This photo, courtesy of a reader, shows what will eventually hold up the new pedestrian bridge spanning Buffalo Bayou. This view looks south across the muddy water from the Sandy Reed Memorial Trail near Jackson Hill St. and Memorial Dr. toward the Royalton condo tower on Allen Pkwy. Crews have also begun clearing away more trees and brush between this spot and the Adath Yeshurun Cemetery, where the bayou’s master plan shows the Lost Lake will be.
Before this property in the secluded Tall Timbers section of River Oaks was a colorful contemporary by Carlos Jiménez, it was a much smaller home by San Antonio architect O’Neil Ford. Its acre of pie-shaped lot off a winding lane has wide-side frontage along Buffalo Bayou. The property atop rugged terrain listed a week ago with an initial asking price of $4,995,000.
WEINGARTEN RESPONDS: HEY, IT’S NOT US, IT’S MARFRELESS 
The make-out den behind the blue door says it’s closing because of the “rising cost of doing business” in the River Oaks Shopping Center, but landlords Weingarten Realty don’t see it that way — or at least that’s what an email sent yesterday to the Houston Chronicle’s Nancy Sarnoff says: “It was Marfreless’ decision to cease their operations at River Oaks Shopping Center. Weingarten Realty has made several attempts to contact the tenant to continue discussions but we have not been able to get a response. We remain open to discussing a lease extension and agreement.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user jmcgeough
THE END COMING FOR MARFRELESS IN RIVER OAKS And the low-light, low-key make-out den behind that signless blue door in the River Oaks Shopping Center says it’s closing at the end of March in a press release quoted here in the Houston Chronicle: “Marfreless’s owners have been trying to do whatever they could to keep the bar operational but other entities involved weren’t budging in regards to the rising cost of doing business, making it impossible to keep the business at this location.” Serving martinis and discreetly turning the other way as couples have gone at it for 40 years, Marfreless says it’s looking for another location. [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Flickr user jmcgeough
THE BOOK OF JOHN STAUB 
Maybe literature does have an impact in the real world — or the world of real estate, at least: “After the 2007 publication of The Country Houses of John F. Staub, by [architectural historian] Stephen Fox,” reports Nancy Keates from The Wall Street Journal, “momentum gained to save Staub homes that were being torn down, particularly in the affluent River Oaks neighborhood.” And this retroactive interest is happening all over the country, writes Keates: Homebuyers are looking back, when they’re looking to buy, for “an original source of traditional architecture — as opposed to the newer ‘McMansion’ variety.” Houstonian Calvin Schlenker and his wife paid $6.3 million for their John Staub, a “neo-Georgian” that dates to 1930: ”There’s a very limited inventory, they don’t come on the market very often and there’s great demand,” [Schlenker] says. . . . Houston real-estate agent Janie Miller says Staub homes have more of a premium than ever. ‘You pay so much more it isn’t funny. It’s like buying a diamond from Tiffany’s.'” [Wall Street Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo of 2110 River Oaks Blvd.: HAR
A source close to Blanco’s ownership tells Swamplot that by November the West Alabama bar and grill will close. Meanwhile, Blanco’s will be scouting for a new location, the source says, “somewhere in the area.” Swamplot reported in January that St. John’s School was buying 13 acres of property in River Oaks that include 3406 West Alabama St., where the incongruous honky-tonk and its dusty parking lot — owned for decades by Barry E. DeBakey, the heart surgeon’s son who died in 2007 of liver failure — have been for 30 years.
RIVER OAKS DISTRICT TO SEE ACTION, ADVENTURE 
The last we heard the River Oaks District was providing “move out concierges” to help Westcreek Apartment residents get off the property west of Highland Village where the upscale mixed-use cluster is going; now it appears that something’s moving in, the Houston Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff reports: Florida-based iPic has signed a lease to build a 560-seat octoplex. It might not end up looking like the rendering shown here, but it will be called “Escape,” reports Sarnoff, and it will allow moviegoers to pick — get it? — among escalators, self-serve ticket kiosks, beers on tap, recliners, and pillows and blankets. [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Oliver McMillan
St. John’s School has purchased 13 acres of land, expanding its 29-acre campus in River Oaks. Headmaster Mark Desjardins tells the Houston Chronicle that the school on Westheimer won’t be developing the new acreage right away and hasn’t decided what will become of the businesses already there at the intersection of W. Alabama and Buffalo Speedway. Those include a fortune teller, the River Oaks Plant House, known for its oversized topiary-like Chia pets (dancing at left), and Blanco’s Bar & Grill, sitting there in a dusty parking lot as though it’s on a far-flung farm road and not right across the street from the 23-story Lamar Tower. (It’s hiding behind the Blanco’s sign in the photo above.)
