Articles by

Christine Gerbode

08/17/16 5:15pm

3303 Shadowncrest Ln., Spring, TX 77380

3303 Shadowncrest Ln., Spring, TX 77380 Now for sale just across the Spring-Creek-hugging southern edge of Harris County: this 1970s ranch, carefully dressed by the seller in slate panels. The 3-bedroom 2-bathroom property was given a new outer skin (as seen in the top photo) to tie into features of the extensive interior redo, carried out by the seller’s own stone-and-tile-centric remodeling business. New features in the home include stone paneling, a few reshaped windows, and some throwback color schemes (including a black-and-white checkered garage floor), as well as a new pump system for the drought-tolerant backyard landscape (complete with koi pond.)  Asking price is $400,000 — check out more before-and-after shots below:

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Slated for a Redo
08/17/16 1:15pm

12740 Memorial Dr., Memorial, Houston, 77024A few readers have written in regarding the fate of the Baskin Robbins and its retail strip neighbors at 12740 Memorial Dr., just south of Town and Country Mall. The building which housed the now-closed scoop shop along with Katy defector Anne’s Salon on Memorial and the local branch of More Hands Maid Service appears slated for a full tear-down and do-over (along with freestanding A-1 Cleaners next door), if plans from Streetwise Retail Advisor’s leasing flier are still on the mark:

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Memorial Bends
08/17/16 10:45am

Heights Mercantile treesHeights Mercantile treesThe shot above, facing south along the eastern edge of the 7th-St.-straddling site of the Heights Mercantile development, shows a few of the new meant-to-catch-eyes green sashes now adorning a series of trees along the Heights Blvd. sidewalk. But just what kind of message are those low-slung stripes sending to workers at the site, a reader wonders? Does green mean made the cut, or cut ’em down?

Renderings of plans for the project include a double-wide strip of trees framing a walking path parallel to 7th St. (labeled an outdoor art gallery), with additional greenery arranged in front of the Heights Blvd. bungalows being recruited into the retail center:

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Marked at 7th St.
08/16/16 5:00pm

KAY’S LOUNGE CLOSING IN LESS THAN 3 WEEKS Kay's Lounge, 2324 Bissonnet St., Rice Village, Houston, 77005Perennial oldest-bar-in-Houston contender Kay’s Lounge, at 2324 Bissonnet St., is closing forever on September 3rd, per a reader’s telling (and a corroborating Facebook post from the bar itself) . The land the bar sits on was bought more than a year ago by a corporate entity using the same address as townhome-slash-mansion builder Frasier Homes in sales docs filed with the county. The bar has been leasing its space back from the new owners since then; a few of the bar’s 1940s companion structures, bought up by the same entity, met their end earlier this summer. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Kay’s Lounge at 2324 Bissonnet St.: Thomas C.

08/16/16 4:15pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO CAPTURE HALF A DOZEN HOUSTON BIRDS WITH 1 STONE Pokedome“Turn that freaking albatross of an Astrodome into Pokémon-freaking-Central. Invite Walking-Dead-like zombies from around the world to scour the concourse for Peek-a-freakin-Chew and his/her nonsensical character friends, and charge them ten freaking dollars to get in.  . . . Instead of them being a giant pain in the ass as they meander up and down Heights Blvd. around Hamilton Elementary, they’re stuck inside the Eighth Wonder of the World helping Houston solve it’s looming pension problem.” [C.L., commenting on Discovery Green Says No to Pokemon Go; Artist Pads for Acres Homes]

08/16/16 1:45pm

SOMETHING HOT MOVING IN ON 59 DINER’S FORMER FARNHAM SPOT Former 59 Diner, 3801 Farnham St,, Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098With the ghostly reflection of the restaurant’s milkshake-shaped beacon hovering to the far left, a reader sends a shot of the TABC notice now replacing the hand-scrawled closed-indefinitely signage on the door of the former S. Shepherd 59 Diner location. The sign lists Alcaliente Houston as the applicant; 2 restaurants currently operate in Katy and the Woodlands respectively under the name Alcaliente, serving halal-and-also-very-non-halal Mexican food. The diner spot cleared out beneath a cloud of worker payment disputes in early March, shortly after The Halal Guys moved in to the west. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of TABC notice at 3801 Farnham St.: Swamplot inbox

