FLUSHING AWAY ALLEN STANFORD’S LEGACY AT 5050 WESTHEIMER 
Noting the extensive changes to the office building at 5050 Westheimer across the street from the Galleria that once served as headquarters for the Stanford Financial Group but has since been taken over completely by real estate firm Keller Williams, Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon zeroes in on the big news: “Stanford’s gigantic personal bathroom is gone.” Reuters reporter Chris Baltimore described the rarely seen first-floor spectacle back in 2009, after an exclusive crime-scene tour, as “a chamber of black granite and mahogany, with a gigantic mirror and granite countertop, flanked with shelves of fluffy white towels and toiletries, including a bottle of ‘Brilliant Brunette’ shampoo.” Notable features: the separate black-toilet room, the huge walk-in shower, and the blank door next to it which served as Sir Allen’s private escape route to the parking deck. Stanford’s entire personal magnet-key-access-only first-floor domain has now been replaced by the offices of KW-affiliated lender and title companies; the Gensler redo of the building has kept some of the green marble but added some red walls, replacing stone-carved messages like Stanford’s HARD WORK, CLEAR VISION, VALUE for the CLIENT with “inspirational and wacky sayings like ‘Complaining=garbage magnet.'” [Real Estate Bisnow; Reuters; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Flushed
“I love that all these projects are coming to fruition on Westheimer.
As more and more private investment comes to this area of Westheimer between Post Oak and Weslayan, will the city of Houston invest in the walkable infrastructure to make this one coherent district as it fills in?
What would we call it?
East Uptown? Lower River Oaks? Highland West?” [
Will we soon see a 70-foot red pitchfork here? Now that the Orange Show has moved that 
UH restaurant management student Catherine Martin is already eyeing the decor of the Maggie Rita’s at 1650 Post Oak Blvd. — doomed, she imagines, for lack of parking at least — for when the Carlos Mencia property follows the Kirby location on its path from former Ninfa’s to shutter-dom: “I even liked the soup, I thought it tasted good. There was this really pretty painting of the Mona Lisa, it was just her face and it was all done in blues and greens. . . . Maybe when this location goes out of business I’ll buy that painting for real cheap on the side of the road. Do restaurants have garage sales? Like in their front yard, in their garage? . . . It’s not too far from my apartment I wonder if I’ll see the signs posted at the corner of my block. I just really liked that painting, you know? The thing is I don’t know where I’d put it in my apartment, I have several blank walls in my apartment, but it’s kind of a long painting, you know, real tall, the only thing is on those blank spots, like I have a book shelf underneath, or my desk or my dresser or something. It’s just not enough space all at once. 
