Even the dog walkers in Highland Park seem to know where George and Laura Bush will be moving when they leave the White House in early 2009.

“They’re building a house on a piece of property around the corner,” said a young woman, pointing south of Beverly Drive as she struggled to control two oversized golden retrievers.

“It’s going to be a big pain in the neck with the Secret Service there all the time,” she predicted of the president’s future abode. “When Dick Cheney visited a home in the neighborhood last spring, even the owners couldn’t get to their houses.”

But the chatty dog walker declined to reveal the source of her real-estate tip other than to admit she “heard it from the neighbors.” Likewise, she declined to reveal her full name. And she asked that the dogs, which she had readily identified to a reporter, remain anonymous as well.

Identified or not, lots of people profess to know the location of President Bush’s future home in the Dallas area.

They point – with assurance – toward expensive vacant lots and palatial homes under construction in the priciest neighborhoods in the Park Cities. Others suggest the president will buy a sprawling estate along Preston Road, while still others expect him to return to his old neighborhood, Preston Hollow in Dallas.

The location of the president’s future home has become the biggest guessing game in town.

“We’ve been told five or six locations by people who leave cocktail parties, where everybody is talking about it,” said George Patterson, Highland Park’s top administrator, who professes to know nothing.

“I don’t know if they’d give us advance information,” he said of any Bush construction plan. “Somebody could build a house under a builder’s name and then turn it over to them. We wouldn’t know until the Secret Service asked the town for extra security, which they haven’t done.”

The White House, of course, wouldn’t speculate on future presidential housing.

The only public confirmation that the Bushes will move back to Dallas comes from a simple quote attributed to the president in a book released last week.

“We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” Mr. Bush told Robert Draper, author of the book, Dead Certain, which also noted the president’s plan to run a “Freedom Institute” in Dallas that would promote democracy around the world.

People who know the Bushes welcome their return to Big D.

The couple and their twin daughters lived here for about six years, departing in early 1995 after Mr. Bush was elected Texas governor, which required that the family move to Austin.

“He was an excellent neighbor,” said Gay Oxford, who lived next door to the Bushes on a street of modest one- and two-story homes, just north of Northwest Highway and east of Preston Road. “We would love for them to live in Preston Hollow again.”

The abundance of stately houses and high-dollar residential lots would seem to offer the Bushes plenty of options.

At least 36 homes currently on the Dallas market are listed for $5 million or more, offering up to 15,000 square feet of living space, oversized yards and amenities too plush to comprehend. Some are nestled along the winding, tree-lined lanes on the expensive side of the president’s old North Dallas neighborhood.

But the people who have tracked the Bushes’ real estate choices – not counting the government-provided White House and governor’s mansion – can’t picture the first couple settling into such extravagant digs.

“They would seem to prefer a more modest and comfortable home,” said Richard Smith, who lives in the Bushes’ former Dallas home with his wife, Sandra. The 68-year-old, one-story house has about 3,400 square feet, a swimming pool and small guesthouse.

“George and Barbara Bush stayed in the guesthouse when their son lived here,” said Mr. Smith, who has owned the house since 1996. “We never met George or Laura Bush, but when the twins were in college, they brought their friends by to see the little house they grew up in.”

The Bushes’ former home still has a sophisticated security system, with 60 monitored zones that can be triggered by an intruder, Mr. Smith said. “They installed it because he was the president’s son when he lived here. I would imagine that security will be an overriding concern at his next home, too.”

Security systems in comparably sized houses feature only five or six zones.

Security is foremost in many people’s minds as they puzzle over the Bushes’ next address. Several people pointed a reporter toward a 24,000-square-foot Italian estate house under construction on Beverly Drive. It boasts concrete-reinforced walls and a sprawling basement, eight underground parking spaces, two elevators and a wine vault.

“Rumor has it that whoever is building this house is very concerned about security,” said Virginia McAlester, a Dallas historian who is co-authoring a history of the Park Cities. “But I really know nothing. That is what people have told me.”

It turns out the reinforced home is not being built for the Bushes. However, it can still be snapped up for $15.2 million.

Also drawing a lot of speculation is an oversized vacant lot located a couple blocks from the Dallas Country Club and within spitting distance of Turtle Creek.

A neighbor confirmed that she had heard the rumor that the Bushes would build a house there, and she even contacted the town hall, hoping to learn the truth.

“The town manager is denying it,” she said, speaking through an intercom system to a reporter standing at the front door. “But don’t quote me by name. I don’t want to be responsible for spreading anything erroneous.”

However, the owner of that suspicious one-acre lot, valued at $5.2 million for tax purposes, did not respond to an interview request, leaving the lot high on the rumor list.

The most enduring speculation would place the Bushes’ future home inside his presidential library, which is expected to locate in University Park, adjacent to Southern Methodist University.

But would Mr. Bush follow the lead of Bill Clinton, who maintains an apartment inside his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.? No official could say for sure.

“No one has yet shared anything with us regarding a penthouse suite or living quarters for President Bush on top of the library,” said Steve Mace, spokesman for University Park, which ostensibly would have to approve such an arrangement.

Of course, it’s entirely possible the Bushes have not even started their search for a new home in the Dallas area, which means that this guessing game has only just begun.

Source:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/parkcities/stories/DN-bushhome_09met.ART.North.Edition1.42128f0.html