What $750,000 Buys You in Texas, Georgia and Michigan

Galveston, Texas | $724,880

An 1870s Victorian with four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms and a heated saltwater swimming pool, on a 0.12-acre lot

This home, in the East End Historical District, is known as the Isadore Lovenberg House and has been owned since 2014 by a history professor at Galveston College. She swapped out the exterior aluminum siding for period-appropriate cypress wood, commissioned artists to decorate the interior with painted ceiling patterns and custom stained glass, and added a swimming pool bordered in Italian marble, among other improvements.

The property is five minutes by car (heading northwest) to Galveston’s harbor and 10 minutes (heading south) to the beach. Shops, parks and restaurants are within blocks, and the house is just west of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s complex.

Size: 3,210 square feet

Price per square foot: $226

Indoors: Two sets of original doors (the first carved wood, with screens) open to a pale blue foyer, where an etched-glass lamp hangs from an elaborate medallion on the 13-foot ceiling and a paisley pattern runs along the crown molding.

The hallway to the right of the staircase, with its black walnut banister, opens to a robin’s-egg blue parlor with lofty windows and a painted pressed-tin ceiling. Pocket doors lead to a second, salmon-colored parlor with a fireplace topped by an antique carved-wood overmantel.

The dining room at the end of the hall offers the most elaborate ceiling of all — coffers newly stenciled with a gilded pattern. The adjacent kitchen has pink walls, a central island with drawers, a vintage O’Keefe & Merritt range and a beamed ceiling painted with flowers. (There is also a butler’s pantry.) Many of the solid-wood doors in these rooms are topped with transom windows that can be opened for cross ventilation. (The house faces the Gulf of Mexico and backs to Galveston Bay for maximum breeziness.)

The interior’s dominant blue is repeated on the walls of the primary bedroom and in the en suite bathroom, which has a claw-foot tub and a marble sink bowl set on a carved antique vanity. Bedroom two includes a fireplace and use of a hall bathroom with an ivory-painted wainscot, a vintage pedestal sink and a claw-foot tub. Bedroom three connects to a dressing room with varnished built-in wardrobes. Bedroom four opens to a private balcony over the kitchen-porch entrance. All of the rooms have wide-board floors.

The seller turned a studio space over the two-car garage into an apartment with a bedroom, kitchenette, full bathroom and wide balcony with an external staircase descending to the pool area.

Outdoor space: This painted lady has wide, stacked verandas in front that are edged in carved trim and propped up by elegant columns. A cut-glass pineapple pendant lamp hangs from the lower roof, and a couple more pineapple lights flank the front door. The saltwater swimming pool is heated. A wrought-iron fence sets the property off from the street, and the house is surrounded by brick paving and lush plantings.

Taxes: $8,429 (2020)

Contact: Jim Rosenfeld, Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty, Central Houston Brokerage, 713-854-1303; sothebysrealty.com

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Atlanta | $720,000

A 1935 Craftsman-style house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, on a 0.12-acre lot

This property is in the Peachtree Hills neighborhood east of Buckhead and about six miles north of downtown, half a mile from a coveted elementary school and a little more than a mile from Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, where a number of area residents work. The Peachtree Battle shopping mall, with a Publix supermarket, antiques and design shops and a Pilates studio, among other businesses, is two blocks west.

Size: 1,618 square feet

Price per square foot: $445

Indoors: An interior designer and her husband bought the single-level house in 2019 and made improvements inside and out, including repainting the light-mustard brick exterior a bright shade of white. Fresh white paint is also found throughout the interior, starting in a living room with a gas-burning brick fireplace and continuing into a formal dining room and a bedroom or study separated from the living room by French doors. All of these spaces have original floorboards, white-painted molding, nine-foot ceilings with fixtures from Circa Lighting and custom draperies that will remain with the property.

The kitchen was updated by previous owners with Shaker-style white cabinets with granite countertops (including an island with double beverage drawers), Viking appliances, a seating bar, a pantry and a built-in desk with open bookcases. Leaded-glass windows line a wall next to a breakfast area. A closet contains a full-size washer and dryer. Off the kitchen is a screened porch with a cathedral ceiling and ceiling fan.

