COMMENT OF THE DAY: IN THE HEIGHTS, GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD PEDESTRIANS “Front yard fences in the Heights are to keep people from walking through your yard. Many streets do not have sidewalks, and some pedestrians don’t understand that the edge of the yard is where you are supposed to walk. We don’t have a front yard fence due to the city easement, and people have come up almost to the front door going through the yard. It is a little unsettling.” [Janice, commenting on One in a Row Behind the Orange Show]
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Houston Heights
Queen Anne reigns in many of the original elements remaining in an updated 1906 Houston Heights cottage and its lookalike shingle-tipped garage. They share a short-sheeted lot across from Harvard Elementary School and a bit north of the hike-and-bike trail. Listed Monday, the property is asking $294,600.
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: BEFORE HOUSTON’S TREES LEFT THE BAYOUS FOR THE PLAINS “The Heights actually does sit on a rise above White Oak Bayou, which made it prime back in the day before any types of flood control existed. It’s hard to imagine these days, but when Houston was forest along bayou edges and grassland everywhere else, and people showed up in wagons, the ‘Heights’ area was like a little hill or knoll that was visible from anywhere else in town. You can still see this on topographic maps, and on I-45 headed south towards downtown, near North Main.” [Superdave, commenting on Comment of the Day: How Houston Neighborhoods Can Rise Above the Floodwaters]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: FROM THE INNER LOOP REAL ESTATE LEXICON “Remember, ‘Craftsman style’ doesn’t refer to what a structure is going to look like. It’s a magical incantation that developers recite to make Heights residents feel calm.” [John (another one), commenting on Assisting the Living in the Heights]
Here’s a view of the senior living and memory care facility that will go up in place of the Heights Fiesta that’s now coming down at 14th and Studewood: Though what’s being called the Village of the Heights was initially described to the Leader by “boutique senior living developer” Bridgewood Properties as “Craftsman style” with 80 units, descriptions accompanying this rendering omit any mention of style — and add 23 units. Either way, it’s supposed to be up and running next summer; Real Estate Bisnow reports that money to get construction going is in place.
Meanwhile, the sacking of that long-standing Fiesta continues:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BRING IT ON “As we all learned from the Ashby debacle, anyone who lives within a 2 mile radius of a proposed project has the right to go all NIMBY on it. Well, I live within a 2 mile radius of this project, and I’d like to declare myself to be a BIMBY — Build In My Backyard. I purchased inside the loop so that I could be in a dynamic urban environment; that includes high density housing options mixed in with single family; that includes the associated traffic; that includes noisy bars letting out at 2am right in the middle of neighborhoods; that includes Ferraris wailing at 120db at 7am on Sunday even if they’re only going 15mph. Bottom line, I’d love it if the Heights became more like Greenwich Village or Tribeca. While the Heights, or Montrose, aren’t likely to get there in the near future, projects like this (and Ashby) help get us just a little bit further in that direction. And I consider that to be a good thing. BIMBY!” [Walt, commenting on A Land Use Counterattack from the Yale St. Alexan Heights]
A LAND USE COUNTERATTACK FROM THE YALE ST. ALEXAN HEIGHTS 
Though the variance for unrestricted use that Trammell Crow had sought to make way for the Alexan Heights apartments along Yale St. was denied, other amendments to the existing single-family restrictions on that lot bound by Yale, Allston, and 6th that the developer is now seeking might allow the 366-unit complex to go up after all, reports The Leader. And, besides this play in the land use game, it seems as though Trammell Crow has also responded, in part, to the first round of objections coming from neighbors: “TCR has restricted the project’s driveway on Allston Street to be a service exit, left turn only, to divert traffic away from the neighborhood,” reports Cynthia Lescalleet. “[And] if the city will approve a HAWK signal — a crossing signal controlled by pedestrians or bicyclists — at the bike trail adjacent to the . . . site, TCR will fund and build it.” This revised application will go up in a public hearing Downtown this Thursday. [The Leader; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Trammell Crow Residential
A HEIGHTS RETAIL RESURRECTION 
The Leader is reporting that the Baptist Temple Church on Rutland and 20th St. in the Heights has sold 2 of its oldest buildings to Braun Enterprises, which says it will tear them down and replace them with less sacred spaces — that is, retail or a restaurant. If the almighty dollar has triumphed, there’s still a silver lining — or so Charlotte Aguilar suggests, reporting that the sale of the buildings — the church’s original sanctuary, built in 1912, and a larger one built in 1940 — will fund a $3 million renovation to its remaining 65,000-sq.-ft. T.C. Jester Building on 20th; a new 300-seat sanctuary will be added and classrooms and offices updated. [The Leader] Photo: Charlotte Aguilar via The Leader
When it sold in mid-April at $435,000, this gated property in the Houston Heights’ West Historic District came with a pair of apartment units. Now, the 1914 Dutch Colonial with swing-friendly porch is back on the market, asking $289,900 for a skinnier lot and what appears to be only the charming redo-ready main residence.
