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Dreamy midcentury modern in Barton Hills seeks $1.35M

A 1950 Stenger restored by MJ Neal with sublime results

By Cindy Widner
Photo of a clay-stone-paved courtyard with a partly open ceiling. A wall with an overhand and floor to ceiling window is on one side and a lower-height wall with a breezeway opening is connected at the corner. An upholstered antique couch and chair are arranged around a coffee table as if it is an indoor space.
2300 Rundell Place
Via DEN Property Group

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.

An outside photo of a modern home with a slanted roof, a rock chimney, and an elevated deck/walkway around the front and one corner. A corner wall on hinges made of glass and steel is hinged and open on the right. A garage-or store-front-style pulldown metal door is on the right. The room inside is paneled. There’s a couch against the back wall and a modern chair on the deck facing the room.
The Transformer Room
Via DEN Property
A shaded driveway and walkway lead to the fornt door of a modern house. There’s a row of large vertically paned windows on the wall adjacent to the door. On the closer corner is a large picture window with a steel piece lining the wll under it.
The home’s more traditional entrance
Via DEN Property

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.

Photo of a long room with a couch against the left wall and a small rug in front of it, wall-sized wood cabinets at one end next to a small armchair. The front wall of the room is open to an outdoor deck. There is a window on a pivot on the floor on the right side wall in back. It is situated at an angle to the back wall.
Indoors and outdoors exist in harmony
Via DEN Property
Photo of a living room with wood floors and a large skylight with exposed beams underneath and modern, stripped down walls. A quartet of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors is on the back wall. Two armchairs and a couch are arranged around the area in front of the fireplace. There’s a dining table and chairs on a rug in the back and a large hutch on one wall. Akk the furniture is modern.
A rock extends indoors and contains a fireplace.
Via DEN Property
An open-plan modern kitchen with a row of upper and lower shelves against the back wall with a long strip of a window along the wall above the counter and sink. It has an island with the same wood on the side and a bookshelf to the left. The wood shelves extend to the side wall, where ther is an inset double oven and microwave, all stainless steel. There’s a runner rug in front and a hallway leading away from the room.
The kitchen features long, clean rows of light-colored wood cabinets.
Via DEN Property
A modern bedroom with a wall of closet-type doors/cabinet that stops just short of the ceiling, where there is a window the length of the wall. A bed with a simple frame and two nightstands are against the adjacent wall, on top of a rug. on the left side of the wall is a stack of windows that creates a vertical column.
The maple bedroom cabinets extend into the adjacent courtyard.
Via DEN Property
An outdoor photo of a midentury carport with a flat roof that zig zags on one side, apparently to get around the tree trunk in front of it. Some sort of sporty vintage car is parked on the gravel driveway underneath.
The very good-looking carport
Via DEN Property

The listing for the home is held by DEN Property. The asking price is $1.35 million.

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