Six years ago, when my husband and I were first moving to Tyler, we looked into all of the school districts. We had always heard that Whitehouse was a great school district, so we had looked for homes in that district. We found one home in Whitehouse that was in our price range at the time. It had an upstairs master, which I've mentioned before didn't appeal to me. It was also VERY lived in and needed a lot of repair. The neighborhood was only so-so. On our way to look at houses, we passed by this beautiful neighborhood with lots of trees. The houses were further apart. There were lakes, okay, large ponds, and woods. I fell in love. The neighborhood was Country Place. There were no houses available in our price range and/or there were no houses with enough bedrooms. (With six children "in house," finding a home with enough bedrooms has always been our struggle in house-searching.) We found a five bedroom house in Flint a few miles down the road and in a different school district. My husband had to sacrifice his love for trees. The house was on a one-acre lot in what used to be pasture land.The rooms were small, BUT the house was priced well below market. We were sold. But I never forgot Country Place and heard, after living in Tyler awhile, that it was a very close-knit community with lots of activity and interaction between neighbors.
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| Country Place entrance today |
So fast forward to January of this year. We were quickly outgrowing our house. We could no longer all fit in the kitchen, or at least not seated. We had six chairs around the table and three seats at the bar. When our youngest at the time, Lainey, grew out of the high chair, I gave up my chair and started standing during mealtimes. I didn't mind that much, since it meant I didn't have to get up and down to serve food. But, I care about making memories, and I couldn't help having this nagging feeling that I didn't want all of my kids' memories at mealtimes to be of their mom standing beside the table, or worse, absent because I was standing in the kitchen instead of near the table. Then, Landon was born. We moved him into the highchair. At that point, we knew we had to add on or find another place with more room.
I have always loved real estate. I love looking at houses. I would call it a pastime. Well, one day, a farmhouse-style home came up on the market. It was in Country Place. My husband and I rushed over to see it. It was our dream house. We have very different tastes at times, but on this house, we both agreed. The kids went to see it. It was their dream house. It was the right size. It had a wrap-around porch. We envisioned ourselves drinking lemonade on the swing. It had an area for our teens to hang out. It had a picket fence. It had room for a huge table with a seat for every one of us. Did I mention it was in Country Place?
We immediately went home. There was never such teamwork in our family as those two weeks that we got our house ready to sell. We hired painters, bought shutters and moved out half of our stuff. Two weeks later, I put it for sale by owner. Two days later, it sold. The next day we put in a full price offer on our dream house. The seller wrote "Welcome Home" on the chalkboard in the kitchen. Three days later, we got the call that another buyer had turned up and that we'd lost the house. I used to think it was dumb when people cried over a house. Now, I get it. The house had been a great deal and priced below market. There was no way to replace it. Our house in Flint was now sold. A month later, we moved into an even more crowded rent house.
Well, those who know me know that I don't take 'no' for an answer very well. My family belonged in Country Place. I didn't know how we would move there, but I was intent on trying. I called my favorite realtor friend and she suggested that I look up empty lots in Country Place. I went into the tax records and started calling owners of any undeveloped lots. There weren't many. I even called people who had large parcels, hoping they'd subdivide. What I found were people who LOVED their neighborhood. They spoke of hayrides in the fall. Dinners among neighbors. Everyone had a beautiful story to tell of wonderful neighbors in Country Place. Even people who owned land, and had moved out of the state, weren't interested in selling, for that off-chance that they might go back to Country Place someday, and build a home. But then, after countless calls, I reached an owner who had planned on building a home this year, but whose husband had just been transferred. Her husband, like others, hadn't planned on selling in case they wanted to build at a later time, but she'd ask him. She called me back with, "Well, it's your lucky day...he'll sell."
I'd like to say we got a discount. After all, I can't stand to pay full price for anything. It's almost against my religion. But, in real estate, location is everything. We paid what they had paid. No negotiation. I was just ecstatic. The lot overlooked the large pond that the neighbors call "Lake 3." We were in Country Place. One of the first things we did, on one of our weekly dates, was stand in our lot so Greg could hear the sound of the wind in the pines.
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| Our lot in Country Place as it looked in early spring |
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