A new version of the D&T Drive Inn opened up late last week, Eater Houston reports. Tucked away in Brooke Smith between bungalows brandishing Houston Texans paraphernalia at 1307 Enid St. just south of W. Cavalcade, the long-time ice house was spruced up and expanded by Down House owner Chris Cusack. Though this photo makes parking appear — well, tight, even if that Dumpster’s eventually moved, a map on D&T’s website shows that there will be a lot available along W. Cavalcade between Enid and Cordell.
- Beer Wine & Set-Ups [D&T Drive Inn]
- A Look Inside D&T Drive Inn, A Modern Ice House [Eater Houston]
Photo: Allyn West
A new stick frame began going up Wednesday on the corner of Heights Blvd. and E. 2nd St., on a concrete slab cleared of the heap of wood studs, trusses, shear walls, and framed staircases that had landed there with a crash last Saturday night. All remnants of the 2 toppled Keystone Classic Homes 4-story townhouses in the Madison Park development just south of White Oak Bayou have been swept away. The site, pictured above in a photo taken by a Swamplot reader this morning, now looks rather different from the way it appeared last Sunday:
A Swamplot reader writes in with some identifying info about the Katy homebuilder whose Heights Blvd. townhouse construction collapsed into a pile of sticks over the weekend. The collapse of two 4-story structures under construction shortly after the end of Saturday night’s storm didn’t end up injuring anyone, but it did set back construction and marketing efforts for the Madison Park development just south of White Oak Bayou.
The builder of the toppled properties at 103-117 E. 2nd St., in a corral of townhomes built earlier by another developer, is Keystone Classic Homes, an LLC managed by Michael D. Surface. That appears to be the same Mike Surface who found himself in local headlines a couple of years ago, before and after he admitted to a judge that he intended to influence his longtime friend, Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole, with approximately $100,000 in cash and gifts. As part of a plea deal, Surface ended up pleading guilty to filing a false income tax return and making false statements to federal officials in connection with that bribery case, which centered around county contracts; in November 2011 he received a sentence of 2 years’ probation, along with a restriction barring him from being able to do any business with federal, county, or city governments for 5 years.
And then there was Surface’s job on the Astrodome.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE NEW TALLER TOWNHOMES THAT FELL OVER NEXT DOOR “Just to add a little clarification here. I live in one of the already existing structures there. They have been there since 2008 and have fared quite well during storms since being constructed. The ones that collapsed had started being built about 5 or 6 weeks ago. They were being built by completely different builders. There were two frames up. Each were four stories tall. The crazy thing was how tall they were. The second story on the new construction was taller than the third story of the ones that had already been there. They were however a completely different design than the already existing ones. In any event the weather wasn’t that bad. I was awake when they collapsed and actually saw the second one fall after the first hit it. Scary. Regardless of wind sheathing, that should not have happened. Someone could have been seriously injured or worse.” [Mike, commenting on The Heights Blvd. Townhomes That Collapsed Overnight]
There’ll be a — um — slight delay in the move-in date for the purchasers of the brand-new Madison Park townhomes at 111 and 107 E. 2nd St., just south of White Oak Bayou. Yes, it appears that the 2 stick-framed structures backing up to Heights Blvd. that toppled violently Saturday night — an hour or so after a not-exactly-fierce storm passed through the area — were in fact among the 4 that developer Keystone Classic Homes had been claiming on its website and in a construction-fence-mounted banner were already sold. Their listing in MLS provides perhaps a more conservative assessment: A bank of 4 townhomes — including 111 and 107 — were listed as “pending,” usually an indicator that a contract has been accepted by the seller but that no closing has yet taken place.
If you happen to be the lucky buyer on hook for one of these addresses — presuming you still want in — how much time will the weekend’s rack-and-rumble set you back?
Note: Story updated here.
Some big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew down a couple of 4-story stick-framed townhomes under construction at the corner of Heights Blvd. and 2nd St. around midnight Saturday night. Several readers have written in with accounts and photos, and a source close to the action reports that no one was hurt. A few neighboring garage doors on completed (and occupied) townhomes were damaged by wayward wall parts, however, and the driveway shared by new owners in the Madison Park complex was blocked by a Three Little Pigs–worthy pile of studs, which was cleared out of the way the following day by the builder, Keystone Classic Homes.
