VIDA’S SECOND ACT 
The owners of the renamed and renovated Melcher Crossing shopping center by the tracks at 4218 San Felipe brought in their own adults-only restaurant last September, reporter Rusty Graham explains: “‘We thought “how hard can it be?‒ Evie Melcher said. ‘We thought we’d just open it up and it would run itself. But there’s so much to bring together.’ Between a manager that didn’t work out and a ‘diva’ chef who quit, the Melchers have experienced and overcome the challenges. The restaurant is ‘chefless’ for the foreseeable future, the kitchen overseen by a manager. Menu items are recipes supplied by the kitchen staff; after the chef quit workers brought in family recipes that were cooked up and tried out. The best are on the menu today, what Evie Melcher calls ‘sexy Tex-Mex.’ ‘Tex-Mex doesn’t need to be weird’ she said. “Our food is less greasy, better tasting and of a higher quality, but it isn’t weird. It’s going home and not feeling so full.'” [River Oaks Examiner] Photo: Vida Tex-Mex
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River Oaks
HOW THE RIVER OAKS HOUSE OF WOW BEGAN TO SPROUT 
Inspired by the enthusiasm of Swamplot commenters, Lisa Gray tracks down the story behind the looks-mild-from-the-street home of the Brill family, and its eclectic designer George Weinle: “They started with the dining room, which came to feel like something out of Oz. The custom-made dining-room table has an incredibly ornate pedestal: Weinle knew that Pat’s grandkids liked to play under the table, and he wanted them to have something to look at. Her Chippendale dining-room chairs are painted shocking mint green. An intricate red wooden chandelier that looks vaguely like a pagoda was made to George’s specifications; it hangs at the center of a ceiling painted to resemble a carousel top. Shiny blue woodwork fu dogs — the kind that guard Chinese restaurants — flank a doorway, and custom-made, vaguely Asian furnishings sprout as if of their own volition. The breakfast room, living room, entry way and library followed, bits and pieces at a time, done whenever Pat had the money. When George proposed the palm-tree pouf for the living room’s center, she called a retired decorator for a second opinion. “Either you’ll be a grand success or a laughingstock,” he told her. She took the chance. Twelve pillars in the living room? Gilding? More of those intricate wooden chandeliers? She said yes. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: INSIDE POLITICS “I’m amazed nobody who ran against him had pictures of this interior . . . this alone would sink a lesser candidate. For Example, ‘Bob Lanier claims to represent Houstonians, but how can he relate to the common man when perched on his pretty, pink, princess bed!?!’ -or- ‘11 Bathrooms?!?! What is he trying to hide?!?!’ -or- ‘Bob Lanier is such a clown, his ceilings are painted like a circus tent!’ I do kinda like the ceilings though . . .”
It’s been on the market for 2 and a half years, its price tag receiving regular trimmings during that time. And here’s the latest: The carefully choreographed 1988 River Oaks estate belonging to former mayor Bob Lanier and his wife, port commissioner Elyse Lanier, dropped a million more earlier this month. The 13,386-sq.-ft. pad is now available for just a smidge under $7 million, $5 million less than the original asking price.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT MONEY IS FOR “. . . Eh, I like it. I mean, what’s the point of being rich if you only decorate your house for resale?” [Sihaya, commenting on River Oaks House of Wow]
Only 2 days on the market, and already this River Oaks home has become a Swamplot tipster favorite. Born in 1934 from plans by the Russell Brown Company, the home’s more recent mostly red- and green-hued interior is attributed to George Weinle, apparently a fan of hovering centerpieces. The 3- or 4-bedroom home sits quietly across from Elliott Park, just west of Kirby Dr. It’s been listed for just north of $2 million.
LOOSCAN LIBRARY LEAKAGE 
Why is the Looscan Neighborhood Library at 2510 Willowick near Highland Village closing for 4 months of renovations — only 4 years after it was built? Problems with water infiltration. “When it rains pretty good, water gets into those walls and into that doorway,” a library spokesperson tells Charlotte Aguilar. Both entrances will get new exterior canopies, and the lobby will get a new walk-off mat system to catch tracked-in water and prevent slipping. Plus: new moisture-resistant wall finishes and stone baseboards. Work begins a week from Saturday. [River Oaks Examiner] Photo: River Oaks Examiner
HOW HOUSTON CON MEN BLOW THEIR COVERS Jennifer Estopinal gets all Encyclopedia Brown on Dinesh Shah, aka Dennis Shaw, aka the subject of Michael Phillips’s recent book Monster in River Oaks and John Nova Lomax’s 2-part con-man saga: “Estopinal then asked Shah what kind of law he practiced, and told her he was a semiretired New York corporate attorney back home in Houston to manage his many investments. ‘And I’m from River Oaks,’ he added. The arrow on Estopinal’s bullshit detector immediately leaped to DefCon Five. ‘People from River Oaks don’t just go around saying that,’ she says. ‘That was when I really knew something was up.’” [Houston Press; part one]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HIDING YOUR SURPLUS SQUARE FOOTAGE “The saddest part of this discussion is that nobody would have known or cared if the Schillers had simply paid $50,000 for a 170-square-foot extension to their home, in the form of a fully furnished guest apartment, and decorated it as a ‘playroom.’ My home is not in River Oaks, nor near it, but one of its spare bedrooms is furnished as a play room. We also have a ‘quarters’ above the garage. I await the vigorous disapprobation of the swamplot crowd, and the river of suggestions that I should convert this playroom and those quarters into homeless shelters. I dare say that a good number of readers of this blog have spare bedrooms and/or quarters in their homes, and these spaces . . . go unused for a large part of the year. God knows, if everyone could just convert all their guest quarters and spare bedrooms into homeless shelters, Mankind would finally transcend into the Superior Beings we all deserve to become. Thank goodness we have the Commenters of Swamplot to Guide us along the Path toward Righteousness!” [J.V., commenting on The Fanciest Playhouse in River Oaks]