The primary bedroom has two walk-in closets and built-in shelving with a television cabinet. Its recently updated en suite bathroom includes a honed-marble tile floor, a custom vanity topped with a marble countertop and twin sinks, a soaking tub and a standing shower. All of the plumbing fixtures are from Waterworks. A doorway leads to a second closet with custom storage fittings.

The guest room has use of a hall bathroom with honed-marble tile flooring, a combined tub and shower, and a sink with a quartz countertop. Both the primary suite and second bedroom are fitted with automatic blackout shades.

Outdoor space: A deep covered porch extends along the front of the house. A staircase leads down from the screened porch to a level, grassy backyard enclosed by a chain-link fence. Parking for two cars in tandem is available in the driveway.

Taxes: $7,001 (2020)

Contact: Olivia Sekerak, Dorsey Alston Realtors, 404-695-3234; dorseyalston.com

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Detroit | $710,000

A three-story brick house built in 1912, with five bedrooms, three full bathrooms and two half bathrooms, on a 0.3-acre lot

This house was designed by the turn-of-the-last-century architecture firm Chittenden & Kotting, the source of many stately homes in Indian Village, a historic neighborhood that encompasses three streets running perpendicular to the Detroit River (this property is on the middle one). It is three and a half miles east of downtown Detroit and about five and half miles west of Grosse Pointe. Belle Isle Park, which spreads across an island in the river, is less than two miles south. The storied, and still active, Pewabic Pottery, which provided tiles for this home, is a mile northeast.

Size: 4,917 square feet

Price per square foot: $144

Indoors: The house has had only four owners in its almost 110-year history and retains many original features, including Cuban mahogany trim, oak floors, leaded-glass windows, brass light fixtures and the aforementioned Pewabic tiles, which are embedded among terra-cotta bricks in the flooring of the solarium. The sellers have been painstaking in restoring these features and adding harmonious details, including grasscloth wall covering and painted canvases set within picture-rail moldings in the dining room.

Solid doors with leaded-glass sidelights take you through a vestibule into the reception room, which has a wall of closets and an archway framing the front staircase. A door to the left of the entrance opens to a study with wide windows, dark wood beams and pickled wall paneling. To the right, glass pocket doors lead to a living room with grasscloth-covered walls framed by cream-painted trim, a wood-burning brick fireplace and built-in open bookshelves. A previous owner commissioned the artist-painted landscapes (on removable canvases) that encircle the adjacent dining room, recalling panoramic wallpaper from an earlier era. The living and dining rooms connect through French doors to the two-story solarium at the side of the house.

A butler’s pantry with vintage cabinets, wood counters and sink connects the dining room to a kitchen with wood floors and simple, laminate-topped white cabinetry. A swinging door opens to a pantry with the original refrigerator (the compressor is still in the basement). An adjacent former servants’ dining room with a pass-through includes a more modern refrigerator-freezer.

Built under the staircase is a powder room that includes an original sink with sterling-silver fixtures. A Palladian window lights the journey up and down the stairs.

The second-floor landing includes a linen closet with shelving on three sides and pullout surfaces for folding. The five bedrooms on this level include a pair with fireplaces and a shared bathroom containing a separate soaking tub and marble shower. A second pair share a hall bathroom with a tub and spray attachment. At the rear of the house, in the former servants’ quarters, two bedrooms were merged into one with access to a bathroom with a shower.

The staircase continues to an unfinished third floor with solid brick walls and strong potential.

Outdoor space: The house is set back from the street on its 75-foot-wide property and includes a sequoia in front and a new exposed-aggregate concrete driveway. The solarium opens to a brick backyard patio; beyond is a lush lawn bordered with plants and specimen trees, including dogwood. The one-car garage at the end of the driveway is plumbed and set up for heating, with a radiator.

Taxes: $7,352

Contact: Ryan Lally, Keller Williams Luxury International, 313-288-0434; thehometeamusa.com

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