What the house sounds like.
- Beer Can House [YouTube]
- Roads Less Traveled: Beer Can House a taste of Houston [San Antonio Express-News]
- Ever been to The Beer Can House? [Orange Show Center]
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Friday, March 14, 2008
The Beer Can House Speaks
March 14, 2008 – 11:01 am
Read more about: 77007, Art, Attractions, Historic Preservation, Home Decor, Rice Military
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Big and Modern on Lazy Lane: John Arnold Tries House Trading
March 11, 2008 – 9:44 am
This massive 20,000-sq.-ft. home featured on New York Architect Alexander Gorlin’s website is under construction at 2950 Lazy Lane in River Oaks. The Museum of Fine Arts’ Bayou Bend Collection is next door.
Gorlin’s client is the youngest member of the Forbes 400 list of the Richest Americans (he’s number 317): 34-year-old former Enron trader John Arnold, who now runs secretive Centaurus Energy, a small but extraordinarily successful hedge fund company that trades energy commodities.
Four years ago, Arnold bought a recently renovated 1926 home in the French Norman manorial style in the Homewoods subdivision of River Oaks. The home, which had sat on the market for close to three years, had been designed by Houston architect Birdsall Briscoe in collaboration with John Staub, who was building the Bayou Bend estate for the children of former Texas governor James Hogg next door. Briscoe’s creation was dubbed “Dogwoods” by Hogg’s son Michael, who lived there for many years with his wife.
A year after purchasing Dogwoods — valued by HCAD at $4.9 million — Arnold angered River Oaks preservationists by tearing it down.
After the jump, more illustrations of the house John Arnold will be trading into, plus a few photos of the one he didn’t leave behind.
Read more about: 77019, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homewoods, Houston Architects, John Staub, Land Sales, Modern Design, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction: Residential, River Oaks
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Just Listed: Little Green Rehab in the Sixth Ward
March 4, 2008 – 11:47 pm
It’s a little old bungalow on a small lot . . . but it’s clean and green inside! The sellers of this 2-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath, 960-sq.-ft. home say they’re trying to get this Sixth Ward home LEED certified:
The 1920 facade has been preserved, but when you open the door, its all about 21st century. The hm has been renovated using non toxic materials, low VOC paint & sustainable design materials.
A neighbor who watched the work reports the house was sold to the current owners as a teardown:
It was a nasty, dirty, filthy, funky house with a garage in the front yard. They tore the garage off the front, moved the house around on the lot a tad, and have done an outstanding renovation.
Plus: the neighbors are very very quiet, says our correspondent. The house is next to Glenwood Cemetery.
Read on for more pics, from before and after!
Read more about: 77007, Construction Materials, Development Strategy, Green Design, Green Development, Historic Preservation, Homes for Sale, Old-Sixth-Ward, Real Estate Marketing, Renovations
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Hoa Binh: The Lasting Legacy of the Original Strip Mall
February 19, 2008 – 9:37 am
Wielding a copy of Stephen Fox’s Houston Architectural Guide, transit buff Christof Spieler writes in to report that the vacant and graffiti-laden Hoa Binh Center in Midtown — targeted by Camden Property Trust for a new apartment complex — has an important story behind it. He quotes from Fox’s writeup of the shopping center, which was built in 1923:
What distinguishes this building is that it was the prototype of the 20th century American suburban shopping center: it introduced the concept of off-street parking, toward which the grocery store itself was oriented.
Spieler adds:
In other words, Camden may be about to tear down the world’s first strip mall. Now that’s a historic building.
And it’s certainly worth at least a nice plaque somewhere on those new apartments going up on the site!
But before all you preservationist types get up in arms about the impending demolition of the mother of all strip malls, keep in mind that an equally important part of this structure’s history and legacy will almost certainly be preserved, cherished, and celebrated. Sure, the building will probably end up in a pile of rubble off Loop 610. But all those historic off-street parking spaces? They’ll be moved into a nice new garage at the Camden Travis, where residents of the new apartments and their guests will be able to enjoy them for generations to come.
After the jump: Spieler spills more Hoa Binh history!
Read more about: 77006, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Midtown, Parking, Proposed Developments, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers
Friday, February 8, 2008
Late to the Orgy, Missing the Excitement
February 8, 2008 – 5:31 pm
An organization called Save the Bungalows sends out a press release today bemoaning the demolition of the house at 647 Arlington St. in the Heights — which was mentioned in our February 1st demolition report, and whose final moments are documented in this photo, included with the release. The press release appears genuinely exciting. It features a tantalizing headline:
“Orgy of Irrational Destruction*” Continues: Home Tour House is Latest Victim
and some interesting details on the house:
A home that was featured on the 1997 Houston Heights Home Tour has been demolished.
