Chip and Joanna Gaines’s Latest ‘Fixer Upper’ Is Lovely, but Unsurprising

The big, velvet sofa within the drawing room, the place earlier younger male residents as soon as acquired potential suitors, the tour information tells us, is on the market. As are the linen-scented Magnolia-brand candles, which waft with the energy of 1,000 sprays of Febreze all through the roughly 6,000-square-foot citadel. The information is uncertain if the rugs in an upstairs bed room can be found to buy, however we’ll all be capable of be taught for positive on the conclusion of our tour, the place a QR code linking to an official citadel look ebook—product hyperlinks included—is ready for us. 

In reality, all the Cottonland Fortress—a greater than 100-year-old property in Waco, Texas—will quickly be in the marketplace. The citadel sat empty and in disrepair for many years, till, in 2019, a sure Waco couple identified for revitalizing dilapidated properties with potential noticed alternative within the pile of stone and dirt. Now, the historic landmark is Chip and Joanna Gaines’s newest fixer-upper—possibly even their largest but. The Fixer Higher stars spent years overhauling the citadel, and this July opened it as much as the general public for one-hour guided excursions. On the finish of October, the excursions will stop as the home goes in the marketplace for some undisclosed itemizing value. The whole renovation shall be viewable at residence this fall, when a devoted season of Fixer Higher: The Fortress airs on the Gainses’ personal Magnolia Community.

It’s solely becoming that Chip and Joanna would tackle one in all Waco’s most iconic properties, located on Austin Avenue, a large stretch of major highway lined with Texas mansions, each outdated and new. My household in Houston has a joke that Chip and Jo will ultimately want to go away Waco, having mounted up each residence within the tiny Texas city. It’s inconceivable to drive by the world, as I did on a latest Saturday afternoon, with out feeling the couple’s influence. Their advanced of companies—together with a bakery, furnishings retailer, plant store, and extra—rises like a fortress within the heart of city and is extra like a small, Magnolia-branded amusement park with half a dozen parking tons, all of which have been full. The road to get into the Silos Baking Co. (delivered to life by the house renovation TV stars on Fixer Higher’s fourth season) snaked like one for a curler coaster or airport safety. Excursions for the citadel, set miles away from the Magnolia compound, have been utterly offered out for the day, as an indication close to the doorway alerted me. Others in my group had traveled from out of city to see Chip and Joanna’s newest renovation. 

The historical past of the citadel was outlined succinctly on the very starting of our tour. In 1890, native stone contractor John Tennant started development on a grandiose new residence, instantly flush with money from a fruitful take care of a Waco banker. When he ran out of funds to finish the property, he offered it to a cotton dealer in 1906 beneath the settlement that he might end the stonework. After monetary difficulties continued, the pair deserted the venture two years later. A conflict veteran took over development in 1913, finishing the construction that stands right now: A 3-story citadel (modeled after a German fortress alongside the Rhine River) with a basement, eight fireplaces, and a turret. The citadel modified fingers a couple of instances since then, as soon as promoting, in 1969, for $50,000. The home acquired its historic marker in 1977, however within the Nineteen Nineties went by a speedy succession of homeowners, falling into excessive disrepair. It wasn’t till 2019 that the Gainses, who’d been watching the property change fingers for years, lastly purchased the construction.

Even in the event you’d solely seen one or two episodes of Fixer Higher—which was definitely not true for the followers on my tour—you’d be capable of acknowledge Joanna Gaines’s attribute farmhouse-inspired contact.

Only some of the citadel’s authentic options stay—a pair of stable wooden doorways that we handed by on the entrance, a refinished fire, and one in all many elderly mild switches. The remainder has been reimagined and renovated by America’s most DIY-famous couple. Even in the event you’d solely seen one or two episodes of Fixer Higher—which was definitely not true for the followers on my tour—you’d be capable of acknowledge Joanna Gaines’s attribute farmhouse-inspired contact all through the house. There was no shiplap in sight, however there have been not less than two fiddle-leaf fig timber, standing tall in sun-drenched rooms. The couple transformed the turret into an alcove for a soaking tub. Antiques from Texas’s Spherical High Antiques Honest (about two hours from Waco), in addition to from England (a lot farther), are located amongst furnishings from Magnolia Market, all of which tour company have been inspired to take a seat on—and purchase.

Whereas our tour information was desperate to level out which particulars within the citadel have been authentic to the development, she additionally appeared conscious that the company have been seemingly there as Fixer Higher followers, quite than Waco historical past fans. Midway by the tour, one visitor lastly requested our information the inevitable query: Had she ever met Joanna herself? The information, in fact, had. We have been proven the mirror by which Joanna checked her make-up on days filming Fixer Higher: The Fortress and got spiels about how Joanna envisioned every house. The information identified which crops Joanna harvested from her private backyard. Pausing in entrance of a big-screen TV, we have been instructed that Joanna doesn’t have one in her personal home—however in fact, as followers, we already knew that.  

That’s to do no disservice to the great thing about the citadel, or to the duo’s spectacular renovation work. The first suite, lined with a wall of home windows, sits subsequent to a library with newly constructed dark-wood cabinets adorned with outdated, unreadable books and a kind of sliding ladders on a observe. The children’ room is extra elegant than my grownup bed room, full with one of many residence’s many stone fireplaces. The matching twin beds have been initially bought for the Gaines’s daughters, Ella Rose and Emmie Kay, however, as our information instructed us, the ladies turned their noses up at them, so that they now sit within the citadel. The kitchen, we discovered, was moved from the basement degree to the principle ground, and an outdated dumbwaiter was eliminated to create space for a spice cupboard. The basement now comprises a visitor suite with (in fact) a secret room located off a darkish, wood-trimmed space staged for enjoying playing cards, hidden behind a trick wall.