Most of the green in this Cambridge Green home is at the front of its off-a-commons lot, but the bricked-up front elevation doesn’t make the most of that greenbelt view. Compact, the house hugs the back corner of the 1979-built subdivision, located off Kirby Dr. south of W. Holcombe. Listed yesterday, the hidden home carries an initial asking price of $445,000. The last time the property was on the market was back in 2000, a year after its remodel, when it sold at $339,000.
Austin-style eco-landscaping finishes out the front of this renovated 1940 Oak Forest home new listing, which comes with an initial asking price of $319,000. The property’s far greener outback includes a fenced-off veggie-herb-fruit garden. Next to it, an air-conditioned treehouse stands guard; a balcony allows visitors to the raised clubhouse to keep a watchful eye on errant vegetation. Inside the main house, meanwhile, a super-sized master suite occupies a goodly portion of the total living space.
A few slivers of window peek above the front-of-lot wall of this mostly single-story 1967 Southampton home by Charles Tapley Associates. The new listing, centered between newer, more substantial neighbors and located a few lots from the Ashby Highrise site, has a $1,099,000 initial asking price.
The update on this 1970 home in Lakeside Estates wasn’t too radical; the main living spaces kept their room-to-room flow. But the finishes have been tweaked. The home is back on the market after a 3-month break, still asking $323,827. Its earlier run straddled summer 2012 before ending in October. A bit technicolor in some of its glowing listing photos, the freshened-up home features a bunch of built-ins and beams.
Shadow-hued through and through, an updated Garden Oaks home has a floor plan that’s a bit like a slice of Neapolitan ice cream. Room functions — sleeping quarters, living areas, and food-related spaces — stripe the home in thirds. Compact but fully loaded, the property listed earlier this week at an even $249,000. It last sold in 2009, for $198,500.
A fireplace-turned-fish-tank (top) lends an unusual element to this Sharptown Country Club Terrrace property. It’s another by-the-barrier home, this one on a corner lot hidden behind bushes and trees (above) at the head of one of the neighborhood’s access streets from the Southwest Fwy. feeder. Asking $170,000, the new listing includes the aquarium. With hearth.
It was supposed to be a teardown, this almost-defiant home in Ayrshire. That’s what had happened to the original homes on either side of this still-single-story one, located on a cul-de-sac one house away from the railroad and utility easement that separates the neighborhood from Bellaire. Demolition is what a view-screening label dictated on just about every interior photo in the before-the-redo listing. The buyer and design team had other ideas, though, and renovated the 1957 ranch-style house into something more 2013-ish, outside and in.
Office building or home? It depends on which listing you read. One on LoopNet appears to have marketed the property for a while at $599,000 — as an office building. But it popped up as a single family item this week on HAR, asking $535,000. Built in 2001 and updated in 2010, the corner-lot custom live-work structure is 2 blocks south of the Katy Fwy. in the Brunner subdivision in Cottage Grove.
Look familiar? Two weeks after its smaller look-alike housing unit appeared on the market, this bigger-by-a-bedroom version finishing up right next door listed for a bit more. And speaking of doors, this mini-mod’s entry is cool blue instead of the cheery yellow one marking its neighbor. Other differences include the roofline’s wider wingspan — to accommodate a broader, shorter driveway that bumps against that extra room downstairs.
The windows on this 1964 Sharpstown Country Club Estates property showcase a variety of ways of admitting light while altering views in or out. But the windows looking into the back yard are different: The stretch of sound barrier across the back of the lot, blocking the Southwest Fwy., is just a blank canvas. A really big one.
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