08/16/16 12:15pm

Work at at 1916 Baldwin St., Midtown, Houston, 77002

Here’s the latest from the house-turned-law-office-space at 1916 Baldwin St., now getting worked over behind its previously-noticed TABC application notice. A few more details on what’s planned for the spot have since surfaced, as Phaedra Cook and Craig Masilow noted earlier this summer while writing about the ongoing legal whosamawhatsit of the newly-rotated nightclub formerly known as Gaslamp (about 2 minutes to the south by car). Cook and Masilow point out that the owner of the Baldwin space appears to be Gaslamp owner Ayman Jarrah’s brother, and that Jarrah himself is listed as the manager of the business moving in at the Baldwin address (referred to as Oakmont) in a TABC-nodding newspaper notice published in May.

A reader on the scene, meanwhile, notes the construction going on in and around the structure (above), including a 2-story something going up out back:

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Going by Oakmont
08/16/16 10:15am

Carvana, 10939 Katy Fwy., Memorial, Houston, 77079

The frame of the octagon-footed tower now rising at 10939 Katy Fwy. suggests that Carvana’s first Houston used vehicle vending machine may be a few stories taller than the 5-story Nashville machine that opened last year (the one featured dispensing a car in the mostly-online company’s noisy promotional video). Reader Tyler Battenfield sends the rainy day update above, showing the tower rising in place next to a more down-to-earth part of the structure, as shown in the construction plan preview that made its way to Swamplot back in early March:

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Katy Fwy. Auto Auto Dealership
08/15/16 5:15pm

USA GYMNASTICS TO BUY OLYMPIC TRAINING RANCH IN SAM HOUSTON NATIONAL FOREST Meanwhile, in Huntsville: Bela and Marta Karolyi are in the process of selling 36.2 acres of their remote women’s gymnastics training facilities north of Houston to USA Gymnastics itself. The Károlyis, who are retiring from more than 3 decades of US gymnastics involvement following their 1981 defection from Soviet-controlled Romania, will keep their own home and most of the rest of their 2,000-acre property, one of many private holdings intermingled with more than 163,000 acres of the federally owned land of Sam Houston National Forest. USA Gymnastics will have right of first refusal if the Károlyis decide to sell any more of the land; closing on the sale is scheduled for 3 days after this month’s Olympic closing ceremonies in Rio de Janeiro. [AP via Bisnow Houston] Image of Sam Houston National Park ranger station: US Forest Service

08/15/16 3:30pm

Mark's American Cuisine, 1658 Westheimer Rd., Hyde Park, Houston, 77006

From alongside the corner retail strip containing Hollywood Food & Cigar and Shaw’s Tattoo Studio, reader Carson Lucarelli captures a look at this weekend’s unlabeling of Mark’s American Cuisine. Normal operations in the former 1920s church at 1658 Westheimer Rd. ceased in late May, just shy of the spot’s 19-year anniversary in July. Eater Houston previously reported that eponymous chef Mark Cox was considering other (more casual) food-projects for the space, though the fine dining restaurant had planned on hosting private events throughout the rapidly waning summer.

Photo: Carson Lucarelli

Hyde Park Mark Down
08/15/16 1:00pm

2044 E. T.C. Jester Blvd, Shady Acres, Houston, 77008

Shots from a reader show the recent tree installations outside of the future home of King’s Bierhaus (no relation to recently-departed Hans’), now setting up in the retail strip east of Ella Blvd. along one of the curvy segments of E. T.C. Jester and White Oak Bayou. The restaurant, second of its name after still-operational King’s Biergarten in Pearland, plans to open later this year — here’s a shiny rendering of what the biergarten might look like in full bloom:

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Beer Gardening
08/15/16 11:30am

ChristoMio Coffee Bar, 2523 Quenby St., Rice Village, Houston, 77005ChristoMio Coffee Bar, 2523 Quenby St., Rice Village, Houston, 77005The sign in front of the former Hans’ Bier Haus (which after 21 years shut down last month as previously announced) now reads a little differently: ChristoMio Coffee Bar is setting up shop at 2523 Quenby (in the shadow and projectile range of the nextdoor 2520 Robinhood condo tower). The new logo appears to have been planted onto the old sign just a few days after Hans’ mid-July final hurrah; no official opening date has yet been announced.

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Kirby at Quenby