anomaly, built so true to Frank Lloyd Wright and the Mid Century Modern aesthetic, pictures cannot communicate what it is. There is not another home in the DFW Metroplex like this.”
People who look at it call it perfect, he said with a smile: buyers are catching on.
