Swamplot Archives by Category: Home Design

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

From Mod Pad to Mold Pit in Four Years: The Sorry Saga of the Carousel House

9602 Moonlight Dr., Meyerland, Houston

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!

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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Great Moments in Houston Home Marketing: The John Staub Tie-In

3740 Willowick Dr. in River Oaks by Architect John Staub

A 1955 River Oaks “country house” designed by John Staub appears on MLS just days before architectural historian Stephen Fox’s book on the Houston architect appears in bookstores. Mere coincidence? Or brilliant upper-end home-marketing technique?

There’s a slight price difference between the two: The Country Houses of John F. Staub lists for $75, though Amazon.com whacks 37 percent off of that. No telling if the sellers will accept a similar discount off the $7.495 million asking price of 3740 Willowick.

The house overlooks Buffalo Bayou and features four fireplaces, three bedrooms, and six full and one half baths — all in a single story. Yes, it looks like some ranch-house flavor got mixed in here. There’s a garden loggia and lots of trees, plus a three-car attached garage. It’s a 5,532-square-foot home on a quarter-acre lot.

The book is 408 pages long and comes in hardcover. It features photographs by Richard Cheek, and will take up just three-quarters of a square foot on your coffee table.

After the jump: the not-so-ranchy interiors.

Of the house.

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Friday, October 26, 2007

When Graffiti Artists Paint the House

This Old House by Aerosol Warfare at the Diverseworks Satellite Space

DiverseWorks gave graffiti collaborative Aerosol Warfare free reign to paint the arts organization’s satellite space at the corner of Alabama and Almeda in Midtown, and this is the result.

You remember this house, right? It’s the one that used to have giant Sesame Street characters airbrushed all over it.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Fifties Cool Revived: A Houston Case Study

Sunken Play Area at the Frame-Harper House, Houston

Texas Architect magazine features a home that shows what the famous postwar Case Study program of modern steel houses might have looked like if it had landed on bayou banks in Houston instead of L.A. hillsides.

Of course, what was cool in the fifties wasn’t especially appreciated in the eighties. The home’s second owners

removed the terraced landscaping and painted the entire house white, including its darkstained walnut paneling and load-bearing walls of pink Mexican brick. They filled sunken terrazzo soaking bathtubs in children’s and parents’ bathrooms with concrete. They removed the lacy, cast-plaster screens separating the living and dining rooms designed by Gloria Frame’s father, Joseph Klein, and the unusual turquoise St. Charles steel kitchen cabinets with their little shiny stainless steel legs. In the main living areas they covered over a series of recessed light coves in the ceiling depicted in superb photographs by Ezra Stoller, which were published in House & Garden in September 1961. They also replaced the original copper roof flashing with galvanized steel flashing that had rusted to the point of failure by 2004 when the house’s third owner, Dana Harper, persuaded them to sell it.

After the jump, more swank pics from Harper’s expensive restoration of this cool modern home off Memorial Dr.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

An Airplane Hangar-Home for the Almost Jet Set

32124 Skyway, Waller

If you’re looking for something just a little sleeker than the typical country-home-with-hangar featured here earlier this week, you might want to try the house right next door: It’s newly remodeled, sportier, and there’s still plenty of room to park your airplane, just steps from the Living Room. Best of all, though, you can bid for it on Ebay.

A completely remodeled home and new airplane hanger located in the beautiful country side of Waller Texas, just 20 minutes from Houston. Located in the Sky Lakes Subdivision this gorgeous home and hanger that backs up to the taxiway and leads out to the long grass runway allowing you the access to fly your plane at a moments notice.

Great, but 20 minutes from Houston?? Oh, right—by air. The house has three bedrooms and two baths in an open plan: 2330 square feet of living space, plus a 2000-square-foot hangar.

Hurry! There’s only about a week left to place your bids. Or buy it now for $274,900. Our quick fly-by photo tour begins after the jump.

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Monday, October 8, 2007

On the Market: Home with Airplane Parking

32102 Skyway, Waller

It’s just down the street from the golf course and from Skylake Airport in Waller. A three-bedroom, two-bath house with an attached woodshop, listed at $249,900. Oh, and you can probably fit several of your airplanes in the hangar. The current owner has three in there, plus a helicopter.

After the jump, more pictures of this lovely airport home, including . . . an aerial view!

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Sticking It to the Landlord

Ambition Killed the Cat Wall Decal from BlikPicky property managers won’t let you paint the walls of your apartment? MarketWatch’s Ruth Mantell suggests you stick it to them:

Renters with an inflexible landlord, or those who want to avoid the mess of painting, can try wall decals, suggests Annette Hannon, founder of a Burke, Va.-based design firm.

