104 San Mateo Drive

Some homes make you work to picture yourself living there. This one does not. A brick ranch with three full baths, two wood burning fireplaces, and a finished lower level that earns its keep. 1,316 square feet on the main floor and another 721 below it, for 2,037 square feet of finished living space. Both levels are finished and ready to live in, so your weekends stay your own. Start at the curb. Warm brick, mature landscaping, a wide concrete drive, a bay window facing the street, and a covered entry framed by stuccoed arches you will not find on the next ranch down the road. The front door is leaded glass with a sidelight, and it opens into light. That light lands first in the living room, where a wood burning fireplace sits in a raised brick hearth behind glass doors. The room opens into a separate dining room with a chandelier and a wide window over the back yard, and the kitchen picks up right from there with raised panel wood cabinetry, a mosaic tile backsplash, recessed lighting and a full stainless appliance suite. Down the hall you will find two bedrooms and the hall bath, which keeps a tub and shower with a stone tile surround and a wood vanity. The primary waits at the end with crown molding, a walk in closet of its own and a private full bath behind a frosted glass shower enclosure. Back through the living room, the stairs drop under a skylight into the second half of the house. Three windows run along the side of the lower level, so the family room down here reads as a room rather than a basement. There is space for a sectional and a television at one end and a pool table at the other, and a second wood burning fireplace with heat circulating fans keeps it warm without touching the thermostat upstairs. Just off the seating area, a built in wet bar with counter seating. And a third full bath with a walk in shower, which is the detail that changes what this floor is for. It means guests can stay the night without anyone trekking upstairs. It means the workout space, the game room and the guest room stop competing for the same square footage. It means 721 square feet of real living rather than 721 square feet of storage. Past the family room sit the laundry and utility area with a utility sink, and a separate storage room beyond that. Outside, a wood deck with built in bench seating looks over a level fenced yard with mature shade trees and a storage shed. The deck opens into both the house and the garage, so the grill, the yard and the workbench all sit a few steps from each other. The lot is 0.23 of an acre. Grill out on a summer evening, let the dog out without thinking twice about it, and come back inside to a fire. That attached two car garage is wired with 220 volt service and lit well enough to actually work in, so bring the tools, the project car or the shop vacuum. And there is no HOA. The location carries its share. Whiteside Elementary sits on Lebanon Avenue, the same road this street runs off, with Whiteside Middle just beyond it and Belleville East for high school. Lebanon takes you about five and a half miles to the Shiloh Gate at Scott Air Force Base, roughly six miles to the I-64 interchange, and eight minutes to Green Mount Crossing for Dierbergs, Target and the rest of the weekend errands. Fifty years of grown in trees, quiet curving streets, and a house with genuine room to spread out on both floors. Schedule your private tour, and pick which fireplace is yours.