Does a smashing new splashscape — along with a dash of fresh interior paint — at a Woodland Heights home that had been renovated just a few years earlier merit this kind of price jump? An extensive overhaul completed in 2010 to a 1920 structure along a wiggle of Merrill St. in the Hermosa Court section of the neighborhood brought a $750K buyer to the property in 2012. Last week, the re-re-tweaked vintage property reappeared on the market, this time asking $997,500.
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A porch entry opens to a central hall. One of the front rooms is a dining room, which this photo from the previous listing shows is open to the foyer:
Another earlier photo indicates how the back of the 3,092-sq.-ft. home accommodates the open kitchen and living room:
Perhaps the current flooring (below) has added some honey to its earlier coffee stain:
Across from the dining room, a formerly formal study has more recently taken on a game-and-gameroom role:
All bedrooms are upstairs. Here’s the master suite:
The home has 2 other full bathrooms and a powder room. Secondary bedrooms with a little tilt . . .
share the second floor with an “extra” room (below) and the laundry room (not pictured).
Most of the 5,000-sq.-ft. lot’s back yard has been converted for structured play, with a checklist of accoutrements: pool, patio, pergola, equipment-hiding fountain, and outdoor kitchen:
The porch, however, is out front, looking north across the Woodland Heights niche neighborhood, located 2 blocks southeast of the intersection of Reagan St. and Pecore. Travis Elementary School is a couple blocks to the east.
- 606 Merrill St. [HAR; previous listing]
It’s worth it if someone is willing to pay for it. My bet is it sells. Now would I buy it at that price? Heck no. Compare that to what you could buy for the same price in other parts of town and this is ridiculously overpriced. But it’s all the rage to live in the “Heights” these days…
This house has an interesting urban legend attached to it. I’m going to dig around and see if I can find something to post.
If a house like this can be renovated and sell for almost 1M, then what’s the point of all the tear downs in The Heights and in Montrose neighborhoods like Mandell Place?
Are normal sized homes becoming the thing again?
Maybe this will be a win-win. The new inner-loopers get their trendy houses, and the old houses are saved instead of being torn down.
Of course this will only work in areas where they can’t build multi units on one lot, but still, it’s an interesting development.
3,092 sq ft would put this well into the largest houses in the Heights by square footage, Darogr. Most teardowns are much smaller, and frankly, most teardowns in the Heights are poorly maintained homes that had it coming anyways. There is still a strong market for well-preserved smaller homes in the area.
Ian- this house was beyond “tear down” before it was rehabbed a few years ago. You would not believe the before and after on this one. Same for what was affectionately called the “crack house” on Wendel and the “fire house” over in Norhill. 606 Merrill EXACTLY proves Darogr’s point. More rehabbing and less scrapping, please.
@Darogr,
There’s a market for $1M houses in the 3000 s.f. range, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for buyers of houses <1500 s.f. to get HAHC approval to build large additions.
I just think it’d rather sink my money into a home in Southampton, West U, Southgate at or below this price. I’d feel a lot more secure in my investment (mostly in the land the house sits on)
I love the place but yes it is over priced. If this house were just a little west over in the Greater Heights then it would be about right.
Prices of homes in the heights have skyrocketed in the past few years… I think even without the changes/pool it would have been fetching high 900s. I disagree about being West would make it worth more.
No offense to the “greater Heights”, but the Woodland Heights is best neighborhood in the Heights.
That’s an adorable facade though, I may be in love with it. Super interior. So clean, it will sell. Houston’s prices are increasing at a rapid rate yearly. Just look at my property tax jumps every year.
@matt, the Woodland Heights is actually one of the most desirable sections of the Heights. If you go on har.com and look at comps you will see those homes within its boundaries (east of studewood, south of pecore, west of houston ave, north of white oak) sell for a higher price per sq ft. I’ve seen multiple homes go for over $400/sq ft in the past couple of weeks alone. There aren’t too many in the Greater Heights that sell at that price point. My hunch is that it’s because that neighborhood has more preserved and renovated homes whereas large swaths of the rest of the Heights (other than Norhill) have had a large proportion of their homes knocked down and replaced with townhomes crammed in or a large craftsman-style home which look great but don’t quite have that charm that an older restored home has.
It also has a lot to do with the fact that the Woodland Heights is an actual neighborhood with a strong civic association and is home to Travis Elementary, which has an even stronger PTA. I like the rest of the Heights, don’t get me wrong, but the Woodland Heights is hands down the best (residential) part of the Heights. That is reflected not only in the over-the-top renovations to 606 Merrill, but also the asking price.
Just to clarify a couple of points… This house was not rehabbed. While the facade may look the same as the old house that stood on this lot, there isn’t an original nail, board, or window in the place. They pulled a “renovation” permit, and then replaced each wall one at a time. If you drove past during construction you would have seen at one point in time all that remainded were the piers and some of the beams. This was a tear down, that was rebuilt to mirror the original structure. The urban legend is not a legend at all. There was an incident in the original house that I am sure you can find details on if you scour the internet.
WH Resident:
Come on, don’t tease us. Tell us. A quick search came up empty.
The link… http://blog.chron.com/homicide/tag/houston-police-department/page/35/
well, it’s a million dollar murder house… i wonder if the screams of the dead come through the floor at night.
That is exactly what I was referencing! I didn’t want to call it murder house, but that is the house’s name. There is also a house in another part of the neighborhood in which the former owner was eaten by his dogs. Lovely house, though!
I was unable to find much on the murder itself. Did they ever figure out who killed him?
My recollection is that the homeowner was murdered by a drug addict friend of an adult child… but that was the rumor.