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Featured on Preservation Austin’s 2016 historic homes tour, this one-story beauty was built in 1950 by “Austin’s Eichler,” A.D. Stenger, and restored and slightly expanded by MJ Neal in 2009 and 2016. Stenger is possibly the most well-known of Austin midcentury architects, or at least of those who worked solely in the residential arena. He was also a developer who was known to help construct his homes, literally with his bare hands, primarily in South Austin and West Lake Hills. Neal works in Austin and in Barcelona, and the influences of both regions seem to come together in the open courtyard and the “transformer” room (we’ll get to that in a minute).
Located at 2300 Rundell Place, just on the Barton Hills side of its border with Zilker, the 2,199-square-foot home has a stone and wood facade and a cool, subdued interior, with floors of wood, concrete, and tile carry you under skylights and past an interior stone wall with a fireplace, past long rows of light maple cabinetry, which extends through a bedroom and into the interior, possibly perfect courtyard, which has sliding gates for privacy and access to a paved walkway that leads to a very sexy carport.
The home has many other just-right features, including built-ins and clerestory windows that illuminate it from above. It has four bedrooms and three bathrooms—though perhaps the above-mentioned “transformer room” might be counted as one of the bedrooms. Created by MJ Neal as a way to make the house more neighborhood-facing and open, the room has wall components that open up the room completely on to a front porch and a deck that extends into the front yard.
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It’s hard to say if Stenger would have approved, but it’s an inventive approach to creating more openness and exchange among neighbors and addressing some of the isolation suburban neighborhoods—which is what Stenger’s developments were when he built them—helped create.
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The listing for the home is held by DEN Property. The asking price is $1.35 million.