Angling for visitors
Gatewood tour to show off park, homes
The Gatewood Home Tour on Sunday will feature the usual mix of historic, renovated and eclectic homes, but organizers also are putting a spotlight on one of the neighborhood's prized collective possessions: updated Triangle Park, which Gatewood sort of inherited from the city earlier this year.
The park, in the triangle-shaped median where NW 21 meets Indiana Avenue, will be the garden stop on the tour, which will be from noon to 5 p.m. Yum Pig food truck will sell food and drinks. Advance tickets are $12. Go to www.eventbrite.com and search for “Gatewood.” Tickets will be $15 at any home on Sunday.
Gate wood Historic District Neighborhood Association stepped in to saved Triangle Park and Trolley Park near NW 18 and Classen. It now manages and maintains the spaces under a contract with OKC Beautiful.
“Sometime around the beginning of the year we were given notice by the city that they would no longer be maintaining the parks, and that discussions were taking place to bulldoze Trolley Park,” the association said in its fall newsletter. “Instead, the Neighborhood Association reassumed maintenance at both parks.
“This started with a small group of board members volunteering their time tom ow, weed-eat, aerate, (prune trees), and pick up trash at both properties and eventually turned into our own Dave Summers taking on mowing and weed-eating duties as part of the rounds he makes as a professional landscaper.”
The tour is a great time for Gatewood to show off the improvements at Triangle Park, said Tyler Holmes, president of the association.
Home on the tour, with information provided by Gatewood, are:
• 1401 NW 16, Jonathan and Annie Middlebrooks.
The couple bought t he original
1912 home in 2015 with plans for extensive renovations but found it was beyond repair. The new home was designed by Collin Fleck, of Bockus Payne Architects, and built by Jim Abernathy Construction in 2017. The great room downstairs and bonus space and loft upstairs allow plenty of room for the family of eight.
• 1621 NW 16, Samuel Day. Day, an architect, conceived what became this multifamily house in 2015 after a small-scale development “boot camp” convinced him of the need for small apartment buildings in infill urban neighborhoods. He acquired vacant property and designed a 3,200-square-foot quadplex with f our single- bedrooms units of various sizes and options, built by McAlister Construction.
• 1809 Carey Place, Kenneth and Andrea Knoll.
The Spanish Mission-style home, built in 1934, has a checkered past suitable, mayhap, for “Scary” Carey Place (so called for eerie tales of long-ago mayhem, which made it a Halloween night hotspot for trick-or-treat'ers).
Its early history is a mystery. In 2008, somebody saved it from dilapidation by converting it from duplex to single-family, giving it an industrial look and loft feel. The Knolls bought it in January 2018, gutted it, and started returning it to something more architecturaly suitable for Carey Place, inside and out. Work in progress.
• 1329 NW 21, Jeff and Rachel Chanchaleune.
The 1,899- square-foot home, built in 1912, was just what the Chamchaleunes were looking for when they bought it, remodeled, in May.
“We have always loved Gatewood,” they said in the tour book. “There's historic charm but unlike some of the other historic neighborhoods, Gatewood homes all had their own uniqueness. There will be a Colonial home and next door there will be a bungaló or another style of home. No matter your style, you can probably find it in Gatewood. ... Commercial redevelopment in the surrounding area caught our attention as well. Gate wood also has a lot of momentum with new homes being built in vacant lots and old homes being remodeled. We believe it will make Gatewood more desirable than it already is.”
• 1832 NW 17, Jim and Tammy Brakebill.
The couple bought the twostory ,2,600- square-foot home, built in 1925, two years ago, and updated it from a design conventional for 1925. They took out a wall dividing the kitchen and dining room, added a breakfast bar and office, and remodeled bathrooms to an original look, among other improvements. The home includes a 300-square-foot apartment over the detached two-car garage.