Craftsman-style homes are proving to be the ideal fit with downtown Mansfield by adding new life and value to one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

According to the Star-Telegram, Stoney Short, owner of Mansfield Custom Homes, built five new 1940s-style homes last year on Alvarado Street. The response was so overwhelming for the first house, which was a spec home, Short sold the other four before they were built for $230,000 to $300,000.

The exterior design — with spacious front porches, high-pitch roofs, and sturdy plank siding — is such a perfect blend of existing homes, Short is buying and remodeling older downtown homes on oversized lots and building a new craftsman-style home next door on the shared lot.

"We’re able to get a home that’s still in good shape, remodel it, and get an additional lot off of it," Short told the Star-Telegram. "That’s how we’re able to afford putting money into the older home. We get another house out of it."

Demand for the new homes runs the generational gamut from millennials just starting out to empty nesters looking to downsize yard maintenance.

Mayor David Cook wants more of the new look and feel that Short’s retro homes are bringing to historic downtown Mansfield, and he’s doing his part. He purchased a half-acre lot on Kimball Street where he plans to have two houses built. One will be his personal home.