She likes the removable decals available through Web sites such as whatisblik.com and modernwallgraphics.com. The decals come in geometric and free form patterns, with designs such as flowers, and patterns inspired by Rococo style and artist Keith Haring. A multicolored three-pack of Haring’s “Pack of Dogs” costs $23 on whatisblik.

“It’s those kinds of things that are quirky and fun, and very much something that shows your personality,” Hannon says.

“When it’s time to move, they come off really easily. And you’re not spending so much money that you become so invested in it.”

Of course, with designs like multicolored Rainbow Poops (yes, you read that right), some renters might be tempted to leave a colorful grid of decals on the wall when they move anyway—just to send a special message to that special landlord.

Photo: “Ambition Killed the Cat” decal at Blik

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Wednesday, September 5, 2007

For Sale in San Leon: Dusty Hill Estate

2293 E. Bayshore Dr. in San Leon

Does this look like the home of a rock star? Okay, how about a ’70s rock star with a long beard and hearing problems?

Yes, this is the custom-built San Leon enclave of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill: a 19,560-sf trio of homes on a three-and-a-half-acre lot facing the crystal-clear waters of Galveston Bay.

Features include recreational, media & entertaining areas. 2 story entry w/dbl staircase, gourmet kitchen, mahogany library. Coffered ceilings, travertine marble floors. Circular motor court w/fountain & Crestron lighting. Pool. Exterior lighting, rollac shutter & storm doors. Above ground gas tanks. Two 3-car garages. Designer appointments & much more!

Yours, for just under $7 million. Including the gas tanks. After the jump, the ZZzzzzzzzzzzz interiors!

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Waverly Goodbye

1 Waverly Court, by Glassman Shoemake Maldonado Architects

From the design mags to demolition . . . in less than ten years! Remember the modern house with the curious metal proboscis off Bissonnet, near the Museum of Fine Arts? It won a couple of design awards a few years back from the American Institute of Architects, but if the judges had realized it was temporary housing it probably would have swept that category.

A week ago 1 Waverly Ct. appeared quietly in our demolition report, but it became a smashing success just a few days later. It was built in 1999.

After the jump, what lurked behind the proboscis: photos of this record-shattering short-timer from the architects’ website.

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Thursday, August 2, 2007

Airport Living

The Williams Home at Hooks AirportContinental pilot Stephen Williams and his wife Nancy are the proud owners of one of several homes built in airplane hangars at Hooks Airport, a private airfield in Spring.

Initially, the Williamses wanted to add on to a Hooks Airport hangar they owned which contained a small apartment. But that plan was rejected by the FAA because it would have been too close to the runway.

They worked with Architect Kyle Cox to create their new 3,300-sf hangar-home.

At the top of the spiral staircase is the pinnacle of this unique home. The tower room is complete with a 360-degree set of windows, providing guests an overview of the airport. It has a steel catwalk that adds to the design, and provides visitors a chance to step outside to enjoy the view as well as the weather. The room also houses a bar and a dumbwaiter to make entertaining simple.

“We put in the things that we wanted. I wanted a nice cooking area,” Nancy said.

With a host of friends and a community full of fellow aviation enthusiasts living at Hooks Airport is nothing short of spectacular. “It’s a neat, quiet community,” Nancy said. “We love it here.”

Photo: 1960 Sun Group

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Monday, April 23, 2007

The End of that Great Room Fad

Great Room from David Weekley Barden ModelChanneling Sarah Susanka, writer and architect Duo Dickinson snarks colorfully on Dumb Renovation Fads for Money magazine. Here’s some of what sucks about “the Great Room Craze of the 1980s”:

Weird Windows: All these windows and doorways are on the ground level and . . . also floating up on the second-story space, somehow reminiscent of a burned-out building. Also, how do you light such a space without it looking like a lobby in a Marriott?

Funny, but Dickinson’s targets aren’t just renovation fads—they’re staples of most current Houston new construction. That Great Room Craze may have arrived here late, but it’s making up for it by hanging around for a while. Dickinson’s improved proposal for great rooms (two attached, lower-ceilinged spaces) though, is Not-So-Small: “as much square footage as in a great room but with a more intimate, livable feel.”

Onto the next complaint: Oversized kitchens. “The distance between surfaces and appliances in this kitchen approaches the ridiculous,” reads the caption to a kitchen you might see featured here in, say, Paper City. “You’d need a map just to find the olive oil.”

