A Note About the Name
Ask longtime residents about “Westlake Place,” and you may hear a little uncertainty. Unlike Vaquero, Terra Bella, Stagecoach Hills, or Mahotea Boone, *Westlake Place* does not appear on the Town of Westlake’s official list of residential subdivisions. The name is most commonly associated with a neighborhood in Houston, while Westlake, Texas, is a separate community in Tarrant and Denton counties. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/86/Residential-Subdivisions?utm_source=openai))
Still, the phrase feels fitting for Westlake. This town has always been a place defined by landscape, memory, and the gradual transformation of large ranches into distinctive residential communities. In that broader sense, “Westlake Place” can be understood as a friendly nickname for the residential heart of Westlake—a collection of neighborhoods connected by shared history rather than by a single subdivision sign.
That history reaches back much further than today’s elegant homes and carefully planned streets.
Before the Neighborhoods: The Medlin Settlement
Westlake’s story begins in 1847, when Charles and Matilda Medlin arrived with approximately twenty other families. The first settlers established themselves near Denton Creek, but repeated flooding eventually led them to move south to higher ground. That practical decision helped shape the settlement pattern of the area: homes and farms tended to occupy safer rises of land, while the creek bottoms remained open, wooded, and agricultural. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/85/History-of-Westlake?utm_source=openai))
For generations, the landscape remained a mixture of prairie, oak groves, ranchland, and scattered homesteads. The Cross Timbers region was never an empty backdrop. It supported Native communities, cattle operations, farm families, and travelers moving between the older settlements around Grapevine, Roanoke, and Denton.
One of the most remembered early landmarks was the Medlin barn. A three-story structure believed to have been roughly 130 years old, it stood for decades as a tangible reminder of Westlake’s pioneer era. Local stories even connected the barn with figures such as Sam Bass and Bonnie and Clyde. Although the building was removed in 1997 because of safety concerns, its memory remains part of the town’s heritage. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/85/History-of-Westlake?utm_source=openai))
How Westlake Got Its Name
The modern town began to take shape in the middle of the twentieth century. In the 1940s and 1950s, much of the area was associated with Circle T Ranch, a large property developed by Dallas attorney J. Glenn Turner. Turner used the ranch to raise and train Tennessee Walking horses and created a retreat that became one of the region’s best-known private properties. By the 1950s, the ranch covered approximately 2,000 to 2,300 acres. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/85/History-of-Westlake?utm_source=openai))
When residents and ranch owners organized to protect the area from possible annexation, they needed a municipal identity. The name “Westlake” was chosen in the 1950s because the better-known name “Southlake” was already in use nearby. On December 27, 1956, local citizens formally incorporated the Town of Westlake and swore in its first governing board. ([westlake-tx.org](https://westlake-tx.org/Archive/ViewFile/Item/558?utm_source=openai))
That naming story helps explain why Westlake has always felt less like a traditional old downtown town and more like a landscape-based community. Its identity came from the land itself—rolling ranch country west of Grapevine and near Denton Creek—rather than from a commercial center or railroad depot.
Roads That Carry the Past
Some of Westlake’s most meaningful historical landmarks are roads. Dove Road, for example, follows a route that dates to the nineteenth century. It served as a cardinal road between Grapevine and Roanoke and took its name from the nearby Dove community. The name is believed to have come from Lonesome Dove Baptist Church, which once served families in the area. ([westlake-tx.org](https://westlake-tx.org/Archive/ViewFile/Item/558?utm_source=openai))
Today, Dove Road is associated with elegant homes, schools, ranch entrances, and modern development. Yet its continued presence offers a quiet connection to the era when residents traveled by wagon, horseback, and early automobiles between isolated farms and neighboring settlements.
Roanoke Road and Ottinger Road also help preserve Westlake’s rural character. Along these corridors, broad views, mature trees, and historic properties remind residents that the town’s residential neighborhoods were built over an older countryside rather than replacing a traditional urban grid.
Historic Homes and Ranch Landmarks
Several properties help tell the story of Westlake’s transition from ranching community to residential town. Off Dove Road near Ottinger Road, the former Dealey property began in the late 1930s as the 220 Ranch. Ted Dealey commissioned a country home designed by prominent architect Charles Dilbeck. The property is now known as Paigebrooke Farm and remains one of the area’s notable historic places. ([westlake-tx.org](https://westlake-tx.org/Archive/ViewFile/Item/558?utm_source=openai))
The Circle T Ranch also changed hands and identities over the years. In the 1970s, oil entrepreneur Nelson Bunker Hunt purchased the ranch, which became known for lavish gatherings attended by prominent guests. After Hunt’s bankruptcy, Ross Perot Jr. purchased the property in 1993. That succession reflects a broader Westlake pattern: large private estates gradually became part of a modern economy that included luxury residential communities, corporate campuses, and carefully planned developments. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/85/History-of-Westlake?utm_source=openai))
The town’s historic cemetery, old homesteads, and surviving ranch features offer smaller but equally important reminders of earlier generations. They may not always be dramatic landmarks, but they give Westlake its sense of depth.
From Ranches to Residential Communities
Westlake’s first recorded subdivision, Mahotea Boone, was platted around 1978. It remains one of the town’s oldest residential communities, with fourteen lots, mature homes, and a minimum two-acre lot pattern. The name honors a connection chosen by developer Bill Boone, who named the street after his grandmother’s childhood friend from the Chickasaw Nation. Mahotea Boone Trail received a Texas Historical Marker in 2017. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/86/Residential-Subdivisions?utm_source=openai))
Other communities developed with their own distinct identities:
- Stagecoach Hills takes its name from an old stagecoach route between Keller and Denton.
- Terra Bella combines homes with a sizable nature preserve and hike-and-bike trail.
- Vaquero grew around a private golf course and retains the spacious, landscaped character of a ranch estate.
- Wyck Hill, formerly the Estates of Westlake, is known for wooded one-acre lots and narrow, tree-lined roads.
- Entrada represents a newer chapter, bringing mixed-use development, villas, townhomes, and a Catalonia-inspired village design.
Together, these communities show how Westlake evolved without entirely abandoning its original landscape. Instead of a single wave of suburban construction, the town developed as a collection of carefully separated places, each shaped by the surrounding hills, trees, and open land.
A Modern Community with an Old Soul
The arrival of Solana in the 1980s added another major chapter. The IBM campus helped establish Westlake as a destination for corporate and technology-related employment, not simply a rural residential area. Later, Westlake Academy became an important civic institution and helped give the town a public identity centered on education, international-mindedness, and community participation. ([westlake-tx.org](https://www.westlake-tx.org/85/History-of-Westlake?utm_source=openai))
Today, Westlake is polished and prosperous, but its strongest appeal remains remarkably traditional. Residents still notice the old trees along Dove Road, the open views near ranch properties, and the way historic names survive on modern street signs. The town’s heritage is not confined to one preserved building or one officially marked district. It lives in the landscape and in the stories passed from one household to the next.
So while “Westlake Place” is not the formal name of a recognized Westlake, Texas subdivision, the idea captures something real. Westlake is a place made up of many smaller places—old ranches, historic roads, wooded enclaves, schools, farms, and new neighborhoods—held together by a shared respect for the land. That blend of memory and momentum is what makes Westlake special.