To create some buzz about an updated 1929 cottage with bumble bee trim tones in a section of the Heights dubbed Pinelawn, viewing of the property was put on hold until the weekend, several days after its listing last month for $437,500. Tiers of patios, porches, decks, and pavers help extend the living space outdoors. The fully-fenced corner compound is located up the block from Field Elementary School.
Other than flyovers by the occasional drone or maybe a high-flying bird or 2, there aren’t too many privacy breaches that might threaten the penthouse level of Bayou Bend Towers, a tony, 1981 condoplex. A 3-level unit — featuring an expansive rooftop terrace and cushy private poolscape (top) — arrived on the market a week ago with an asking price just shy of $5 million. Showings won’t begin until after the holiday weekend, but here’s a preview of the palace-like place and its 180-degree views that sweep from downtown, over River Oaks (and its golf course), to the Galleria:
Too late. The mid-summer rental-rate reduction to $4,495 per month for this renovated 1967 Meyerland home expired with today’s re-listing of the property. The ask is back up to the $4,600 per month of its original rental listing, dating from early July 2014. Or you could flat-out buy the place. The for-sale listing, pegged at $657,500, also popped up on the market today.
Is this Avondale property a home, a compound, or a discrete semi-plex? From the street, at least, the exterior remains discreet about its reworked interior space. And the downstairs does maintain much of the home’s original flow, heavy-with-trim formal rooms, and many of the 1940 structure’s early features (top). The same is true upstairs, though a section on that floor functions as an extensive separate suite. An aerie on the third floor adds even more living space. The property in the Avondale East Historic District appeared as a listing yesterday — with a $579,000 asking price.
Even before hitting the courtyard pool, an Asian-inspired home in Pearland’s Green Tee Terrace golf community takes a dip with its pagoda-style roof — and hand-dipped gold leaf panels on the living room ceiling (top). Could the distinctive 1982 property be too distinctive for the area? In a series of successive listings, its price has kept dropping. Last week, the stately home popped back up on the market again, this time seeking $699,000. In its initial listing back in 2011, the asking price started at $1.2 million and was whittled back to $895,000 over a 2-year period. A 6-month interim listing in September 2013 found no takers at $800,000 or at the $750,000 reduction in December. Back in 2005, it sold at $614,000, down from a 1999 sale for $649,000.
Attention to detail is one of the property’s hallmarks; so are shoji screens in many of the rooms . . .
Apart from the snazzy red cars parked by the home’s courtyard entry, a flat-topped 1963 Hilshire Village property keeps a low profile beneath the canopy of mature trees on its large lot, which is located in the Burkhardt Plaza neighborhood west of Wirt Rd. and just north of the Christ Evangelical Presbyterian Church on the eastbound I-10 feeder road. Updated in 2009, the midcentury modern with the not-so-modern decor landed on the market a week ago, asking $1.1 million. By the weekend, though, the price had dropped to $997,500.
It’s big, but not the biggest home on its cushy Bay Oaks block. Bigger still are the fairways of adjacent Bay Oaks Country Club, on display behind this fully loaded property that’s located south of Clear Lake Blvd. The updated 1989 contemporary clad with stucco, stone, and tile was listed this week. The asking price of $1.399 million marks a noticeable spike from the $898,000 paid in 2011, when the current owners took hold.
Up next: This 1953 ranchburger with modernized trimmings in Braes Terrace (top). Had you looked at this Buffalo Speedway corner lot property when it was listed in March (at right), you’d have found it priced at $369,000. (It sold quickly, for $361,000.) Earlier this week, a re-imagined spread at the same address hit the market with a $698,000 price tag. In addition to designer-driven cosmetic tweaks, the overhaul included new electrical wiring and plumbing, roof, French doors, garage door, side deck and driveway. Do the results merit a $337K leap?
The interior of a decked out 1978 Spring Branch Estates home uses changing floor finishes to cue its ups and downs as the floor plan twists around a spiral staircase beneath a 20-ft. dome. The flow creates living spaces on several levels — and some rather unusual, futuristic features . . .
Surreal artwork and rustic structural components left exposed seem to meld into a single composition within the Fifth Ward home and studio of artist Bert Long Jr., who died in February 2013. Fifteen years ago, the attached double-shotgun row houses had been painstakingly renovated (and combined) as the year-long thesis project of Brett Zamore, then a Rice University graduate architecture student. Long, who grew up nearby and was returning to Houston at the time, bought the property near the end of its transformation but before an art studio was added — for $30,000 $70,000 — and lived there with his wife, artist Joan Batson. The mixed-use property is located in the Pinecrest Court neighborhood near Wheatley High School, east of Waco St. and south of I-10. It was listed for sale this morning, with an asking price of $200,000.
Note: The pricing history noted previously in this story was inaccurate. We’ve corrected it below.
From a pint-sized perch above a set of arched windows, saintly statuary appears to be keeping an eye o’er a updated 1925 Spanish Revival cottage near the Menil Collection. The heavenly presence might also guard against any sleepwalking encounters with the steep steps at the bottom of a flight of stairs . . .
Was it the prevailing breeze, which comes from the southeast, that dictated the balcony placement in the 1982 garage apartment of a 1940 Garden Villas home (top) on nearly an acre of land bordering Sims Bayou? Instead of maximizing private views of the water and cleared watershed to its north (above), the higher-rise building (at far left in the top photo) peeks over the main home and toward the street, which is located west of Telephone Rd.Â
 Through a Revived Spanish Revival in Lancaster Place... "Pin It")
