Location: Approximately 22 miles Northwest of Llano, Texas. It is nearest to the tiny Texas communities of Valley Spring, Pontotoc, and Castell, Texas. Its approximately 80 miles from Austin, Texas.
Land: Dog Ridge Ranch sits atop a knoll to the west of an area favorite, Smoothing Iron Mountain. The entire East side of the home faces Smoothing Iron and tremendous views can be had from almost every room.
There is a good mix of brush (predominantly tasajillo, whitebrush, and mesquite), hardwoods (Live and Post Oak mostly), and cleared areas. The soil is sandy to sandy loam allowing the opportunity to plant a wide variety of species from grasses to food plots.
Water: A shallow drainage runs in a SE to NW direction across the ranch and may lend itself to a good location for a pond. Water for the house, barn, and livestock is located at the SE corner of the ranch and was last tested at 30 gallons per minute.
Improvements: The show stopper of the ranch is the home. At approximately 3000 sq. ft. with approximately 1500 sq. ft. of porches, this 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom home is comprised of two 1930s/40s Craftsman style homes that were moved onto the property in 2017 and situated on a solid, steel reinforced, concrete beam foundation. The exterior of the home is rock and plaster with a floor to ceiling, wooden windowed, three season breezeway which houses the laundry area along with freezer, hot water heater and storage area. Both sides of the breezeway open onto expansive decks for year-round enjoyment of country life. The roof is colored metal selected to blend in with the surrounding countryside. The house was traditionally positioned on a southeast / northwest axis to take advantage of prevailing summer breezes.
The home boasts new electrical and plumbing systems and was painstakingly renovated over 2017 and 2018. No expense was spared restoring the original longleaf pine floors throughout the home. The double living room, library and breakfast room retain their ship lap siding and the living room, dining room, center entry hall and breezeway have new beaded board ceilings. All rooms, save two of the three bathrooms and kitchen, have beautiful crown molding. The house was originally built as an all wood home meaning that under the drywall walls you will find ship lap wooden walls.
The home offers views from each room with forty-seven of fifty-three windows replaced with energy saving vinyl windows. Care was taken to preserve both the interior and exterior wooden trim that surrounds the new windows to maintain the appearance of the original cased windows. Windows in the double living room (nine) are double hung while the remainder single hung. Six windows were intentionally left as original wooden windows and sealed and closed at various entrance points to the home to remind visitors, and the owner, of the authenticity and craftsmanship of the era.
There are three full baths and three bedrooms with a possible fourth bedroom if the library were used as a bedroom. Two of the three bathrooms offer restored claw-foot tubs and two of the three bathrooms have floor to ceiling tiled, step in, wall to wall showers. The master bath shower room exits to a side porch / entry that serves as a glorified mud room so as not to track through the home after a hard days work on the property. Each wing of the home has its own independent central electric heat pump HVAC as well as a freestanding, vent less, gas fireplace should electrical service go down during the odd ice storm.
Three bedrooms, two baths and a small television room are in the private bedroom wing while the public wing boasts a large center entry hall, large dining room, double living room, library / den and a two-room kitchen and a breakfast area with original built-in buffet with mirrored back splash. One of the living rooms could easily be used as a dining room if a separate den area were desired utilizing the current, formal dining room.
The kitchen offers a farmhouse sink, integrated Kitchen Aid stainless steel dishwasher, butcher block counter tops and easy close drawer storage in the central island. The cooking alcove is comprised of a Samsung continuous, cast iron grate, propane gas cook top and a built-in Frigidaire electric oven flanked by cabinets with pull out racks for storing cookware. Cabinet to ceiling beveled subway tiles adorn and protect the walls of the cooking alcove and back splash between sink and wall cabinets.
Electric service to the house is underground and each wing of the home has its own 200 amps service for a total of 400 amps of supplied service to the residence. The bedroom wing shares its 200 amps service with the barn. All electrical service to the house and barn is buried from the main service lines provided by Central Texas Electric Cooperative (CTEC).
The property has a 250 gallon propane tank located between the barn and north side of the house. New septic service was installed in 2017 and runs from the back of the house to the tank and drain fields located south of the home.
Situated to the north of the residence is a concrete slab, all steel metal barn. The structure, (while suffering from lack of organization due to the home construction project) provides 2400 square feet of open storage. Side walls are ten feet in height and the trusses were welded on site and offer twelve feet of height down the length of the building. There are three operable windows for air circulation and three lockable, roll up doors. Two of the doors are eight feet high while the third is ten feet. There is also one keyed pass through entry door.
Electrical supply to the barn is a 200 amp service shared with the bedroom wing of the house and minimal wiring has been completed within the barn. There are more than sixty running feet of combined shelving and worktop space installed and ready for your own farm and ranch projects.
The barn is fully guttered and one half of the roof area feeds two 2500 gallon rain collection tanks. One of the tanks has been plumbed to supply two remote spigots. Spigots from rain catchment are sprayed in orange neon paint to indicate non-potable water while potable water spigots are sprayed blue to avoid confusion. There are numerous spigots located a short distance from the house so as to provide ready watering supply to the three rows of wine grapes, raised asparagus bed and fruit trees.
The water line running from the well to the residence has numerous buried supply boxes providing access to below ground spigots and tie-ins for additional remote water runs should irrigation or supplemental pond water be desired on the property. There are currently three, man-made steel wildlife watering structures on the property in addition to the three seasonal ponds. There are also two old concrete and plaster watering structures awaiting restoration near the old home site at inside the south gated entrance.
The information contained herein is deemed reliable, but is not warranted by Broker or Seller, and is subject to change, prior to sale, errors and/or omissions and withdrawal from market. Buyer(s) are responsible for their resolution to purchase subject property according to local, state, and federal law, and due diligence as necessary according to proposed use. SHOWN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY DO NOT TRESPASS.
Buyer(s) broker must be identified on first contact and must accompany buying prospect on first showing to be allowed full fee participation. Fee participation will ultimately be at the sole discretion of the listing broker.