Neighbors and friends expressed shock and outrage over the latest piece of authentic history to fall to ignorance. The sturdy house at 647 Arlington was built in 1910 by Frank J. and Nina Daly. The property remained in the Daly family until it was sold to Jack Spivey in 1980. The home’s interior was carefully renovated and updated and a garage was added to the rear. Spivey sold the house in November of 2007.
Pam August of August Landscape Design, came to know the house when Jack Spivey hired her to design his yard. She then volunteered to be the head docent for the house on the Heights Home Tour. “It is just a terrible shame that a house so beautifully restored, a house that was on the tour as an example of wonderful restoration, has been tossed in a dumpster.” August said.
After the jump: About that orgy.
Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Houston Heights
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Historic Preservation, Meet Self Preservation
January 30, 2008 – 12:35 pm
Not all recipients of the 2008 GHPA Good Brick Awards will be able to attend this Friday’s historic-preservation awards banquet at the River Oaks Country Club, but some will have better excuses than others. Ken Rice, who along with Sarah Goodpastor will receive an award for the renovation of a 1930 brick duplex at the corner of Kipling and Dunlavy, won’t be able to make it because he’s currently serving a 27-month sentence in federal prison for securities fraud.
Yes, that’s former Enron Broadband CEO and architecture patron Kenneth Rice, who already helped lessen his sentence by testifying against other Enron executives in two separate trials after his 2003 guilty plea. Rice agreed to forfeit more than $13.7 million worth of cash investments, real estate, cars, and jewelry as part of his plea agreement. His sentence included a $50,000 fine.
Rice, 48, could end up serving less than half of his prison term, though.
His lawyers say he hopes to enter a drug and alcohol treatment program available to nonviolent federal inmates that, if completed, could shave up to a year from his term. In addition, federal inmates can reduce their prison time by 15 percent with good behavior. With those two combined, Rice could get out of prison in 11 months.
After the jump, details and photos of a project Rice is likely hoping will count towards that good-behavior credit.
Read more about: 77006, Crime, Duplexes, Enron, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Houston Architects, Interiors, Renovation, Winlow Place
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Just Listed: Fifties Bayou Cool
January 29, 2008 – 11:15 am
A reader reports that the Frame House, a fifties-Modern classic tucked off Memorial Dr., is up for sale for a cool $3 million. Designed by Houston architect Harwood Taylor in 1960, this is about as close to a Case Study House as Houston ever got — and it perches just about as close to Buffalo Bayou as you’d ever want a home to get. Its recent restoration from a mid-eighties whitewashing earned the current owner, his architects, and builder a local preservation award.
If you’re a fan of this kind of Modness, the best news of all is that you don’t have to pay to play: An open house is scheduled for the afternoon of Sunday, February 17th. If you’re not a fan, you can visit and imagine how it would all look with crown moulding and a nice, traditional pitched roof.
After the jump, a few more details about the home, plus a demonstration of the real value real estate agents can bring to a fine listing like this.
Read more about: 77024, Buffalo Bayou, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, Memorial, Modern Design, Open Houses, Real Estate Marketing, Renovations, Restorations
Thursday, January 24, 2008
At Last! A Stable Future for the Astrodome
January 24, 2008 – 7:39 pm
For four years, the fate of the Astrodome has been chained to the proposals of a single company. Those proposals at first went in all sorts of different directions but lately have seemed to be going nowhere. And now, finally, the stewards of the Astrodome’s future have declared that Astrodome Redevelopment’s exclusive right to redevelop the Houston landmark will be coming to an end.
That’s great news, because all that exclusivity and secrecy and incompetence has overshadowed one of the best ideas ever suggested for reusing the Dome — which today can finally be revealed: Let’s turn the Astrodome into . . . horse stables!
Astroturf and tiered stadium seats would give way to more than 1,000 horse stalls and an arena with a capacity of at least 6,000. The vast open area where former Astros stars Jimmy Wynn and Jeff Bagwell hit towering drives would be turned into a three-story exhibition and stalling space, Shafer said.
Isn’t doing time as a livestock storage center the hallmark of a historically significant building? And it will make the next renovation so much more dramatic: “Can you believe it? Before they restored it, they used this thing for horse stables!”
After the jump, some reasons why this plan might have legs.
Read more about: 77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, reliant-park
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Preservation Alert: Save the Historic Salvage Yard!
