Posted: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:25 AM - 8,380 Readers
By: Judy Wiley
Driving past a gated estate is a little like looking at a wrapped gift: Imposing walls are clasped shut with an iron gate; trees cloak the building beyond. What could be inside? Or, who could be inside, and why do they want such supreme privacy?
"I think the privacy is certainly a driving force but also the prestige," says Janice Hurst of Amelia Bullock Realtors. "And Austin is becoming more and more popular for VIP or celebrity status."
Some of the benefits behind closed gates are simpler and more practical than you might think. Far from being mysterious recluses hoping to shut out the world, the residents of four estates on the market in Austin were happy to talk about the lifestyle. They mentioned privacy, to be sure, but mostly they talked about the freedoms it brings. They entertain without worrying about noise; swim without neighbors looking on; children and dogs run and play safely away from the street; door-to-door solicitors don't interrupt dinner; and deer can't munch the garden.
The owners are selling their gated retreats for various reasons, some personal and some related to the economy.
Here's a glimpse of life behind the gates.
Window wall
The Hill Country is beautiful, but maybe not so much if a neighbor's house perched above yours has a bird's-eye view of your sybaritic pool and backyard. Not a problem with Andy Saied's home at 4646 Rockcliff Road, a Luis Jauregui-designed wonder of windows and 24-foot ceilings. Saied is the one on a hill. And with almost three acres of property inside a 6-foot wall and deer fence, nobody's watching or listening unless he invites them in, which he does.
"You can have a party or entertain people and turn music on and you're not blasting out your neighbors," says Saied, whose five-bedroom, 51/2-bathroom home in the Westlake area is on the market for $3.5 million. Hurst has the listing. The nearest neighbors are about 150 feet away on one side, and the rest are 700 feet to 800 feet away, says the oil and gas businessman.
"I've had friends and family come over here and it is so quiet and pristine," he says. "You go out in the backyard, you feel like you're in the country."
If Saied and his German shepherd want to take a break from the outdoors, they have nearly 7,000 square feet to enjoy inside, with four living areas and two dining areas, a game room, media room and an office.
The home has a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the treed property, as well as an unobstructed view of the Pennybacker Bridge over Lake Austin. A pleasure afforded by the gated estate: Saied doesn't need to cover those views with curtains, a luxury most often reserved for people who live in skyscrapers.
He's proudest of the home's energy efficiency and green features: All the windows are double-paned, for example, which helps keep electric bills low, and the wood floors are longleaf pine reclaimed from a Louisiana warehouse.
Security is not a problem because of the wall and its spectacular gates, made to order for the home, along with wrought-iron windows in the stone fence, uplighted at night. When the house was built in 1998, "everything about this house was done to the nines," Saied says.
Room to run
Natalie Fisher and her architect husband, Evan Fisher, left their Irvine, Calif., condo within a planned community, pulled up to 11035 Arroyo Canyon and were starstruck.
"We just thought, 'Wow, how Texas. A big property with a gate,' and it had a huge Lone Star on the gate," says Natalie Fisher. They weren't necessarily looking for a gated estate, but the star — and the very idea of living on six acres — was impossible to resist. They are renting the 3,043-square-foot home as a first taste of Texas living while it's on the market for $889,265. Lori Galloway of Avenue One Properties has the listing.
The couple is thrilled at the simple pleasures they couldn't enjoy back in California — being able to throw a rope over a tree limb to make a swing for the kids is huge. In California, the children's outdoor time was spent at a park.
"We just have a lot of traditions here that you read about that we just didn't have where we were living," Natalie Fisher says.
Another advantage: The couple doesn't have to fret about the kids' safety in a strange city. "With the gate, I don't worry about them going further than they can or should," she says. "I love it. It's so private and I feel like we have our own little getaway out here."
The three-bedroom, 31/2-bathroom home near Barton Creek is about 20 minutes from downtown Austin, in a neighborhood with 11 other home sites.
Dog days
The property at 704 N. Commons Ford Road wasn't gated when Steven Franco moved in 14 years ago. But he had pets.
"We needed to keep the dogs in; it started off like that," says Franco, who put up a cedar fence. But then he saw more advantages: "People can't come into the property. The kids play outside and I don't even have to keep an eye on them. The gates close, so there's nothing that can go wrong, and nothing that can really happen to them."
The three-bedroom, 21/2-bath home on 1.6 acres with its own boat dock in the Bruton Springs subdivision is priced at $1.299 million.
The property's proximity to Commons Ford Ranch, a 500-acre park on Lake Austin, is a big plus, says listing agent Renee Huggans of Moreland Properties. "It's public, but nobody knows about it because this area's so private," she says. "It's like having this giant preserve all to yourself." Franco jokes that his Labrador retriever has his own private park.
And he says once he gets home, he feels as if he's entering his own compound. A huge front yard and driveway lead to the house, well back from the road. Then there's the pool and a 400-square-foot guesthouse that could be used as a pool house.
Despite the location 20 to 25 minutes from downtown, "you feel like you're in the country," says Franco, who works in investments. "You've got your own little private oasis."
No deer
Vijay Netaji also added his own gate after he moved into his home at 5805 Valley Circle. But unlike Franco, his motive was to keep things out instead: solicitors and deer.
"We couldn't have rosebushes or anything," he says. "Now we can go with a more colorful landscaping. It opens up a whole lot more of what you can do with the front yard."
Netaji, an agent with Vallure Realty, is listing the five-bedroom, five-bath home for $1.449 million.
He expects his $15,000 investment in a gate to pay off for several reasons: It adds curb appeal; some insurers give a discount for a gated home; and it blocks those pesky door-to-door sales representatives.
"Now that the economy has gone down, you've got everything from magazine sellers to door-to-door meat salesmen coming to the door," Netaji says. "This just eliminates having to deal with that." He says a neighbor has installed a gate for the same reason.
Today's gates, he notes, don't have to be ugly. "Fabricators can get really creative in trying to design a gate." In his case, he says the gate-opening mechanism was the most expensive component, at $3,000 to $3,500 of the total cost.
The 4,503-square-foot home has a pool with a water feature, a home theater, hand-scraped wood floors and extensive security.
