Custom homes in Tanglewood
A new house here should match its neighbors in scale and roofline. We design from the houses on either side.
Our work · Tanglewood Custom Home Rebuilt
Design, drawn and built
What a custom home in Tanglewood involves
Every other project starts with somebody else's decisions. This one does not. No wall that has to stay, no plumbing to work around, no previous owner's taste to negotiate with. That is the appeal, and it is the risk, because every choice is genuinely yours and there are thousands of them.
We draw it, price it, permit it and build it, and the drawings come from people who have to build what they draw. Cost-plus billing means you see the real numbers as they land instead of a lump sum with the margin buried inside it. Build on your lot, on land you are still looking at, or on a teardown in a neighborhood you already love.
In Tanglewood
The constraint on a Tanglewood build is the street, not the lot. Scale, roofline and how the front meets the sidewalk have to answer to what is already standing on either side before they answer to anything else, and getting that wrong is not something a finish schedule fixes later. Cost-plus, so what it takes to get it right is a document rather than a conversation you have afterwards.
Design and drafting, in house
The drawings come from the people who have to build them
Plans, elevations and selections are done here, by the team that will be on site — so the thing you approve on paper is the thing that gets built, and the number under it is real.
The construction set
Every room dimensioned, every window and door scheduled, ceiling heights called out — the drawing a plan reviewer stamps and a framer builds from.
The house in 3D
Massing, rooflines and the front elevation, drawn before a single material is ordered.
The selections
Stone, tile, timber and cloth, chosen together and seen in daylight before anything is ordered.
Building in Tanglewood
What the houses here actually ask for
1950s–70s
Mid-century ranches under big trees, most of them fifty to seventy years old, with a run of larger two-story houses that went up as the neighborhood filled in.
The houses here are sound. The layouts are just forty years behind how a family actually lives now, which is why most Tanglewood work is additions and whole-home projects rather than a finish refresh.
- Median lot
- 12,420 sq ft
- Median house
- 3,113 sq ft
- Houses with a pool
- 1 in 3
102 ft wide by 136 deep
a quarter are over 3,821 — these are large houses already
221 of the 663 single-family parcels record one
Measured from City of Fort Worth GIS and Tarrant Appraisal District parcels, measured 2026-09-01
The ground rules in Tanglewood
No city historic overlay. Tanglewood is not one of Fort Worth's fourteen districts.
Nothing here needs a Certificate of Appropriateness, and a rebuild does not answer to a design review board. What it does answer to is the street — and private deed restrictions, which vary by subdivision and are worth confirming before anyone draws.
A-10 One-Family~71%
- Min lot
- 10,000 sq ft
- Min width
- 60 ft
- Max coverage
- 40%
- Front yard
- 25 ft
A-5 One-Family~10%
- Min lot
- 5,000 sq ft
- Min width
- 50 ft
- Max coverage
- 50%
- Front yard
- 20 ft
A-10 is the strictest common zoning in the city, and it is most of Tanglewood
Seven in ten lots here are A-10: a 25-foot front yard rather than 20, a 60-foot minimum width, and 40% maximum coverage rather than 50. On the median lot that still leaves a generous footprint — but 40% is the number a second story or a new wing gets measured against, and it is stricter than the neighborhoods a few miles east.
Measured from City of Fort Worth GIS and Tarrant Appraisal District parcels, measured 2026-09-01
What it runs in Tanglewood
$550,000–$2,000,000
roughly 2,100 square feet at the low end, past 4,000 at the top.
Ranges for a custom home in Tanglewood, not a quote. Before there are drawings, a range is the only honest number anyone can give you — the spread between a high and a low bid on the same job is routinely 20% or more. We bill cost-plus, so when there is a plan you see the actual materials, labor and subcontractor costs, plus our overhead and profit, rather than a single figure with the unknowns padded into it.
What moves it
- The street, before the lot. Scale, roofline and how the front meets the sidewalk have to answer to what is already standing on either side, and getting that wrong is not something a finish schedule fixes later.
- Your lot or a teardown. A teardown carries demolition, disposal and often a utility disconnect the empty lot never sees.
- Site conditions. Slope, trees, how far the utilities have to come and whether a truck can reach the back of the lot are all real line items before anything is framed.
- Finish level, which on a ground-up build is the widest lever there is — it is most of the distance between the two ends of this range.
- Engineering, which is inside the range, not on top of it. On our last two ground-up builds, the outside engineers' fees ran about $10,000–$15,000 each.
- Per square foot
- $260–$450
- How long it takes
- 11–18 months
- Fort Worth permit fees
- $3,000–$5,000
- Carry a contingency
- 10–15% of budget
Built by 6th Ave Homes
Custom New Construction in Tanglewood See the gallery →What we'd actually do here
The moves that matter in Tanglewood
Every neighborhood rewards something different. These are the three that come up on almost every custom home we take on.
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Go out, not up
Tanglewood was platted around its trees, and the lots are generous by Fort Worth standards. Going out costs less than going up and keeps the roofline the street already knows.
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Raise the ceiling
The single change that does the most for a mid-century house, and the one that most often decides whether an original is worth keeping at all.
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Give it a real front porch
Most of these houses were built with a shallow entry and no covered room at the front at all. It is the highest-return thing you can do to a ranch's street face.
Both numbers, one conversation
Remodel, rebuild, or move?
In Tanglewood all three are live options, and the honest answer depends on your lot, your structure, and what staying is worth to you.
What the work would cost
Priced by the people who'd build it.
Design, drafting and construction, in house.
What it'd sell for as-is
Valued by the agents who sell this market.
6th Ave Homes is a licensed brokerage.