Dickinson’s suggested remedies are more Susanka-like, but without the cloying detail. Keep kitchen counters no more than four feet apart. Get rid of overhead cabinets and add a pantry . . .

Other complaints include “The Garage That Ate Your Home,” porches that block living-room light, and bad overhead lighting (”Recess Time Is Over . . . the end result of such an installation is a pockmarked ceiling that looks like a meeting room at a convention center.”)

Good luck bringing your fad-stopping sense to Houston homebuilders, Mr. Dickinson. Houston isn’t exactly the trend leader. We’ve still got a real-estate boom going on here, remember?

Photo: David Weekley Homes

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Why We Won’t Get Urban Developments in Houston: Not Enough Land

Regent Square Brownstones with Park

Residents of the new Regent Square Brownstones will “enjoy the sophistication of ‘in town living’” . . . in Kingwood.

Regent Square Brownstones in Kingwood TwilightThis is beginning to sound like a theme now, huh? Perhaps tired of bringing suburban-style homes and strip centers to the center parts of Houston, enterprising builders are now setting about to even the score, placing downtownish-looking buildings in park-like festival-village settings out in the burbs. As long as they don’t actually drag Central City teardowns to the Woodlands, it should be safe.

But why the urban flight? Homebuilder Robert Davis, whose firm is building Regent Square in Kings Harbor Village on prime Kingwood waterfront, spills the beans to the Chronicle:

Q: You are developing a lot of brownstone urban communities in the suburbs. Why not in Houston?

A: They can assemble and synergize the community with brownstones, whereas in Houston it’s very difficult to build townhome projects and say OK, here is your walk to the grocery store, because we have 5-foot sidewalks in Houston.

Suburb communities are building large promenades to connect things.

You would think that Houstonians have a more urban mind-set, but the people in the suburbs are actually going to get it.

In Houston, you cannot buy enough property to assemble that urban district.

We’re probably just not tearing down enough big, contiguous buildings in town.

Bonus: Davis reveals the secret sex code of successful homebuilders:

You’ve got to really design the home for the woman. Men are becoming more and more involved into the aesthetics, but you still need to make sure the woman is satisfied.

You’ve got to have the right kitchen, the right master bathroom. Natural light is extremely important. Men like the dark wood, caves. And women like the light and airy and bright, and if you miss that, you will miss big time.

Read more in the upcoming bestseller, Men are from the Enclosed Toilet Room, Women are from Lanai.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

New on the Block: Stack ’em High!

New Patio Home in Brookesmith

Look what’s going up in Brookesmith: “Luxury Patio Homes”! Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about designing a home from the ground floor up—and from scratch. We figure the first floor started as a garage apartment, but by the time they got around to the second floor the concept had expanded to a more Heights-y Victorian. Onto the third floor and there were better ideas: maybe what we really want here is one of them apartment complexes? Plenty of room for the air-conditioning units on the roof deck.

Bonus points for the computer rendering that makes living in Brookesmith look like . . . a walk in the park.

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Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Software Secret Behind That Ugly Remodel

Bathroom Rendering from Chief Architect

Revealed at last: Why that addition down the street took so long to build and looks so cheesy. It’s that cheap home-design software!

Homeowners sometimes dream up layouts that don’t take into account support walls, plumbing or central air systems, says Michael Quail, who owns a construction firm in Lyons, Ill. It’s a particular problem in older houses, because their internal walls are often load-bearing, while newer homes’ walls can be moved more easily. Plus, he says, once clients have invested several dozen hours in mastering a program and coming up with a plan, they can be resistant to change. “These people think we can just put a toilet anywhere,” he says.

The Wall Street Journal reports on fallout from homeowners designing their own renovations using software from Chief Architect and Punch Software — the two dominant firms in the design-it-yourself industry — as well as (gasp!) Google, the new owners of Sketchup!, a favorite design tool of architects that just might be too easy to use:

If used properly, the do-it-yourself products can save thousands of dollars in architects’ fees on a major project. But the growing popularity of the products is making them a point of tension between builders and their clients. Homeowners can spend hours on a design, only to be told they’ve taken out a key beam or put in a toilet where there are no pipes.

Homeowners “can draw to their heart’s content, but that doesn’t mean it’s legal or it’s buildable,” says Ben White, vice president of Benvenuti & Stein Inc., a design and construction firm in Evanston, Ill.

. . . or attractive, we might add. But that’s not always the most important consideration, is it?

Image credit: Chief Architect

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