6909 Tokalon Drive Is Your Rainy Day Antidote: Extreme Southern Charm on a Most Beautiful Street in Dallas

You give me a list of the top streets to live on in Dallas and Tokalon is right there, maybe at the top. I love Beverly Drive and Overhill and would kill (not really) to live on Lexington. I lived on Park Lane and love it, particularly where it winds down to Sunnybrook and then down to where Mark Danuser of Tatum Brown is building on the old Heath property. I love Sunnybrook and Audubon. Oh, Alice Circle! Strait Lane, meh — give me Crooked Creek instead. And how can I forget Nonesuch!

But Tokalon has the trees and topography, and I swear anyone comes up here from Austin, finds themselves on Tokalon, they will be totally confused and think, wait, where am I? Dallas or Austin?

Well, David Griffin just listed one of the most amazing homes on Tokalon, a beautiful, charming, gracious Southern colonial originally built in the 1930’s that is so perfectly situated on a hilltop, you will think it’s am movie set. This home has not been on the market for 37 years, ever. It has, however, been loved, enlarged and sensitively remodeled to maintain the quality and integrity of the original home but still embrace life in the 21st century.

As if it’s southern belle perfect was not enough — and that columned porch that takes my breath away!!! — the home has almost .7 of a verdant, treed acre, accessed via a serpentine Pennsylvania blue stone pathway cascading forward under tall trees.

Tara, this is Tara.

The exterior is surfaced in irregularly cut Austin stone, and the floor length first floor windows as well as the second floor windows are fitted with operable shutters. One look at that stone and you will see why we go gaga over it as a building product here in Texas. Texas stone doesn’t last a lifetime, it lasts a millenium.

The home has a classic central foyer hall flanked by living room on one side, huge formal dining on the other. Tucked off of the living room is a cozy paneled library with a real bay window.

You have heard me speak of Morning Rooms or Keeping rooms. Well, here is one for the record books in Dallas and it isn’t even a $12 million dollar mansion. The beamed ceiling’d morning room overlooks a New Orleans- inspired rear garden, a motor court entrance and a large, light filled garden room. There is a wet bar with an ice maker in the morning room to keep the Mint Julips we will be served at the right temperature and properly iced.

The kitchen is so very 21st century, but retains a nod to the home’s pedigree with a beaded wood ceiling and a herringbone patterned floor. There are butcher block islands, no granite (don’t faint)  plus a 5-burner Gaggenau gas cooktop, 2 Gaggenau ovens, a 5-burner Miele electric cook-top, and 2 Miele dishwashers. This is a kitchen for dead-serious cooks, not people like me who reheat takeout. In between the kitchen and the two-car attached garage is a large fist floor utility room.

Then there is the “Great Room”: carved antique fireplace at the end of the room, a large wet bar with a wine fridge in the other. (I’ll have another mint julip, please.) Oh those arched niches for books, the rich, dark stained wainscoting, and reinforced beams: this room is the heart of the home.

Upstairs: three bedrooms, including the master suite with a  “den sized” screen porch facing the lushly landscaped rear garden. The master bath has marble finishes, double vanities, a separate shower and a Kohler tub plus two large walk-in closets.

The other two bedrooms have updated baths. There is another room and full bath on the third floor. There are two patios off the rear garden. The second patio is at the property’s highest point, is covered with a wisteria-laden arbor, has an outdoor fireplace and built-in outdoor grill.

As if there is not enough in 6909 Tokalon to take you back to a charming, more mannered and gracious time every single minute you live in this home, please make sure you serve the next round of Mint Julips next to the cascading fountain and reflecting pool off the second garden.

David Griffin, of course, has this listing and it can be your’s for a mere $1,850,000.

I would much rather it could be mine!