LUXURY HOMES

SOME REALTORS FLAUNT CER-lain properties as “country living in the heart of the city,” a seemingly paradoxical promise. Typically, in Dallas, that means anything with front and back yards. An acre qualifies as a real spread.

So imagine a residence on more than five rolling, wooded acres with ponds, a creek and a continuously flowing natural spring, purportedly a watering spot for Wichita or Tonkawa Indians in the century before Dallas was settled-now not only adding ambience to the property but also supplying its sprinkler system. And it’s not on the way to Piano; it’s inside Dallas^434 W. Northwest Hwy. at Midway Road.

This extraordinary property, listed for $3.35 million with Ellen Terry, Realtors, brings truth to the “country living” claim. The Jacobean Revival style house has six bedrooms and eight and a half baths. The master bedroom suite features a large sitting room as well as his and her bathrooms. Formal areas include a big gallery, a bigger dining room and a gigantic living room.

The main building is known as the Slaugh-ter-Maxson House, for two of the prominent families that have occupied it since its construction in the late 1920s or early 1930s. It was originally known as Cherilyn Manor and was literally in the country in those days because there were no street addresses along what we now call Northwest Highway.

In 1941, the property was sold by the Lively family, who owned the nearby Bluff View Dairy, to Mrs. Carrie Slaughter Dean and Mrs. Dorothy Slaughter, daughter and daughter-in-law of famous cattle baron Col. C.C. Slaughter. The pair lived in the house until 1949, when they sold it to John Sherman Maxson and his wife, Virginia, the eldest daughter of oilman E. DeGolyer, whose home on White Rock Lake is now part of the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. The Maxsons hired architects DeWitt & Swank to add a wing to the home, where they lived for 20 years.

The property was home to the North Dallas YWC A from 1970 to 1987, when it was purchased by J.D. and Milli Brown Whitworth.

After extensive renovations and improvements, the property now features most of the amenities of modern living and more. Cars pass through an electric gate before entering the five-car garage. Viewers can relax in the “English pub” and enjoy the big-screen television that’s built into a faux wine cask. The Fitness-minded can swim laps in an indoor pool in the separate pool house or work out in the cabana-tumed-exer-cise room. There’s also a three-bedroom, one-bath guest house.

The property was put on the market again in February and, as of press time, had attracted several interested parties. On the western edge of the Bluff-view neighborhood, with apartment developments nearby, there had been some interest from developers who planned to subdivide the property for zero lot-line residential use. Real estate broker Ellen Terry, however, still has high hopes for a single-family buyer.