01/10/11 4:09pm

One advantage of those double-height entries and oversized arched door-topping windows that come free with the purchase of your new home in Fairfield, as reporter Jennifer Bauer demonstrates: As you’re coming down the stairs, it’s easy to scan your front yard for mummies. KPRC photographer Jon Hill is lighting up the internets with the harrowing tale of his encounter last Wednesday night with a man who had an actual Ace bandage wrapped around his head. After spotting the sorta-masked sorta intruder lurking in his yard in the Fairfield neighborhood of Inwood Park, Hill ran out the front door with hopes of launching a surprise tackle. The wrapped visitor made an un-mummy-like exit, but Hill wasn’t able to chase him down. Thanks to a teevee report documenting the episode and other sightings of the unidentified interloper, all of Fairfield is now officially on mummy alert. Money quote: “Harris County sheriff’s deputies recommended that homeowners who see the man dressed as a mummy in their yard call 911 immediately.”

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09/24/09 11:25pm

Who won the prizes from Houston. It’s Worth It.?

For this week’s game four of you guessed Sugar Land. We had 3 guesses each for “the Champions/1960 area,” Missouri City, Silverlake, Cypress, and Atascocita. Two votes each for “near Highway 6,” Eagle Springs, Sienna Plantation, Lake Olympia, and Katy. Single guesses hit Commonwealth, Brightwater, Sweetwater, First Colony, Sugar Mill, Sugar Creek, Sugar Lakes, New Territory, Lexington Colony, Summerwood, Walden, Lake Houston, Longwood, Pearland, Audubon Place (in Pearland), Crystal Lakes, “one of those gated communities near 35,” Meyerland, “that little neighborhood near Bellaire, inside The Loop, by the Home Depot,” Hilshire Village, The Woodlands, southeast Houston, Clear Lake, Lakeside Estates, Lakeside Forest, near the Lakeside Country Club, “Grant Rd./Spring Cypress area,” “somewhere in the Cy-Fair school district, maybe way up 290,” Lake Colony, Bellaire, “the area bordered by 249, 1960, I-45, and Spring-Cypress,” Rodeo Palms, Deer Park, League City, Huffman, Humble, Memorial, Bunker Hill, Greatwood, Kingwood, Lakes of Eldridge, Friendswood, Klein, Copperfield, “toward Crosby,” and West University.

Senorbanity wins an honorable mention for calling this home “a late 80’s or early 90’s Perry McMansion.” But . . . where?

Here’s the winning entry:

My guess that this is somewhere in the Cy-Fair school district, maybe way up 290, and built sometime in the mid to late 90’s. It’s old enough that the landscaping has grown up, but new enough that the builder’s plop-oak in the front yard hasn’t.

Also, I think I know what color the office off the master bedroom is, because my bathroom is the same color. If it’s not Northern Cascades by Benjamin Moore, then it’s the same color, but by Laura Ashley.

Claire, we’re coloring you a prize winner. Here’s what Houston. It’s Worth It. is going to send you: The original Houston. It’s Worth It. book, the new HIWI: Ike book, and HIWI’s new “Hunkered Down” stencil kit. Congratulations!

We had 3 other Cypress-area guesses from runners-up Jessica1, nativesnob, and NWH. All three very close!

Special recognition goes to James, who wrote in with the actual listing, and sent other players in the exact opposite direction with his decoy guess: down I-45 to Deer Park or League City.

So where is this place, really?

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03/12/09 8:55pm

GRAND PARKWAY SEGMENT E: MALL SHOPPER EXPRESS LANES Approvals by the Harris County Commissioners Court this week — along with the timely arrival of $181 million of the state’s stimulus money — means nothing but a new Sierra Club lawsuit now stands in the way of building Segment E of the Grand Parkway toll road. The segment, which will cut through the Katy Prairie between I-10 and 290, will allow shoppers a convenient and direct link from the Katy Mills Mall to the new Houston Premium Outlets mall in Cypress, just west of Fairfield. Peter Haughton with General Growth Properties said, ‘We need this road to continue the build out of Bridgeland, which we hope will be one of America’s best master planned communities.’” [abc13]

03/25/08 7:12pm

Houston Premium Outlets, Cypress, Texas

Update: On-the-spot reader reports!

Fairfield residents: You picked the right location! Just outside your neighborhood’s front gates, a huge new outlet mall is scheduled to open . . . in just two days!

What’s going to be there? The Ecko Unltd. outlet store! The Juicy Couture outlet store! The Under Armour outlet store! Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom! And Chicken Now! They’re all opening this Thursday, March 27th!

Well . . . almost. As a commenter on HAIF points out, you’ll apparently have to wait for Chicken Now, which on the Houston Premium Outlets website is listed only as “opening soon.” The site indicates 100 stores in the 427,000-square-foot outdoorish highwayside complex will be ready for this weekend’s grand opening. 13 more are slated to open later.

After the jump: you’ll look askance at the plans!

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