Over in the Mod Mecca of Meyerland, a well-tended 1960 home rolls out the red carpet — and terrazzo tile, wood paneling, and other mid-century finishing touches. In near-original condition, the tilt-topped property is located east of Chimney Rock Rd. and south of S. Braeswood Blvd. Its listing earlier this week comes with a $459,900 price tag.
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Brick room dividers, neither of which are full-height, define the front room, which faces north. Could this serve as a dining room as well as living room? Maybe: It measures 12 ft. by 24 ft. The quad-window unit faces a courtyard formed by shrubbery that squares off the front elevation and a gated walkway leading to the recessed front door. (See photo at the top of this story.)
The front room is a shallow step down from the mostly open hallway (above), which passes by the kitchen on the way to the den. Natural light from the latter’s wall of windows facing south carries forward, over the divider:
A mix of sky, water, wood, brick, glass, and tile (plus fabric, at the moment) meets up in the den:
The service window ledge at the left of the breakfast room photo below indicates the kitchen’s location in the 2,428-sq.-ft. floor plan.
Formica countertops and electric appliances ring the 8-ft.-by-14-ft. kitchen (also pictured at the top of the story):
Off the den, a hallway lined in shelving leads to the bedroom wing:
The master bedroom . . .
has its own bathroom, a shower-only one with custom hardware on the vanity:
The other full bathroom, which sports a few updates . . .
shares its general household use with 3 secondary bedrooms:
Sliders facing west in the back bedroom (it has a built-in desk, too) provide direct access to the pool . . .
which is part of a screened-in lanai:
The floor plan includes a utility room and this 9 ft. by 22 ft. workshop:
HCAD records appear to show the home has been owned by the same family since at least 1988.
- 5307 Valkeith Dr. [HAR]
This is what $460k gets you these days in Meyerland? Wow.
Nice home good bones it just overpriced by $75k. All it need is the kitchen and bath rooms updated paint all room and new flooring though out.
Just throw in an ottoman for Dick Van Dyke to fall over and you’re back in the 60’s again!
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Small windows? Wood paneling? Small enclosed rooms? Check all! This probably appeals to someone..
Yes, despite the real estate agent’s inaccurate blurb, the red carpeted area is the living/dining room, and the large, terrazzo-floored area is the “den” (aka family room”, but “den” is how it was known when the house was built).
Aside from those priceless terrazzo floors, the front and back doors, the wood panelling and laminate countertops throughout, what is for sure original in that house is the built-in Hall-Mack “Concealed Lavatory Unit” in the wood-panelled bath. Almost certainly the cabinet pulls in that bathroom are also original In the “orange” bathroom, the visible white towel bar is for sure original, and because the ends are ceramic and an integrally grouted as part of the tile wall, I suspect that the white tile with the accents is original, too.
Almost certainly original is the drop-panelling lighting in the kitchen. The electric stove top, the stove hood, and maybe the double wall ovens are likely original.
There is what appears to be a built-in wall clock in the panelling of the breakfast area (aka the “dinette”) – and if so, that is almost certainly also original.
Like quite a few original Meyerland houses, this one may have been a custom architect design.
By the way, no online HCAD ownership histories go backs further than 1988 (I guess that’s when they got computerized), But 1988 is not much of an ownership history in Meyerland, either for an individual person or a family Quite a few of the original owners (who bought the newlt bulit Meyerland ranches the late 50’s or early 60’s) are still very much in situ. Many of the original owners’ adult children (“second-generation Meyerlanders”) now live in the family homes they grew up in and eventually inherited from deceased original-owner parents – and many of the adult children are raising their own children there, so there are houses in Meyerland which have been occupied solely and continuously for three generations by the only family that has ever owned them. There are even situations in Meyerland where the original-owner parents still occupy the family homestead, and the adult children and grandchildren live in nearby houses.
Unless you used solid-gold pavers, there is very little you could replace those floor with that would be more expensive than those original poured terrazzo floors. Today, poured terrazzo floors are seen in new residential construction only in very high-end architect-designed homes custom built for extremely wealthy people. They simply cost far, far too much to install in “regular” tract houses or even run-of-the-mill McMansions.
I wonder if the people who blithely replace poured terrazzo floors with hardwood, travertine, or whatever would do so if they realized that they are discarding something very expensive for something much cheaper.
Unappreciated things have a mysterious way of becoming attractive when their high price tag is revealed….
Poured terrazzo floors like those in that house are nowadays so astronomically expensive that the only new residential construction they are seen in today are high-end, architect-designed custom homes built for extremely weathly people.
I wonder if people who replace poured terrazzo floors with hardwood, travertine, or whatever realize that they are discarding something very expensive for something much cheaper.
It even makes business sense – Even flippers could increase their profit margin if instead of replacing terrazzo, they just educated their buyers about how valuable these floors are. Things that are revealed to be rare, expsensive, and hard to replace have way of magically becoming very attractive).
Very nice house. That oven is “old school” stainless steel.
@BrianD Knocking 75K off the price would push this one awfully close to tear-down-lot-value territory, which would be rather a shame.
Also a shame to replace those poured terrazzo floors . Do people who replace such floors with hardwood or whatever realize that they are replacing something extremely expensive with something much cheaper? Today poured terrazzo in residential construction is installed only the most high-end architect-designed custom homes built for extremely weatlhy people. They are simply too expensive for even run-of-the-mill McMansions much less ordinary tract houses.
Other than some paint, more efficient windows, and maybe a few different choices for surfaces, the only major change I would contemplate would be to change the dark wood scheme throughout the house to something much lighter. I think it would make the house more contemporary and airy. Is that a good idea, or blasphemy?
Walter White’s house?
SH, it probably was lighter originally, since wood gets darker over time. Makes my 100-year-old hardwoods look awesome, though.
If you tour the Bishop’s Palace in Galveston, they’ll take you inside a very dark wood-paneled room, and then have you open a cabinet lined with the same wood – you can see that the room was originally far lighter.
Minimalist before minimalist? Looks like an old insurance office.
Replace those poured terrazzo floors ASAP!
The mere fact of something being expensive to produce does not mean it is desirable. A solid gold floor would be astronomically expensive but horribly tacky looking and not durable. Simply “educating” buyers that terazzo is expensive will not magically get them to like it.
Change the carpets, update the paint colors in the bedrooms, new appliances and it’s perfect. Whoever buys this *PLEASE* do not replace the cabinetry and tiling! Let it be what it is; don’t force it into banality.
The County Clerk has that place being sold to a family member of the current owner in 1961, so yeah, pretty much a one-owner property.
If you want to see some awesome terrazzo, take the Hoover Dam tour. The gigantic room with the generators has terrazzo over the entire thing.
The house belongs to my grandparents and they are the original owners. Growing up in this house, I can assure you almost all of it is original and very well kept. They always made sure the house was immaculate!
If ownership listed on HCAD is listed as since “1988”, then there is 99% chance it was actually prior to 1988. Having worked in the mortgage industry for a few years, I quickly found that same date popping up in NUMEROUS HCAD researches where long term ownership was involved. You will RARELY find a date older than that. So my assumption is that was the date that many records were automatically entered, or put online, at least until/unless someone actively looked up the proper date and made a correction on a case-by-case basis. Maybe someone at Swamplot can verify the REAL story about that date with HCAD.
Helloooo, Mr-DJ. Check out my comment two above yours with the reference to the County Clerk. Go to http://www.cclerk.hctx.net and search Property Databases. It’s a little cumbersome to match up the legal description to the address, but if you cross-reference to HCAD, it can be done.