I cannot tell you when I started my love affair with Tudor-style homes. I think it began in my childhood, being raised in the outer fringes of Chicago. I think anyone raised in the Chicago area, like our columnist Jon Anderson and myself, have an extra appreciation for beautiful architecture because there is just so much of it in that strong-shouldered city. For me, it was driving the North Shore suburbs flocking out from Evanston that made me think English Tudor homes were the warmest, prettiest, most inviting structures of all to call home.
Then I became an English major, and the relationship was sealed.
Our Inwood Home of the Week is a seriously updated English Tudor home at 5210 Denton Drive in the hot, hot neighborhood of Oak Lawn Heights, south of Cedar Springs, north of Maple. Some also call the area Maple Springs.
Very convenient to the Medical District, the area is popular with interns, physicians and anyone who works in the mammoth (and still growing) U.T. Southwestern Medical Center complex clustered around Harry Hines Boulevard and Inwood Road. Trust me: you can bike to work.
Full disclosure: we lived nearby at the Hub Apartments on Cedar Springs, when we first moved to Dallas and my husband started his residency at Parkland. An avid cyclist, he wanted a home where he could bicycle to and from the hospital, which is why we chose the area. Alas, his first monthly rotation was the VA Hospital in far southern Dallas, so that did not exactly work out. But as soon as he was back at Parkland, he was on his bike, almost every day.
With the recent renovation on this charmer by Barra Construction, this home maintains the original Tudor character with the 21st-century comforts we urbanites all desire. The Tudor floor plan has been opened somewhat, but the original flow pattern that worked in the 1940’s still works today: who doesn’t think an extended galley kitchen is the most workable space ever?
This home is ripe for entertaining from the cute arched transom over the front door to the fire pit in the backyard. The kitchen features quartz countertops, subway tile backsplash, updated stainless steel appliances. Take note of the oversized farm sink in the kitchen, the splash of color in the custom cabinets, and stylish new gold fixtures, very hot. The bathrooms have been meticulously updated. The laundry is a stack unit in the secondary bathroom, the master bath is decked out with double vanities. You get three bedrooms, two baths in 1657 square feet with a huge back yard. An 8-foot privacy fence was installed in 2018.
“This home has been lovingly maintained and updated throughout the years,” says Mohammed Nour Jaber, of Compass. “The neighborhood is so connected, you are near the Medical District with easy access to highways, and downtown, plus the restaurants and fun nightlife of Oak Lawn — minutes away from what’s happening!”
Asking: $469,000.
