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 and construction
What a custom home in Tanglewood involves
A custom home starts from scratch: no wall that has to stay, no plumbing to work around, no previous owner's taste to negotiate with. That freedom is the appeal. It also means every choice is 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
A new house in Tanglewood has to fit the street. Its scale, its roofline and how the front meets the sidewalk should match the houses on either side, and a mistake there cannot be fixed later with finishes. We build cost-plus, so you see in writing, up front, what it costs to get this right.
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, at the price on the page.
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 are like
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, but their layouts were drawn for how families lived decades ago, 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
Rules for building 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 you do need to check are the city's front-yard setback rules and any private deed restrictions, which vary by subdivision, 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, 15 ft limited local
Where a row shows two front-yard figures, the minimum depends on how the city classifies your street. The lower one applies only on a limited local street. The street sign does not tell you the classification, so we look it up with the city before we draw.
Most of Tanglewood is A-10, which has tighter limits than A-5
Seven in ten lots here are A-10: a 25-foot front yard rather than A-5's local-street 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; City of Fort Worth Zoning Ordinance §4.705(c)(1) and §6.101(d), read 2026-09-25 (edition 2026 S-20)
Cost 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 changes the price
- The houses on either side. The size, roofline and front of a new house have to fit the street, and finishes cannot fix that 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
- Set aside a contingency
- 10–15% of budget
Built by 6th Ave Homes
Custom New Construction in Tanglewood See the gallery →Our advice
What to plan for in Tanglewood
These are the things that come up on almost every custom home we do here.
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Keep a new house to one story
Tanglewood was platted around its trees, and the lots are generous by Fort Worth standards. Building out costs less than building up, and it keeps the roofline in line with the rest of the street.
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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 one of the best returns you can get on the front of a ranch.
Stay or go
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 our agents, who sell homes here.
6th Ave Homes is a licensed brokerage.
A remodeler can price the work. An agent can price the house. We do both.
We can price all three: 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. We give you the real comparison, even when it means less work for us.
How it works
A custom home in Tanglewood, in three steps
The people who design it, price it and build it work alongside each other, so the plan you approve is the plan that gets built.
Meet Up
We walk the house, listen to how you live in it, and talk through the 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.
See the whole project
From the Tanglewood Custom Home Rebuilt — see the full gallery
Recent projects
More of our work in Tanglewood
The neighborhood
Built on the Edwards family ranch from 1956, on streets that follow the creek.
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 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 over 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.
Nearby places
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Tanglewood Elementary
Pre-K through fifth on Overton Park Drive West, where the neighborhood association holds its meetings.
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Overton Park
The long, narrow park that runs through the neighborhood along the creek, 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 away, close enough to walk to a game.
- 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
On a custom home here, the first question is whether to keep the house or build new. We 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 existing house is worth keeping, and the money is better spent on the back of it.
Project photos
Photos of the finished rooms
Before you start
Questions about a custom home in Tanglewood
We go through these questions with you before any drawings start.
Nearby and related
Ask about your project“From sitting down with us in advance to walk through the process to being very timely and responsive with emails and phone calls throughout, our guide was on top of every detail. 6th Ave Homes could not have a better representative of how they want to show up in support of their clients.”
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. Having no city overlay does not mean there are no restrictions.
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 can support some changes and not others, and you cannot tell which 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 an established-block front yard rule, 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. You do not have to use our crew to build from them.
There is a house on the lot and we like parts of it. Rebuild or remodel?
Spend an hour on it with us before anybody draws anything. The slab, the framing and where the plumbing runs usually decide it. If a remodel keeps the outside walls and replaces everything behind them, it is really a rebuild.
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 what the lot allows, draw it, and price it before anyone signs anything.