Forget the mega-mansions, this River Oaks home built in 1942 offers a world ofcharm

Editor's Note: Houston is loaded with must-have houses for sale in all shapes, sizes and price ranges. In this continuing series, CultureMap Editor-at-Large Shelby Hodge snoops through some of our faves and gives you the lowdown on what's hot on the market.

3442 Overbrook Lane

Once the professional stager had moved things around in attorney Ron Franklin's 1942 River Oaks home, the quaint (by neighborhood standards) dwelling was looking so good that he began to wonder why he was moving. Well, that's another story that involves a very attractive woman and a larger house a few blocks away.

Suffice it to say, we liked this updated, three bedroom home with three working fireplaces and appealing gardens well enough to unpack our bags.

Walk through: Passing through the garden gate, we enter the front door to arrive in a generous foyer where hardwood floors gleam and high ceilings enhance the sense of space. To the right is the study, rich with paneling and crown molding, an accent that affords an architectural richness throughout the house. Here is the first of the fireplaces — just begging for cold weather and a snifter of brandy.

Like all rooms on the ground floor, the study enjoys plenty of light thanks to floor-to-ceiling mullioned windows to the east and mullioned French doors to the south, which open to the enclosed entry courtyard.

The living room stands at the front of the house where mullioned windows on three sides provide profusions of light and where the second fireplace serves as a design focal point. From there you move to the formal dining room and on to the breakfast room with bay window. The space nicely flows from here to the updated kitchen.

Around the corner, the entry hall leads to one of two additions to the house — a spacious family room with fireplace. The new room continues the esthetic of the original house with crown molding and a large mullioned bay window that looks out over the backyard.

Off of the kitchen, a hallway leads to another addition — a bedroom with walk-in closet and full bath.

The re-configured second floor houses the master bedroom, with two walk-in closets and contemporary master bath, and a second bedroom with full bath. Several prospective buyers have taken a look at the attic storage to the back of the house and have considered raising the roof line here to accommodate a third bedroom on this floor.

Love: Three working fireplaces is a rarity in a house of this era and this size. It is an amenity that makes the cozy dwelling all the more appealing. (Again, we use the word "cozy" in relation to the mega-mansions that populate River Oaks. But on this stretch of Overbrook, the house is quite comfortable and nicely sized.)

Green space: The front and back gardens are just the right size and already nicely landscaped — large enough for backyard entertaining but not so big as to overwhelm.

Square footage: 3,965

Asking price: $1,250,000 (For those in that top 1 percent of income, a starter home. For most of us, our dream house.)

Listing agent: Laura Sakowitz Sweeney with John Daugherty Realtors