January 22, 2008 – 2:50 pm
It’s not just the rice silos that’ll be leaving the First Ward. Next thing you know, they’ll be demolishing . . . the used-auto-parts yard across the street. A source very close to Charles Kuffner reveals that the owner of Johnny Franks Auto Parts at 1225 Sawyer St., across the street from the Mahatma Rice silos, has already sold the land to residential developers.
But wait. Johnny Franks Auto Parts bills itself as “The Nation’s Oldest Salvage Yard.” Is this true? If so, how could Houston let such an important historical site be destroyed? Founded in 1910, the salvage yard for years advertised itself as “the house of a million parts.” Sadly — like so many other historic structures in Houston — that may be its ultimate fate.
After the jump, Kuffner counts the reasons why there’s probably no stopping residential development from taking place on this historic site:
Read more about: 77007, Buying and Selling, First Ward, Historic Preservation, Houston History, Industrial Properties, New Construction: Residential, Openings and Closings
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Hearsay: Market Square Gastropub Rehab . . . and More
December 4, 2007 – 11:04 am
Former Ibiza and Catalan investor Rhea Wheeler and two partners have bought the shuttered Twelve Spot bar on Travis St. — just around the corner from Market Square downtown — and will be turning it into a gastropub called Hearsay.
218 Travis is Houston’s second-oldest building, and originally served as a Confederate Army munitions depot. It’s a dramatic space inside: There are three stories, but the upper floors have been removed and a mezzanine placed in the back.
Wheeler told Jennifer Dawson of the Houston Business Journal he’ll open the new restaurant in the first half of next year.
After the jump: More Wheeler restaurant plans! In actual old buildings!
Read more about: 77002, 77004, Downtown, Historic Preservation, Midtown, Renovations, Restaurants
Monday, November 19, 2007
Carousel House Demo: Mold Wants To Be Free
November 19, 2007 – 8:09 am
As if on cue, the Carousel House received a demolition permit Friday. (See 9602 Moonlight Dr. in today’s Daily Demolition Report, below.) As of this morning, the Meyerland mod is still intact — well, at least you’ll be able to see its silhouette through the fog.
Who wants to keep all those mold spores cooped up in a dingy old home, anyway — when really, they could be doing so much more for this city? Set them free!
Photo: Ben Hill
Read more about: 77096, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Meyerland, Modern Design, Mold, Toxic Sites
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
From Mod Pad to Mold Pit in Four Years: The Sorry Saga of the Carousel House
November 14, 2007 – 4:04 pm
One detail glossed over delicately in Lisa Gray’s colorful tale of the decline of Meyerland’s Carousel House, featured in today’s Chronicle: The abandoned home’s apparent awful stench. From a few would-be visitors, posting on HAIF:
The owner told me that everyone he’s taken in there has gotten sick soon after coming out. Apparently it is REALLY nasty in there. I may swing by and get some new filters for my mask.
and
i could smell “the smell” just standing in the driveway
But hey, the interior shots from just a few short years ago make the house look super fab! Built in 1964 by owner Robert Cohen, the Modern gem merited a Texas magazine feature story in 2003. Just four years, one ultra-rich attorney, one shady personal assistant, countless hookers, umpteen heroin hazes, and a couple of dozen missing exotic cars later, the house on the corner of Moonlight Dr. and Braesheather appears headed for an almost-certain but certainly difficult demolition. (15,000 pounds of steel, anyone?)
After the jump, highlights of the home from its heyday, excerpts from the sordid and fetid tale of its fall from Modern grace, and a photo of the far more up-to-date carousel that just might be built in its place!
Read more about: 77096, Buying and Selling, Demolitions, Fraud, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homebuilders, Meyerland, Mold, New Construction: Residential, Toxic Sites
The Secret Plan To Redevelop the Astrodome
November 14, 2007 – 10:15 am
By now everybody knows the full story about the latest proposal to turn the Reliant Astrodome into a wacky, gondola-and-balloon-filled convention-hotel donut, right? Sure, it took the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation four years to work out the plan — and okay, the would-be redevelopers might be a little stingy about actually showing anybody what the thing is supposed to look like. But the proposal’s clear enough that when the Rodeo and the Texans say they don’t like the project we know enough about the plan to understand what they’re objecting to. Right?
Well, maybe not.
In the latest installment of the Chronicle’s “Oh, by the way, we failed to mention” series on the latest Dome redo efforts, reporter Bill Murphy drops this little nugget about twenty-three paragraphs in:
The rodeo’s [Chief Operating Officer Leroy] Shafer said he understands that officials in his organization might be viewed as “obstructionists” because of their opposition to the plan. But the public, he said, would understand the rodeo’s stance if officials of the group could speak freely about what they see as the project’s problems. Rodeo officials had to sign confidentiality agreements before they were allowed to review details of the plan.
