“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” That phrase from Oscar Wilde perfectly embodies today’s Tarrant County Tuesday. Ask anyone in the home building or designing world and they’ll tell you that it’s a difficult task to try and recreate a certain style or genre not indigenous to their area.
In every Dallas-Fort Worth neighborhood, there are countless attempts to imitate or recreate a style of home that originated far from Texas. Over and over again you can find failure after failure of homes pretending to be French, Spanish, Mediterranean, Tudor, or Craftsman — sometimes all at once.
Just because a home has a barrel tile roof doesn’t make it Mediterranean. Just because there are shutters on the windows and columns on the front porch doesn’t make the home a Colonial.
It’s hard to truly bring a specific style of home outside its native range. However, we found a home at 4736 Dexter Avenue in Fort Worth that was inspired by New Orleans architecture that embodies the joie de vivre of the Crescent City.
New Orleans-Style Architecture
New Orleans has to be one of the more unique cities in America. With such a diverse and multicultural history, the architecture throughout the city reflects inspiration from a variety of distant lands. From the Creole Cottage to the Shotgun House, just about anything and everything goes when it comes to New Orleans style.
Homes in New Orleans are known for being accessible through an entry courtyard, have open-air patios within the home, often are asymmetrical, and most certainly need a balcony from which you can throw beads.
In 2014, the current owners of 4736 Dexter Avenue commissioned the uber-talented Karl Hahnfeld of the Fort Worth-based HGC Development company to design and build a home inspired by the homes of New Orleans.
The result was a 3,900-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-and-one-half-bathroom home with a gated entry courtyard, open air, beautiful home where you can almost smell the beignets from the interior patio every morning.
Whether it’s inspired by New Orleans or not, the home has not one primary suite, but two. I’m not sure what a second primary suite should be called. Either way, there is a large suite on the first level, that has access to the patio, as well as a large suite on the second level that can utilize the covered balcony at the front of the home.
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
The home just screams, “Let’s have a party!” throughout. Recently, listing agent Julie Webber held a broker’s open house to showcase the home (and celebrate her 39th birthday) and all in attendance commented on how inviting and engaging the home felt from a number of rooms. Happy Birthday, Julie!
Not only does the home have double primary suites but has other areas such as a command center (place to pay bills and leave laptop) off of the downstairs suite, a craft room, an upstairs living area, and an upstairs study. There are so many areas of this home to enjoy and relax in, just like in New Orleans.
Let the good times roll on Dexter Avenue.
Julie Webber, the now-39-year-old listing agent with Williams Trew Real Estate, put 4736 Dexter Ave. on the market for $1.2 million.
