- 4929 Valerie St. [HAR]
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Bellaire
At just shy of an acre, a Westmoreland Farms property in Bellaire packs in an updated 1955 home, garden, pool, tennis court, and one mighty rocky fireplace in the vaulted great room. Other megalots on the block, which runs from the West Loop’s feeder road toward S.Rice Ave. (at Bellaire High School), have mansionized with more recent construction. Is this home, listed at $2.25 million earlier this month, similarly fated?
Sticks to the Ribs
- 4503 Park Ct. [HAR]
Where’s the bus in the new Bellaire location of Bernie’s Burger Bus? Parked inside, finally, after going in through the east-facing wall of the corner shopping-center storefront yesterday (as shown in the video at right). The mobile food vendor turned immobile food vendor will still be serving food out of a bright yellow vehicle in its upcoming indoor location in the former Christian Community Service Center Sunshine Retail Shop at 5407 Bellaire Blvd., just steps away from the Metro 33 bus stop at Chimney Rock. (Though Mapleridge is closer if you’re headed east.) Architecture firm Collaborative Projects is handling the buildout.
Here’s more video of the install action:
Yesterday at Bernie’s
- 830 Jaquet Dr. [HAR]
Architects of grocery stores, townhouses, and adaptively reused kayak rental places Lake Flato are now trying their hands at Houston park pavilions. These renderings appeared on the San Antonio firm’s blog late last week, giving an early look at some of the stuff planned for Evelyn’s Park. The park has been in the works since 2009, or so; Teas Nursery had operated on this corner of Newcastle St. and Bellaire Blvd., just inside the Loop, for about 100 years before that.
Pavilions, Etc.
Swamplot reader Dave spots the signs up for Bernie’s Burger Bus in the Bellaire Triangle, giving an actual address (5407 Bellaire Blvd., in the former Christian Community Service Center Sunshine Retail Shop) to the growing vehicle-and-restaurant chain’s previously announced somewhere-in-Bellaire location. Like the other non-wheeled Bernie’s locations, this one will be called a Bernie’s Burger Bus Stop — but Bus Station might be more accurate: Owner Justin Turner told Eater back in September he plans to use the Bellaire spot as a “hub” where production and prep takes place and deliveries go out for all the restaurants — including the new one planned for Katy. And in addition to an in-kitchen table for occasional (non-burger) pop-up dinners, there’s an actual bus planned for the interior. Collaborative Projects’ design will let you pick up your orders as they’re passed through a bus window.
- Previously on Swamplot: Park That Bus: Bernie’s To Open 3 Non-Mobile Locations
Photos: Dave
Hamburger Transfer Station
Justin Turner of the cheddar-colored, school-themed burger bus — a frequent visitor to the can-you-hear-me-above-the-generators Houston Food Park in East Downtown — tells Eater Houston that he’s planning to open 3 non-wheeled restaurants in the next 5 years. That’s in addition to the stand he set up at Sections 114 and 115 inside Reliant Stadium to cook patties while the Texans play. Bernie’s will still operate 3 buses to serve close-in ’hoods, but it appears that all the restaurants will be outside the Loop: The first to open, says Turner, will be on Bellaire west of 610, the second in Katy, and the third “another place out in the ‘burbs.”
- Bernie’s Burger Bus to Open Three Brick-and-Mortar Spots in the Next Five Years: An Interview with the Owner [Eater Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: East Downtown’s Food Truck Parking Park
Photo of Bernie’s Burger Bus at Inversion at 1953 Montrose Blvd: Yelp user Jason T.
Some of the green that goes with this early player in energy-conscious home building in Bellaire could be the $200,000 price increase over its sale last July, when it went for $1.35 million. The ca. 2002 limestone-and-stucco property with Texas Hill Country stylin’ — designed back then for her own family by architect Kathleen Reardon — popped back up on the market earlier this week with a $1.55 million asking price. Some of the enviro-sensitive elements are visible from the get-go, such as the deep overhangs on the eaves. Others are buried deep in the lot — where a network of caverns 250-ft. deep use underground temperatures to regulate the air conditioning and heating. Solar panels and low-water landscaping also play the green card.
Among the townhome clusters built off Newcastle back in the eighties is this full-of-shutters one with front-loading driveway on one of the development’s interior, double-ended cul-de-sacs. Zoned to Bellaire schools, the 1981 property popped up on the market last week with a list price of $325,000.
Neighboring homes to this 1955 Bellaire home, rejiggered in 2006, both sport swimming pools — including the one next door that HCAD shows as having the same owners. This relisted fitness-foremost property, however, fills its back yard with a sport court — and serves up the view from just about every room. There are plenty of places to work out inside, too.
The new home of a new San Jacinto Stone is being set up here, behind the begonias and bamboo shoots at Wholesale Gardens in Bellaire. The stoneyard, dating to 1947, closed at 195 Yale St. at the end of last month when longtime owners Sarah and Don Hunt sold the 8-acre property near the Washington Heights Walmart to a commercial developer. Greg Thompson, owner of the landscape architecture firm Thompson + Hanson that runs Wholesale Gardens, says that the Hunts agreed to sell the San Jacinto Stone name — and the remaining inventory, too, after that February fire sale.
As brick and stucco construction of more recent vintage slowly transforms this Bellaire block near Condit Elementary School, an updated 1937 Cape Cod-style home — behind a winding front walkway and camera-ready white picket fence — continues to hold down its corner right across from a campus gate and a little on-street school parking. The throwback property listed Friday at $599,000 — as a renovate-or-rebuild address.
With its porch rockers, patios, and a heap of places to sit and kick back inside as well, this done-over 1948 home in Braeburn Country Club Estates seems to be hitting its 65th year with chillin’ in mind. Imported stone decking and stained columns beneath the roof’s shady overhang attempt to lend an aura of Hill Country retreatism to the still-a-post-war-Ranch-style home. The property popped up in the listings last week with an initial asking price of $1,195,000. That includes a guest cottage with seat-studded patio out back.
LEARN BY UNDOING 
Bellaire City Council voted today to spend an extra $8,000 to allow Habitat for Humanity to practice “whole house recycling” and, in lieu of the usual one-fell-swoop, whiz-bang demolition, “deconstruct” over a 14-day span this home at 5119 Jessamine, reports Robin Foster; the ayes argued that deconstruction can reduce the amount of wasted reusable material — but there remained at least one unconvinced nay: “‘Demolition is recycling, recycling is demolition,’ said [Bellaire mayor Phil] Nauert.” [West U Examiner] Photo: West U Examiner