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YEP, THIS IS AN $8.5 MILLION RIVER OAKS TEARDOWN 
“This house will (sadly) be demolished. It was designed by Harvin Moore in 1940 for Mr. and Mrs. Sydnor Oden. The Odens had returned to Houston from living in Italy, and they wanted a house that reflected Italian architecture. I am thinking that a tear-down trend is on the rise.” [no history remains, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Prologis Is Past Us] Photo of 3640 Willowick Rd.: HAR
Courtesy of Swamplot reader James Glassman, here’s a shot of what’s been connected so far under the Shepherd Dr. overpass as it crosses the end of Allen Pkwy. at Buffalo Bayou. Suspended ’neath the cars at this gateway to River Oaks: a new pedestrian bridge, which will link the aptly named Sandy Reed Memorial Trail along the bayou’s South bank with Memorial Dr. to the north. Here’s how it’s drawn out in the Buffalo Bayou master plan:
What’s going on with these newly created tall-suspension-only parking spots outside Marfreless behind the River Oaks Shopping Center — at the corner of Peden and McDuffie? “This story all began with a strip of grass,” explains Brinn Miracle, who documented the strip’s disappearance, its re-landscaping, the replacement of the landscaping with a ramp, the removal of the ramp, and finally, the appearance of the configuration you see here. Sure, It may look like a couple of parking spaces bisected by a row of wheel stops, but don’t let your eyes fool you: As careful study and comparison of her photos looking west (above) and east (below) should make clear, half of each space is now meant to serve as a sidewalk . . .
THE LANIERS DOWNSIZE 
Heriz, Aubusson, and Kerman rugs; antique music boxes; Dresden porcelains; sterling silver tea sets; antique Limoges dinnerware; Roger Clemens-autographed baseballs; Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Alexandra Knight handbags; Manolo Blahnik alligator pumps, and a few lightly worn outfits from Yves St. Laurent, Bill Blass, and Prada are among the items you may expect to find at the upcoming garage sale being thrown by Port Commissioner Elyse Lanier and her husband, former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier. The occasion: the recent sale — after almost 3 years on the market — of their 13,386-sq.-ft., 11-bathroom River Oaks estate (pictured) at 3665 Willowick for more than $6 million, a bit more than half their original asking price, and another notch below the just-under $7 million they resigned themselves to when they dropped the asking price for the last time late last year. Why the sell-off? “I just don’t have room to fit it all,” Elyse Lanier tells society reporter Shelby Hodge. The Laniers will take only a subset of their stuff into the 2 apartments they’re combining on an upper floor at the Inwood Manor highrise on San Felipe. They’re jettisoning too much to fit into the Laniers’ old 3-car garage; the sale will take place at the Houston Design Center instead. [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
HOUSTON PRESERVATIONISTS MOVE TO STRIP CENTER, CHANGE NAME 
The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance’s days as a scrappy preservation organization housed in offices in the historic 1929 Gulf building downtown are over. From now on, it’ll be a scrappy preservation organization housed in offices in a Westheimer Rd. strip center. Okay, it’s that fancy brick-clad River Oaks strip center with the argyle tower across at 3272 Westheimer, across from Lamar High School. And it’s name is gonna change too. The GHPA shall now be known as Preservation Houston. [GHPA Preservation Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jim Parsons/Preservation Houston
THE COMING FLOOD OF NEW RIVER OAKS-AREA APARTMENTS IN MONTROSE Some local stats from research firm Axiometrics: 32 new apartment properties, holding a total of 8,700 units, are currently under construction in Houston. Of that total, 15 of them — accounting for 4,300 apartments — are in the “Montrose-River Oaks” area. Occupancy rates for similar existing properties in the same neighborhoods are currently in the mid-90-percent range; rents have been increasing at an annual rate of 9.1 percent as of January. [Real Estate Bisnow]
