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D Sale of the Week: Sergei’s Dallas Palace

3916 Marquette is the stunning home of Dallas Star’s ice hockey defenseman (and now free agent)  Sergei Alexandrovich Zubov, his wife Irina and two children. This Dallas palace was purchased in 2006 and the Zubov’s went to town decorating;  the perfectly finished-out interiors would make a Czar or Czarina give up the throne for good. There are five bedrooms, six and a half baths, a keeping room, wine cellar, den, study, media room, steam shower, outdoor covered loggia, dipping pool, kitchen. We know that Sergei is not a small man, hence the double shower in the master bath. With the family off home-hopping between their New York and Florida abodes, 3916 Marquette can be yours for a mere $4.1 million.

Agent: Jamie Adams, Prudential Fine Properties: 817.226.4920.

Selling Your Home: Spray On Reupholstery

So this article says you can now buy spray fabric paint to cover soiled, stained or boring upholstery. And while puff-paint in a can might be a fast fix before an open house, OCD here finds the notion of concealing stains, odors and germs just, well, icky.

Dallas Neighborhoods: University Terrace Now a Neighborhood Stabilization Overlay

Passed today, and from what I hear, the battle has not been pretty. Gotta confess here — I hate  Neighborhood Nazi Nimwits. We had our own issues in Hillcrest Estates a few years back, when a handful of neighbors who had been here in their ranch homes since the dawn of eternity decided they wanted to control what new people coming in were building. One of them filed an encumbrance on our properties limiting window views — this in a ‘hood with minimum one acre lots. Never mind that most of them had deed restriction violations on their own properties — that was OK because they had been here so long. But none of us coming in could deviate and in fact, they wanted us to abide by stricter controls. That experience and the ego rush I felt coming from folks who were not paying my mortgage or taxes just fried me. So I do apologize, I’m a little jaded.

The problem I have with bulldog HOA’s and NSO’s is how they pit neighbor against neighbor — to wit, this from University Terrace’s NSO Yes! blog:

“you know what tubby. I actually have a life. I have a family. I have better things to do than to bully people into decisions and impose on other peoples rights. But if you feel so good about it that you have to celebrate, then have a great time. It really shows to all the people that did not vote or voted no just how low class, and trashy you are.” 

Please read the blog entirely and tell me if you are not instantly transported back to eighth grade. But that’s why city councils shouldn’t let these overlays happen — let the city make the rules, enforce them, anyone else can battle it out in court where the prohibitive costs might make people act like adults for about five whole minutes.