QUAIL CREEK RISES AGAIN
Neighborhood’s second annual home tour is next weekend
T he inaugural Quail Creek Home Tour went so well last year, residents have decided to do it again.
“Last year we sort of built a home tour,” said Julie Leclercq, tour chairwoman. “This year, you plan to perfect a home tour.”
The second annual Quail Creek Home Tour will kick off Friday with Cocktails in the Creek at the home of former Gov. David Walters and his wife, Rhonda Walters, at 13040 Twisted Oak Road.
The tour will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the next day, April 1, with the following stops:
In Quail Creek North
• 3340 Brush Creek Road, Betty and Jim Bruce • 3312 Rock Hollow Road, Christi and Tip Holland • 12313 Blue Sage Road, Bri and Tom Taccia
In Quail Creek South
• 3000 Red Oak Road, Brooke and Ross Flinton • 12012 Blue Sage Road, Jennifer and Cameron Entershary • 11404 Red Rock Road, Katie and Jamie Lathrop
A bonus “twilight tour” from 6 to 8 p.m. will include cocktails. “So it will be sort of an ending party to a great weekend,” Leclercq said.
Tickets to each of next weekend’s activities are available at Norwalk Furniture, 12100 N May Ave., or can be purchased online at www.quailcreek.org.
Quail Creek Bank, 12201 N May Ave. will act as a hub on tour day. Guests can buy tickets there or pick up tickets they purchased online. Food trucks also will be on site.
Vendors will also set up shop in two homes, one at 3508 Partridge Road, home to Jennifer and Jeff McElroy, and another at 11414 Quail Creek Road, home to Tana Sanger.
For the Bruces, the home on Brush Creek Road is their second in the neighborhood, which encompasses a rectangle from May Avenue west to Hefner Parkway, and from Hefner Road north to Memorial Road, with NW 122 dividing it into north and south sections.
Betty Bruce worked for years for builder Jay Sanders, who died in 1999. In 2008, the Bruces leaped at the chance to buy Sanders’ personal home when his widow, Margaret Ann Sanders, decided to sell it.
“I knew it would be a quality home,” said Betty Bruce, 76.
They put their own stamp on the house, pulling out carpets and scoring the concrete underneath to create what appear to be tiled floors. They merged rooms upstairs to create a 1,500-square-foot art studio for Jim Bruce, 79, whose Asian-inspired paintings mix with other art throughout the house.
It was a step up from the considerably smaller space he had used in their previous home. “It was on the second floor, and it was about 12 feet by 14 feet,” he said.
“And it was the boys’ playroom during the day,” his wife added with a laugh.
‘Quail Creek celebration’
The Quail Creek neighborhood goes back to 1960, as farmland began to give way to a new country club and residential development. Quail Creek Golf & Country Club opened in 1961, helping spur more development.
The neighborhood took shape in stages over the decades, with some areas not filling in until the 1990s, quietly growing in the heart of one the busiest areas of Oklahoma City.
But the quiet of the winding, tree-lined streets here make it easy to forget the bustle beyond. A disparate mix of architectural styles harmonize here, from the understated elegance of Tudor Revival to more baroque plantation styles to the clean, straight lines of modern.
The Bruces’ own stone home gets a shot of the old world from a pair of wooden doors they purchased in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“They just happened to fit perfectly,” Jim Bruce said.
The neighborhood also features 24 separate entrances, which are being upgraded and repaired with money raised from the home tour.
“Last year, we had about 1,000 people come through and raised about $40,000 net,” said committee member Somer Heim, 34.
“We hope to do as well if not better this year.”
Proceeds from last year’s tour got work started with repairs to the entrances at Rosewood, Pine Wood and Maple Ridge.
But for residents, it also offers an opportunity to show off their neighborhood.
“The whole weekend is sort of a Quail Creek celebration,” Leclercq said.