04/19/13 1:18pm

Smile and step carefully. No fewer than 16 security cameras are installed in this battened-down Braeburn Acres property, a 2007 custom design by Cameron Architects. It’s a big, big stucco-over-concrete-block house — more than 10,000 sq. ft. — with 50 stone columns supporting a double-decker carousel of arches and tile-topped rotundas. The cleared 1.2-acre lot includes a pool-in-progress and very little landscaping (other than lawn). Maybe that explains why a cartoony rendering (at top) is employed as the listing’s featured photo.

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04/18/13 10:30am

Dark-stained flooring and darker-stained paneling, cabinetry, and such transform parts of this 1955 ranchburger into something akin to an in-country cabin. The home and its woodsy lot sit off a shoot of Sims Bayou in Meadowbrook, near Old Galveston Rd. south of Park Place Blvd. Last week, not long after its initial listing in late March, the recently re-mulched property with the shingled-cottage mailbox dropped its asking price $5K — to $134,999.

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04/17/13 4:23pm

Before this property in the secluded Tall Timbers section of River Oaks was a colorful contemporary by Carlos Jiménez, it was a much smaller home by San Antonio architect O’Neil Ford. Its acre of pie-shaped lot off a winding lane has wide-side frontage along Buffalo Bayou. The property atop rugged terrain listed a week ago with an initial asking price of $4,995,000.

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04/16/13 4:00pm

Vintage postcard coloring in this relisting’s exterior photos further the motor lodge vibe of this updated 1971 Briargrove Park hacienda, located on a dog-boned inner street with cul-de-sacs at either end. The ground-hugging home’s front-filling parking court (in lieu of garage) abuts a gallery of gated arches at the entry’s inner courtyard. On and off the market since November 2012 — when it debuted at $679,000 — the property returned last week with a new agent, new agency, and new and slightly lower price: $659,000.

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04/08/13 4:10pm

Fresh paint in shades of purple is but one of the updates to this 1929 East End bungalow with matching back-lot studio unit. Listed Friday at $115,000, the plummy property is on an otherwise toned-down, mixed-use street located a block north of Metro’s East End rail line on Harrisburg, near Milby St.

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04/04/13 4:16pm

Behind the curbside growth gone wild, a far tidier contemporary home has been hiding (above) in plain view since 1998. The Upper Kirby property dropped its price April Fool’s Day to $745,000, down from an initial $770K when listed in mid-March. Facing west — and located across from older apartments and the back of a more recent mid-rise complex — this home on an end-cap lot not too far from Whole Foods Market saves its outdoor impact for the back side of the fenced lot (above) and uses the scene as its view from rooms within.

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