COMMENT OF THE DAY: SIGNS OF SOME MUNCHING GOING ON IN MANGUM MANOR 
“I live in Mangum Manor and there have been at least 4 teardowns in the past few months. Our neighborhood is actually enveloped by Oak Forest. I’m hoping the trend continues. It’s a great little neighborhood.” [Native_Houstonian, commenting on Under the Painted Rafters of a Mildly Mangled Mangum Manor Midcentury Mod] Illustration: Lulu
Sign up for the Newsletter
Mangum Manor
There’s a gussied up front door and porch on the far side of this tilt-topped 1960 home in Mangum Manor, but it’s the unobtrusive side door off the double driveway that appears to be the main entry, dropping arrivals neatly between the living room and kitchen (top). The tidy midcentury property, sporting a new roof and a recent paint job, jumped into the MLS fray earlier today with a $229,990 asking price.
Absolutely Refloored
The city of Houston granted a demolition permit yesterday to a company called Magnolia Services, allowing it to demolish the Pleasures Men’s Club, aka Pleasures Cabaret, off Highway 290 at 34th St. As aficionados of Houston history (as well as lurkers on the website of the shuttered strip club) will no doubt recall, Pleasures was the latest incarnation of Gigi’s Cabaret, where in 1991 the former Vickie Lynn Hogan, fresh off stints working at Walmart and Red Lobster, gave a fateful lap dance to her future husband, octogenarian oil (and breast) man J. Howard Marshall II. The rest, as they say, is history. As was Marshall, only 14 months after the wedding.
Whatever steak and ale was left in this building at 2425 Mangum Rd. has been taken off . . . very slowly. Only to be brought back in a new form: A reader who’s noted some heavy construction — including the covering-up of windows — at this former restaurant on the southwest side of 290 over the last month and a half says the new occupants appeared to have applied for a liquor license under the name “Mangum Steakhouse.” Actual name of the new joint: Sunset Strip, a “totally latex free” club where you’ll find “the hottest entertainers in H-Town” — once they’re hired, of course. Scheduled opening date: August 3rd. Any resemblance between Highway 290 and the actual Sunset Strip, of course, is courtesy of the ghost of Anna Nicole Smith, and the Pleasures she left behind on the other side of the freeway at 34th St.
- Sunset Strip
- Sunset Strip – Houston [Backpage]
Photo: LoopNet
The synopsis of the new opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith is under embargo until performances at the Royal Opera House begin on February 17th. But judging from the released video trailer (below), it’s likely the production will also feature the London stage debut of the former Gigi’s Cabaret on the 290 feeder road just across 34th St. from the Northbrook Shopping Center in Houston (or more probably its interior), where in 1991 the former Walmart and Red Lobster employee had the extremely good fortune of meeting the greatest sugar daddy of them all, billionaire J. Howard Marshall II. Both Smith and Gigi’s later underwent renovations and name changes: Smith from her original Vickie Lynn Hogan; Gigi’s more recently to Pleasures. But how realistic will the portrayals be? Will set designer Miriam Buether’s version get the Houston strip club’s stage and runway areas right?
