A few houses are born nearly perfect. The right architect, the right site, the right building skills all come into play from the beginning to create an idyllic setting for a particular family.
But the vast majority of homeowners “make do” with where they live, never thinking their ideal home might be attainable, might even be hiding right under their noses.
Only someone with a particular kind of x-ray vision can step back and study an existing structure that is plain as an old shoebox, dated or too small, and see clues that others miss.
Meet two neighborhood families who had the skills necessary to track down their dream homes where some of us wouldn’t think to look.
Super Sizing History
Dean and Brenda Ruehle liked their charming, picturesque 1920s Lakewood home – what there was of it. It just took some squinting to and imagination to see the same old lovely structure, just 1,200 feet larger.
That’s why the Ruehles ended up not moving into the neighborhood until about a year after closing.
“We thought the renovation would take six months,” Dean says, “but then it was seven months, eight months…”
To expand their 2,800-square-foot house to nearly 4,000 square feet, the entire rear facade was taken off and re-created further back in the huge yard, adding interior space while preserving the original roofline of the historic structure. They also added a pool and an apartment/game room out back, where originally there had been only a one-car garage.
Since they couldn’t precisely match the original bricks, these were taken off the house and reset interspersed with closely matched new bricks. Neighbors watched in amazement.
“People were just fascinated with what was happening,” Dean says.
Of course, there were many surprises along the way. Financing for the improvements hadn’t included replacing all the windows (aluminum ones installed by a previous owner), but they wanted to do things right, so the Ruehles replaced them right away.
They’d also planned to complete the roof with tile matching the original, but none could be found. “Plan B”: a composition roof. And they never expected the worn oak floors to refinish so beautifully. Another surprise: it seems that one of the workmen who built this home back in the 20s marked the date on one of the rafters. So now there’s a corresponding date in the new rafters.
“I wasn’t interested in buying the house unless we could take it to its potential,” Dean says. “but Brenda wanted to preserve the original style.”
So they managed to do both, with Brenda making virtually all the decisions relating to style and color. The result is a modern-living house blended with the graciousness of an earlier era, demonstrating that it’s possible to add features that meet a family’s needs while preserving a historic home’s original quality.
The original kitchen had undergone one remodel and was about half the size of their new one. Most of the construction work went into this room; it was gutted and completely redesigned.
Dean found the inspiration for the dark-finished offices bookcases from the woodwork at Kirby’s steakhouse on Greenville Avenue; the cabinetmaker visited Kirby’s to see firsthand what the client wanted. The new family/TV room has french doors on three sides for a great view of the pool and yard. The family spends 75 percent of their time in this room and their kitchen, Dean says.
Upstairs, daughter Peyton, 13, has the old master bedroom, with an original mantel as well as a separate study. A large bedroom since separated into two baths once connected two bedrooms. (Peyton’s bathroom ceiling is dark blue with tiny stars that subtly spell out P-e-y-t-o-n.”)
Son Ian, 19, and in college, lives in the new poolside apartment.
“Ian loves it back there. We’re having a hard time kicking him out,” laughs Dean.
Though Dean usually works from his home office, he has cut his commute on the days he drives in from 40 minutes to 15. That’s just one of the reasons he likes Lakewood.
He credits much of the project’s success to their relationship with builder Debbie Burk. The new design “dreamed up sitting around a table” – a creative team of the Ruehles, Burk and the builder’s staff architect, Dean says.
A Lakewood resident and owner of Bryan Custom Homes, Burk has remodeled and built homes sine 1975.
“The folks that live in Lakewood are very independent,” she says. “They don’t want their homes to look like everyone else’s. They have definite ideas about what they want, and, above all else, Â they want to retain the character and charm of this neighborhood.”
Now, the Ruehles just need to plan and install the landscaping.
“You kind of don’t want to stop,” Dean says. “When you get a home like this, you keep going.”
Outside the box
The Casa Linda home of Gary and Belinda McDonnell barely resembles the one Gary grew up in. It’s hard to believe they’re one and the same.
The couple began looking at houses in 1984, and Gary’s parents – both in real estate – let them know the small 1950s home of his youth was “available.”
At the time, the McDonnells had no immediate plans to change anything; the 1,700-square-foot shoebox was big enough for two people and suited them just fine. But when their daughter was born in ’95, the McDonnells seriously considered moving. They hated to lose their beautiful lot, however, believing  they’d never find an affordable third-to-half-acre in Lakewood.
Remodeling began to look like the best solution.
Then came the ultimate remodeling decision, aside from budget: To co-exist with wafting Sheetrock dust or run for your life?
The couple decided to renovate another house first and move there until the main project was finished. The little Austin stone cottage was “the blight of the neighborhood,” Gary says, but it was just a few streets away, and the price was right. So the McDonnells fixed it up, stayed there and later sold it; Belinda, an interior designer, says she did much of the physical work herself.
The first challenge in creating their dream home was finding the right contractor. Planning began two years ago, when the economy was booming, and Belinda recalls that many contractors just wanted to work on what they anticipated would be extremely high-end projects.
But then the McDonnells met neighborhood resident Pat Burke of The Burke Company at NARI Home Improvement Show; architect Bill Mackey also was an influence in the exterior design.
Instead of imposing a typical ’90s residential Dallas design on the 1950s house, the homeowner/remodeling team strove for an artistic look that would weather the years in a more classic style and be a comfortable architectural fit for the neighborhood. The result is an organic, somewhat Hill Country-type dwelling with a near-seamless blend of old and new.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the kitchen, open to both the living and dining areas. Cherry cabinets inset with seed glass glow with a rich hand-rubbed oil finish, three coats of which Belinda applied herself. An unusual clear-glass backsplash was just one of the ways the designer found to tie her interior to the natural surroundings.
“We put more thought into this kitchen than anything else,” she says. “I knew the kitchen was going to make or break this space.”
The old kitchen was just as big, Belinda says, but it was badly designed with a tiny, uncomfortable breakfast nook. And the dining room was too small to seat more than four or five people. So out went the walls and now, without increasing square footage in the area, there’s much more room for gathering.
“It feels so good just to be in this space,” Belinda says.
The living area, with its vaulted ceilings and skylights, is open, welcoming and peaceful. Art niches blend the transition from living  area to kitchen and hold Belinda’s own handmade enamel and pottery pieces.
To keep exterior lines of the house straight and clean, the new master bedroom was built directly over the old one. Gary even says with a new second story, the house is so well insulated and otherwise energy-efficient that their utility costs are the same as before.
Burke attributes the success of this or any project to the ability of the contractor, architect and homeowners to work as a team, and he’s particularly gratified when he can see a striking difference in a home after the project is completed.
“The McDonnell residence is one of those where the end result was so dramatically different and better than the original house, the sense of satisfaction is tremendous,” Burke says.
Belinda estimates they invested one-and-a-half times the home’s market value in the renovation, but it’s now 160 percent of its original size, and she believes it would appraise for two-and-a-half times more.
“I’m sure we could’ve built a much larger home in Plano than this, that we’d have to drive further to,” Belinda says.
But she looks around, smiling.
“This will be the house that all the kids in the neighborhood will come to.”