A remodeler can price the work. An agent can price the house. We do both.
We're one of the few companies that can price all three honestly — our drafting team can tell you what the lot and the structure will carry, our builders can price both versions, and our agents know what it sells for as-is. We've rebuilt here for a family who refused to leave their street. We've also told people not to. You'll get the real comparison, not the one that sells our services.
How it works
A custom home in Tanglewood, in three steps
The people who draw it, price it, and build it share a hallway — which is why the plan you fall in love with is the plan that actually gets built.
Meet Up
We walk the house, listen to how you actually live in it, and talk honestly about budget before anyone draws a line.
Team Up
Our designers and drafting team put a real plan on paper — layout, selections, and a number you can build around.
Glasses Up
We build it, keep you in the loop, and hand back a home that feels like you. Pour something good.
Our work in Tanglewood
Tanglewood Custom Home Rebuilt
Custom New Construction
A tree took down the house this family had lived in for decades. They chose to stay on the same lot instead of leaving the neighborhood, and the 6th Ave Homes design and construction teams built them a ranch-style home that reads like it has always been there. Scroll for the full custom new construction gallery.
See the whole project
From the Tanglewood Custom Home Rebuilt — see the full gallery
Not our first time on these streets
More of our work in Tanglewood
The neighborhood
Ranch land laid out so the trees would outrank the houses.
This was Edwards Ranch before it was a neighborhood. The family had been running cattle out here since 1848, and the family's land company opened Tanglewood and Overton Park for development in 1956. Cass Edwards sold the city the ground for the elementary school for one dollar, on the condition it stay a public school. It opened in 1960, and the neighborhood association still holds its quarterly meetings in that auditorium.
Overton Park is not a playground with a swing set. It is a linear park roughly a mile long, following the creek, created when the Edwards family's land company deeded the strip to the city in 1959. It runs on into Hartwood and Foster, and the Trinity Trails pick up about a quarter mile from the elementary school at Bellaire Drive South.
Historic Fort Worth put Tanglewood on its Most Endangered Places list in 2013, and the sentence they used is the one every owner here eventually hears: the dirt is worth more than the houses sitting on top. They were describing a specific pattern — a single-story 1950s house giving way to a two-story built to the lot lines, with the mature trees going down with it. Since that listing, they say, the teardowns have accelerated.
What's around it
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Tanglewood Elementary
Pre-K through fifth on Overton Park Drive West, and the closest thing this neighborhood has to a town square.
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Overton Park
The long green spine of the neighborhood, deeded to the city by the Edwards family in 1959.
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Colonial Country Club
A mile and a quarter east. The PGA Tour has been coming here since 1946.
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Texas Christian University
A mile and a half. Close enough to walk into a game, far enough that this never feels like a college neighborhood.
- Tanglewood Trail
- Spanish Oak Drive
- Ranch View Road
- Harlanwood Drive
- Hartwood Drive
- Lynncrest Drive
- Simondale Drive
- Bellaire Drive South
- Overton Park Drive
- Mockingbird Lane
- Marquette Court
- Autumn Court
What that means for your custom home
We are not going to pretend the teardown question isn't the conversation here. It is the one Historic Fort Worth put on a list. What we will do is answer it for your lot specifically, and early, before anyone is committed to a set of drawings. Sometimes the answer is build new. Often the answer is that the house is better than the market thinks and the money belongs in the back half of it.
Inside the work
The rooms, up close
Before you start
A custom home in Tanglewood: the questions worth asking first
The answers that change a Tanglewood project are usually the ones nobody asks until the drawings are done. We work through these first.
“We chose 6th Ave for our extensive home renovation because we needed a one stop shop for planning, design, general contractor and project management. We were very happy with the process from beginning to end and love the end result! Our project finished on time and even a little bit under budget, and the entire staff at 6th Ave (especially Dustin, Lee and Kayla) were great to work with.”
Do I need historic approval for work in Tanglewood?
No. Fort Worth designates fourteen local historic districts and Tanglewood is not among them, so your project does not need a Certificate of Appropriateness. Private deed restrictions are a separate question and worth confirming for your subdivision — no city overlay is not the same as no restriction.
Can I add on to a Tanglewood house, or should I build new?
Both are live options here, and what decides it is not the lot — it is what your existing structure and foundation will carry, and whether the plan you actually want can be reached by extending the house or only by starting over. A 1950s slab and framing will take some things and refuse others, and which is which is not obvious from the outside. That is a drafting question before it is a construction question, which is why we draw it first. Our own drafting team runs the feasibility, so you get a real answer before anyone asks you to commit to a budget.
How close to my property line can I build?
There is no single number we can publish for the neighborhood, and you should be skeptical of anyone who gives you one. Fort Worth applies a projected front yard setback on established blocks, which means your required front yard can be driven by your neighbors' houses rather than the base zoning district. It is a per-lot answer. We pull yours before we draw.
Can we start with the plans and decide about building later?
Yes, and plenty of people do. Our drafting team sells plans on their own, and the set is yours to hand to any builder you like. The drawings do not come with strings tied to our crew.
There is a house on the lot and we like parts of it. Rebuild or remodel?
That is worth an honest hour before anybody draws anything. Slab, framing, and where the plumbing runs usually settle it. A remodel that keeps four walls for sentiment and replaces everything behind them is a rebuild wearing a smaller number.
Best Home Builder & Remodeler
Fort Worth MagazineFort Worth Chamber Small Business of the Year4.7 stars from 91 Google reviews as of September 2026
Thinking about a custom home in Tanglewood?
Tell us about the lot, or the house that isn't big enough anymore. We'll tell you honestly what it can carry, draw it, and price it — before anyone signs anything.