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If you’re a big fan of Chip and Joanna Gaines and all things Fixer Upper and Magnolia, you’ve probably heard by now that the Waco Castle they bought and restored is now on the market. Magnolia Realty posted the info on their Facebook page just a few days ago. Here’s the main image of the house, but you can click over to their post to see more details of the inside if you haven’t yet seen it.
I’m a bit confused as to how this all works because the house is currently listed for sale at $2,900,000 on sites like Realtor and Zillow, but then Magnolia Realty announced that it will be sold by auction by Concierge Auctions beginning July 20, 2023.
I’ll admit that when I heard that Chip and Joanna were buying this house back in 2019, I cringed ever so slightly. I could just picture the interior being covered with shiplap and farmhouse style, which would have been a travesty for an historical house with an interesting story.
A local stone contractor named John Tennant began construction on the house in 1890. I would imagine that the fact that he was a stone contractor explains why he designed the house to look like a little castle. What better way to show off stone, right? But he ran into financial problems and couldn’t finish construction, so he sold it to someone else who couldn’t finish it and had to sell it. But you can read all about the history of the house here. That’s not really what I want to focus on.
The fact of the matter is that Chip and Joanna did an amazing job on the house. They really honored the history of the home, they kept the original vision intact, and painstakingly restored the beautiful original features. I think if John Tennant and the other previous owners could see it today, they’d be proud of the job they did. I never toured it in person, and I didn’t watch the show about the restoration, but I’ve seen plenty of before and after pictures as the house has been featured in local news stories over the last four years. Since they did offer tours for a while, you can see loads of pictures from various sources on the Google Reviews for the house.
But I don’t really want to talk about the restoration, either. You can read about the history and the restoration on plenty of other websites. What I do want to talk about and offer my own perspective on is the price tag. Again, I’m not really sure how all of that works since it’s listed for sale, while they’re also planning on auctioning off the house later next month. But for now, it’s listed at $2.9 million.
I just turned 50 years old last week, and I’ve lived in Waco for 43.5 of those years. I was born here and grew up in a suburb of Waco called Woodway, where my mom still lives to this day. I went to college in Dallas, but then came right back to Waco after I graduated. Then in my late 20s, I moved to Turkey for a year-and-a-half, then got married and lived in Oregon for three years, and then came back to Waco in 2005. Since 2006, Matt and I have lived in the city of Waco. We don’t live in a suburb. We actually live in Waco.
So having been here the majority of my life, and knowing what the city looks like, what houses cost, and knowing the various areas of the city quite well, let’s just say that my ears perk up a bit when I hear about a house inside the city of Waco being valued at millions of dollars. While there are plenty of areas just outside of the city that would warrant that kind of price tag, there are only a few areas inside the city that could draw that kind of asking price, and pretty much all of them would be areas around the lake.
Well, unfortunately, Chip and Joanna’s castle isn’t near the lake. It’s in a part of town where one street is pretty nice, and the next street over is…well, it’s questionable. And unfortunately, that’s the perfect description of the very block where the castle is located. While most locals automatically picture beautiful old homes when they hear the Austin Avenue location, just one street over (pretty much in the castle’s back yard) there’s Franklin Avenue.
Franklin Avenue is long, and takes you from the suburbs on one side of Waco, straight through Waco to the downtown area. There are sections of it (closer to the end that takes you to the suburbs) that are lined with restaurants and stay very busy. And then there’s a stretch of Franklin Avenue that’s just…again, questionable.
This stretch of Franklin isn’t really a destination. It’s just a thoroughfare to get from the suburbs to downtown Waco, which means that the street is almost always very busy. But this section looks like you’re driving through a 1960s time warp. Nothing has been updated in decades, and in fact, all of my life, I’ve associated this strip of Franklin with little used car lots. And this is the section that basically sits in the back yard of the castle. Here are a couple of the (now closed) used car lots.
And the next photos is a wider view showing three in a row. This is one street over from the castle, and for years and years (most of my life, in fact), I only ever associated this stretch of Franklin with used car lots. I have no idea when they all closed because I don’t come to this section of Franklin much. But when I was a little girl, I was always fascinated with the one building with the tower. In my young mind, this was the castle. I had no interest in that “castle” house that sat behind it. 😀 And as long as I can remember, it was always a used car lot. Well, that now-closed used car lot is the back yard view of the castle.
Across the street from the side of the castle is this building. I have no idea if this is even being used, but it looks like it was probably built in the 60s.
And across the street from all of those closed used car lots is this shopping center that also looks like it hasn’t gotten a facelift since it was built, which was probably in the 60s.
I sat in the parking lot of that old shopping center to take this picture of the closed used car lots and the castle.
In one of the old articles I came across from The Waco Tribune Herald (written long before Chip and Joanna were a part of the castle’s history), there was a picture showing “the view” from the tower of the castle. It was used car lots. The picture had been taken when those car lots were still open, and the lots were filled with cars with the big sticker prices on all of the windshields of the cars. 😀
So these are the things that those beautifully curated real estate photos don’t show. And I just honestly can’t see how anyone familiar with the area would pay $2.9 million for a house in this location. The neighborhood where the castle is located is actually quite nice. In fact, some of those houses are among the oldest, grandest, and most valuable houses in the city. But even at that, a $2.9 million price tag for something in that particular location is unheard of.
If someone could purchase the home and turn it into a money-generating business, like a bed and breakfast, that might be different. But it’s my understanding that the residents in this neighborhood have fought against, and will continue to fight against, this house being turned into a bed and breakfast. So unless something changes in the next few months, my understanding right now is that the house has to be used as a single family home.
To get a single family home that’s actually worth anywhere even close to that price inside the city of Waco, you’d have to go to the nice areas around the lake, or at least one of the neighborhoods that’s kind of nestled in a quiet area surrounded by lots of old trees and sitting on a large lot.
Here’s one that’s pretty close to the castle (going the opposite direction from the used car lots) but this house is nestled more in the residential area. There are no backyard views of old, closed down used car lots here. This house is for sale for less than half the price of the castle at $1.1 million.
But when you get into the $2 million price range and up for a single family house inside the city of Waco, those homes are almost always going to have a view like this house that’s for sale for $2.25 million.
So it will definitely be interesting to see how much the castle ends up selling for. I know that I’m not the only local who’s very curious to see how this sale/auction goes.
If someone does end up paying anywhere near the $2.9 million price that the house is currently listed for, I would imagine it would be someone who is not from this area, and who bids/buys it sight unseen based only on the carefully curated real estate listing photos and has never actually visited the house in person to see the area. It will be someone enamored of the novelty of owning a home renovated by Chip and Joanna Gaines.
Because, let me tell you, for $2.9 million in central Texas, you could own a sprawling piece of land with a huge, gorgeous, custom home and just about every amenity you could imagine, and that wouldn’t include old, closed down used car lots in your back yard. 😀
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
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