Road project takes a different turn
“Jack and Betty Parkes had planned for years to sell most of their 37.5-acre property and use the proceeds to subsidize their retirement.
On the hillsides overlooking Hickory Creek and the historic Pilot Knob hill, the couple owns two houses and two barns with horse pastures good for grazing and riding.
When word came in 2010 that Bonnie Brae Street would be widened through their neighborhood, they prepared themselves for the possibility that the new road would divide their property. They planned to keep some of the western corner — about two acres that would include their house and one of the horse barns.
Beginning near the intersection with Highland Park Road, the city is expected to realign the road so that, by the time the road gets to the Parkes property at Roselawn Drive, Bonnie Brae would pass on the east side of their home instead of the west.
Jack Parkes said the couple doesn’t want to move from the house because it is comfortable and familiar, a quality that has become increasingly important to him as his eyesight fails. The couple had listed the remaining land for $1.1 million, but potential buyers have been heading the other way when they learn the property will be cut by the new road, Betty Parkes said.”
Heinkel-Wolfe, Peggy. Denton Record Chronicle 31 March 2013.