Hey, Harris County residents should feel lucky: we got to see a drawing of the project without all of us having to sign non-disclosure agreements! If we all promise to sign and keep our mouths shut, can we find out about the project secrets too?
But there’s more:
Read more about: 77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, reliant-park
Friday, November 9, 2007
Hotel Astrodome: Rides and Hot Air
November 9, 2007 – 10:28 am
Hidden in today’s Chronicle update on the Dome’s status are a few more exciting details about the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation’s still-mysterious plans to remake the former home of the Astros and Oilers into a convention hotel. It’s gonna be like a county fair!
Company CEO John Clanton casually mentions that the new hotel will have seven restaurants and an amusement park, possibly including a ride to “near the top of the Dome,” plus tethered hot-air balloons, a batting cage, and gondolas.
It’s unclear whether Clanton is referring to Venetian-style gondolas for navigating all the new waterways inside, or the kind you see on ski slopes, for crossing the ballfield central fairgrounds. More details on the Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. website!
Oh . . . that’s right. There isn’t one.
After the jump, the real reason County Judge Ed Emmett doesn’t want to demolish the Dome.
Read more about: 77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, reliant-park, Tourism
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Dome Redo: Doomed from the Opening Pitch
November 7, 2007 – 8:02 am
More high comedy surrounding the Astrodome: Just what is Texans owner Bob McNair’s problem with the proposal to redevelop the Astrodome into a hotel? It’s . . . the hotel!
“A hotel would be in direct conflict with our games and when the rodeo is going on. You can’t tell guests they can’t come to the hotel on Sundays. That wouldn’t be fair to them. It wouldn’t be fair to our fans.
“We’re trying to be open-minded about this. We’re willing to look at anything that doesn’t conflict with our events.”
Now, you’re probably asking yourself: Haven’t the Texans known that the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation was wanting to turn the Dome into a hotel now for about . . . what, three years? Wouldn’t the two groups maybe have wanted to chat with each other at some point during that period?
Silly you! You’re presuming that the Texans and the Rodeo and the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation — Reliant Park’s landlords — actually have some intention or incentive to come up with a workable plan to redevelop the Astrodome. And you’re forgetting that turning the Dome into a hotel was an idea pushed early on by . . . the HCSCC’s chairman, Mike Surface! Remember that space-theme amusement-park concept that was so brilliant that the group that proposed it won the “competition” the HCSCC set up four years ago — even over other developer groups that had more experience and deeper pockets? That group was the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation.
A year later the ARC scrapped its own space-park concept in favor of the convention-hotel complex pushed by the HCSCC. With the Sports and Convention Corporation’s backing, the company worked in secret for three more years to refine the proposal.
Good thing the HCSCC didn’t solicit any alternate proposals during that time. Just think of the confusion that would have caused!
- Texans owner weighs in on Astrodome plans [Houston Chronicle]
- New space park eyed for Dome [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Astrodome May Get $400 million Transformation to a 1,000-room Convention Hotel [Hotel Online]
- Dome and Dumber [Swamplot]
- Astrodome Redevelopment’s Last, Desperate Gambit: Release Images [Swamplot]
Photo of Astrodome from August 28, 1992: Flickr user j4e0f0f
Read more about: 77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Houston-Texans, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, reliant-park, Rodeo, Tourism
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Astrodome Redevelopment’s Last, Desperate Gambit: Release Images
November 1, 2007 – 10:22 am
You know things must be getting desperate for the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation, which earlier this week suffered the indignity of having two rather important stakeholders come out against the latest incarnation of the company’s tightly guarded, four-years-in-the-making, Frankenstein-inspired proposal for bringing the Dome back to life. When they finally got to see the proposal, “recently,” the Texans and the Livestock Show & Rodeo decided the Astrodome’s new incarnation would be incompatible with their own operations.
But the greatest indication of the redevelopment group’s desperation was revealed just yesterday in local ABC-TV reporter Miya Shay’s blog. That’s right, the Astrodome Redevelopment Corporation is going for broke: The company finally decided to release to the public actual images of its proposal for the county-owned facility!
Yes, it’s a daring strategy to use on a property paid for by local taxpayers, but it just might work.
After the jump: the newly released images of the Astrodome hotel-under-glass!
Read more about: 77054, Astrodome, Attractions, Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Hotels, Houston-Texans, Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, reliant-park, Rodeo, Tourism