The 2-story air-conditioned $50,000 Cape Cod-style playhouse (shown under construction above) River Oaks residents John and Kristi Schiller had built 3 years ago behind their bayou-side home on Tiel Way is featured in a New York Times Home & Garden feature and photo essay. The backyard toy is nominally for their now-4-year-old daughter, Sinclair, but reporter Kate Murphy declares it to be the main attraction at family parties. The 170-sq.-ft. house features hardwood floors, running water, a faux fireplace, vaulted ceilings, screens on the windows, begonia-bedecked window boxes, a 32-inch flatscreen TV, and a mini-fridge stocked with juice boxes and popsicles. Mom Kristi Schiller — a longtime blogger who in her former life as “Lucy Lipps” once had her own morning show on KTBZ The Buzz, a large internet following, and a month of glory in the pages of Playboy magazine — tells Murphy she “think[s] of it as bling for the yard.â€
- Child’s Play, Grown-Up Cash and Playhouse Proud (photo essay) [NY Times]
- “Project Playhouse” [Occasionally Funny]
- A candid chat with Kristi Schiller [Life+Dog]
Photo: Kristi Schiller
This building at 3951 San Felipe, just west of Willowick, may have started out as a gas station, but it’s also spent time as a cleaners and most recently was a bank. Since its soft opening last week, it’s been Relish Fine Foods, a small new market for the River Oaks crowd, specializing in natural and seasonal gourmet food, with shout-outs to local vendors. There’s still plenty of room to fill the wide-open 2,300-sq.-ft. interior with more merchandise, reports photographer Candace Garcia. (More than the current deli and olive bars may show up before the official opening next week.) But where better to start a little Houston grocery that supports the slow food movement than in this drive-up-friendly grab-and-go location? Parking-lot-facing sandwich munchers, there’s even a marble bar set up along the west front of the building set up just for you:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BORDERTOWN “Don’t tell the people who live in NoMO or River Oaks Terrace that they don’t actually live in River Oaks. They get mad. I call it Montrose, except for when I lived there a few years back. Then I called it River Oaks — but I meant it ironically, of course.” [Mel, commenting on Comment of the Day: Report From That Neighborhood South of the River Oaks Shopping Center That Nobody Knows What To Call]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE $1 MILLION PROBLEM WITH RIVER OAKS MID-CENTURY MODERNS “River Oaks MCMs *always* go for lot value and get torn down. Sentimental owners think they should get a premium for the good architecture but it never happens. If they really care about the building they should price it at 900k and put a no teardown easement on it. Instead, they will lower the price by 100k every 3 months and 3 years from now it will be a Tuscan villa. (As a point of comparison, 59 Tiel Way, a Kamrath beauty which had a much larger, insanely off the hook lot, bigger, nicer, renovated house, was similarly priced – for 3 years he lowered the price slowly, and eventually was offering it on Ebay for 950 minus commission. No one bit and now, sadly, it is a clay lot that will likely sell in the mid 800s). Another comparitor is the MCM on North BLvd, also priced like this, slowly reduced for 3 years, now at 899k until the listing expired again. People like to admire MCM architecture but they don’t like to pay $1M for it. In Houston, at least.” [CAHBF, commenting on 1960 Preserved: River Oaks Mod Box Jumps into the Market]
C’mon, we all know what the problem’s been with the old Art Deco River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray, just east of Shepherd: The place was too black-and-white, the signs were too damn small, and it didn’t have enough turrets. Hey, nothing a little forehead lift and a generous slathering of EIFS can’t fix! Got some can’t-sell brick up there? Time for a little arch-ee-textural adjustment! It’ll look just like stucco — with all those control joints you love, plus they’ll be painting the new glop a nice Pearland-y mustard color. All that and a new wash of beige paint over the rest of the place should make folks driving in from newer suburbs feel more at home when they visit — and may have the added bonus of attracting a few of those nail salons and check-cashing outlets the place has been so sorely missing.
LANDMARK FOR SALE 
Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Mark Cuban, whose company 2929 Entertainment has owned Landmark Theatres since 2003, is putting the arthouse cinema chain up for sale by auction — along with its sister independent-film distribution company, Magnolia Pictures. Landmark operates 55 cinemas with 245 screens in 21 cities. In Houston, Landmark leases the art deco 1939-vintage River Oaks Theatre at 2009 West Gray — from Weingarten Realty. Offers are expected to come in as early as next week, but Cuban tells Bloomberg News he is only “testing the waters . . . We won’t sell unless the offer is very, very compelling.†[Art Attack] Photo: Flickr user Loren-zo
