11/01/16 1:30pm

A TOUR OF THE ALABAMA-COUSHATTA’S LIVINGSTON GAMBLING TANGLES Naskila Gaming, 540 State Park Rd. 56, Livingston, TX 77351Adam Doster pens an update on the fate of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas’s 24-hour Naskila Gaming gambling center a few miles east of Livingston: The tribe, which reopened the rebranded gambling space in June after its 2002 closure by the state, is currently awaiting a trial date related to its array of not-quite-slot-machines. Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a federal motion in August to shut the machines down, citing the language of a 1987 act that law gave federal tribal recognition back to the Alabama-Coushatta (a status originally lost in 1954 as part of the broader mid-century federal status termination push). That 1987 law subjected both the Alabama-Coushatta and the Tigua Pueblo to Texas’s gambling restrictions, though the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act passed the following year, allowing certain types of gambling on reservation land with no state approval required. Both tribe’s first attempts to open gaming centers after that were shut down in 2002; the Kickapoo tribe’s  Lucky Eagle Casino Hotel has been open in Eagle Pass since 1996, however, and the Tigua Pueblo have opened some new “entertainment centers” that have also come under recent scrutiny from Paxton’s office. [Houstonia] Photo of Naskila Gaming: Jim O.

11/20/14 4:15pm

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Lake Livingston laps near the lazy river meandering within a whopper-scaled waterfront pool (top) at a 2006 property that also boasts a “barndominium” (above) with its own 15-car garage, a pool house, a boat house, but no house house. Does it matter? The existing structures come with kitchens and bedrooms, and there are 6 acres of grounds to tend. Price? $2.995 million. That’s down from the $3.4 million asked in previous listings back in 2013 and 2012.

Ready for a flyover?

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And a House, Someday
11/12/13 3:00pm

If you think this pool perched on an eastern bank of Lake Livingston is enormous — and with a jetted “lazy river” and 2 islands included it certainly is — just wait until you see the house that comes with it. You’ll be waiting for a while, though, because it isn’t built yet. This main-house-less property, which has been on the market on and off since spring of 2012 for $3.4 million, has a homesite all picked out — it’s just up the steps at the lower left of the photo immediately above. There’s a pool house and a boathouse and even an arbor structure already set up — just no house house.

While you’re waiting for one to show up, though, why not stay a while in the on-site warehouse? It’s got built-in living quarters:

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11/07/13 4:00pm

A waterfront estate in Coldspring’s Paradise Cove on Lake Livingston pumps up the nostalgia. It’s not just the charming merry-go-round (top), a tilted bit of grandchild bait strategically placed on the grounds. Built in 2007, the sprawling, multi-peaked home mirrors grand-scale cottage escapes of another era. The references play out in the home’s scale and interior sprinklings of somewhere-in-time architectural “finds” from round-the-world. Vintage touches blend in with modern building materials made to look old, such as the exterior’s bricks and replica slate roof  with griffin and copper finials. Meanwhile, the chimney stacks hail from England, the front door from France, and the gazebo from Egypt. How convincing is the assembly? Only the custom newel posts from New England get a close-up in any of the listing photos, which also indicate a penchant for heavy, dark-stained trim, red velvet accents, and claw foot tubs.

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