Want to come home to a total retreat? Want to hear the wind rustle in the trees rather than sirens screeching on Central? If the urban waterfall sometimes gets to be too much, take a look at what this retreat has to offer. This seasoned Tudor revival compound called Stonebriar Manor, at 31 Stonebriar Way, can give you the pleasures of living on a farm in the heart of a major metropolitan area. It has a Frisco address, yes, but is really so close and convenient to everything north of Park Cities. All you do is hop on the Dallas North Tollroad, and pray for no traffic.
Of course, once you get north, you find a wonderland of living from five rolling acres, a creek with a bridge, a barn, greenhouse, wishing well, tennis court, guest house and a pond with a beautiful spray fountain.
The main house is pretty amazing, too, with 9200 square feet of spacious rooms, heavy beams, beautifully crafted woodwork, a double Aga stove, and a complete environment that would support a multi-generational family arrangement. There are four bedrooms, four full and two half baths, a four car garage, exercise room, and a laundry room large enough to hold a pet or two, plus six fireplaces in the main house. A screened-in porch doubles as a card room. The dogs have plenty of space to frolic on five acres, but if you need to put them up, there is a dog run. Feel like raising your own exotic orchids? There is a hothouse greenhouse. Feel like letting your grown children move back home? Take your choice of an apartment with full kitchen or a two bedroom, or the two bedroom, two bath guest house with full kitchen just across the pool.
Come to think of it, War of the Roses may never have happened if Michael Douglas or Kathleen Turner had had a guest house!
And of course there’s the barn, the pasture, the well-fed pond with fountain, that same well watering all the grounds, nestled into a 65 home subdivision that was built out of the city limits in the late 80’s, but is now one of the highest-profile gated communities up north. Jay Allison, chairman, president and CEO of Comstock Resources, lives in Stonebriar Creek Estates. The area has also been home to sports icons Mark Aguierre, Dennis Rodham and Rolando Blackman.
First, a little history. Does the name Phil Glasgow ring a bell? He was once a vice president of Mary Kay Cosmetics, then an executive with Network Security Systems. Phil built 31 Stonebriar Way beginning in 1989 and it took almost four years to build! Well, of course it did: there are 9200 square feet in the main house alone and such intricate, labor-intensive millwork and extras. Rome was certainly not built in a day.
You enter through a beautiful, dramatically Tudor foyer with the massive hand-crafted main oak staircase to the left. The home is heavily wainscoted in coffee-stained oak — many rooms even have oak ceilings. The great room is ahead and huge — a whopping 27 by 21. Walk to one wing for the huge wooded library flanked by a downstairs den or bedroom with full bath. Walk the other way to the ginormous kitchen, card room and laundry wing. Further on is the media room of 32 by 32 feet— can you imagine? Play the loudest movies possible, the acoustics will be contained and the babies asleep upstairs won’t stir. All of this overlooks the patio and pool area, with shade-providing mature trees and thousands of dollars of landscaping and stonework.
With the exception of the secondary den off the library, the bedrooms are all upstairs. This includes the huge master with a private balcony terrace overlooking the pool and grounds, and a huge attached bath loaded with pink marble and a wood-burning fireplace right by the jacuzzi bathtub.
I have always wanted two things in my life: a television and a wood-burning fireplace by my bathtub. This home has room for BOTH!
There is also a sitting room for the bedrooms, kind of an upstairs living area. Two of the bedrooms are connected like twins, covered in knotty yellow pine wood-wash, and share a bath Jack and Jill style. There are also darling Jack and Jill study desks! The interiors are so pleasantly rustic: you not only smell the piney woods, but feel as if you have been transposed to a rustic camp house. The heavy but warm Tudor imprint gives this home a complete English feel and flow, from the custom front door to the hand-crafted stained glass transoms in the great room, each one individually designed to replicate English battle shields.
Now here is the really heartwarming part of the story: Private Label Agent Judy Collins, the current agent, had this listing 20 years ago. That’s right, she SOLD it to the current owner, who is downsizing. A certain couple is very interested in Stonebriar Manor, and they came by recently with the original brochure that Judy had created back in 1996. Seems the spread has been a gleam in their eye for the last 20 years.
And now, it is available.
That would be quite a romance story, wouldn’t it? Stay tuned. I would just caution the young lovers not to dally too long: the Dallas real estate world is a sea world of difference from what it was in 1996, including pricing. But at $3,900,000, I think it’s almost 1996 pricing: where else would you find 9200 square feet in impeccable shape plus a veritable farm of 5 plus acres, a gated estate within a gated community?
