River Oaks

Homes for Sale
03/14/11 6:26pm

1960 Preserved: River Oaks Mod Box Jumps into the Market

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Houston Architects, Price Reductions, River Oaks
27 Comments

It was the star of a Houston Mod open house last November, announced as available in a private sale. But it doesn’t look like anybody bit at the reported $1.9 million asking price, or at a later price closer to $1.8 million. Then last week, this River Oaks time capsule made its debut on MLS with a few spiffier photos and a $1,675,000 price tag. The home was designed by architect M. Arthur Kotch in 1960 for the founders of Cain Chemical. When the Cains moved to New York City 5 years later, it was sold to the family of a co-worker. That family has owned it ever since. Here’s 3,371 sq. ft. of Midcentury, straight up:

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Buying and Selling
01/11/11 12:54pm

Down and Out in River Oaks: Harold Farb’s Last Project

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Demolitions, River Oaks
5 Comments

A few months after Harold Farb passed away in 2006, the unfinished home at 3482 Inwood Dr. the legendary singer and Houston developer had been building with his wife, Diane Lokey Farb, went on the market for $14.75 million. The listing didn’t include any photos, but described a 17,404-sq.-ft. “Neoclassical gated estate” on an almost-2-acre lot, with 8 fireplaces, 9 bathrooms, an elevator, a 4-car garage, and a master suite overlooking the 15th tee of the golf course at the River Oaks Country Club. The home was “to be completed by new owner.” Only portions of the exterior were finished. By July of last year the price had been chopped to $9.995 million, after a few years of steady price reductions and listing-number changes. (It appears Farb bought the property from its previous owner, Roy Cullen, for about half that amount.) Not too long after the listing expired, the home showed up on Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report. But the demo action didn’t begin until recently. A Swamplot reader sends us this view of some heavy equipment still on the scene, behind a fence that just went up last weekend.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Homes for Sale
11/19/10 5:50pm

1960 in a Box: Well-Preserved in River Oaks

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Houston Architects, River Oaks
30 Comments

The family that owns this brick-and-redwood-wrapped 1960-model River Oaks Mod designed by Houston architect Arthur Kotch hasn’t listed it on MLS. But they’re hoping this Sunday’s open house organized by Houston Mod will help attract a “preservation-minded” buyer. They’ve owned the place for 45 years: a 4-bedroom, 3,371 sq.-ft. home on a 9,750-sq.-ft. lot a couple blocks behind the Lamar-River Oaks Shopping Center on Westheimer. But really, who’d pay $1.9 million just to muck it up?

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Development Strategies
10/04/10 11:22pm

Swamplot Street Sleuths: Trees for River Oaks Blvd.

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Houston Heights, River Oaks, Streetscapes, Trees
2 Comments

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Well, our readers didn’t come up with answers to these questions from last time, so Swamplot did a little digging:

  • River Oaks: Will the recently denuded River Oaks Blvd. host any actual oaks again? According to River Oaks Property Owners general manager Gary Mangold, that decision hasn’t been made yet. ROPO, the River Oaks Foundation, and boulevard residents will eventually vote on one of 3 separate proposals for reforestation.
  • Houston Heights: Design firm APD‘s Mark Van Doren tells Swamplot there never was a plan to put parking under the scooted-over and raised Perry-Swilley House now settling into its new digs at 1103 Heights Blvd., one lot north of its original site (see photo below). But there are plans to park an enclosed wine cellar and gameroom under about 30 percent of the house’s elevated footprint. What’s going into the lot on the corner of Heights and 11th St. the house vacated? Either a single-story commercial building or a 2-story house fitted for commercial purposes, Van Doren says. Either one would be “historically styled.” But nothing’s happening for now — the property owner is waiting for an anchor tenant to appear.

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Historic Preservation
09/21/10 11:25pm

Swamplot Street Sleuths: Where Are the River Oaks?

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Houston Heights, River Oaks, Streetscapes, Strip Centers, Trees
5 Comments

Got an answer to one of these reader questions? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.

  • River Oaks: A reader wants to know how River Oaks or the City of Houston could “get away with not replacing the 30+ trees they destroyed when resurfacing River Oaks Blvd. [(above)] . . . Isn’t there an ordinance requiring trees to be replaced?”
  • Houston Heights: Another reader has joined the saga of the traveling 1903 Perry-Swilley House (photo below) on the northwest corner of Heights Blvd. and 11th St., already in progress: “[They] moved the house across the lot and [then] raised the house by building brick columns underneath. I’m not sure what the point was.” Why, more strip centers and more parking — isn’t it always? The house was moved from the corner so the project’s developer might be able to fit in a small shopping strip with Heights Blvd. frontage; 2 years ago the city historical commission approved plans to raise the house so that parking could be fit underneath. But . . . what’s the current status of this project?

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Furniture
09/13/10 8:58am

Ligne Roset in Houston and Austin: Gone

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Openings and Closings, Retail, River Oaks
8 Comments

The Ligne Roset showroom in Houston and the design boutique on West 2nd St. in Austin have both ceased operations, according to a recording left on both stores’ answering machines — and a tip from a Swamplot reader. Houston’s Ligne Roset moved from a Rice-Village-area strip center on Kirby to 1992 West Gray in the River Oaks Shopping Center last February. (That move surprised customers who had been looking forward to the completion of grander plans: Owner Bruce Wolfe had previously announced the modern French furniture store would anchor a 12,000-sq.-ft. “Design Source” retail center in West Ave, where he would also operate 4 additional showrooms featuring sleek modern lines.) The recording refers customers with pending orders to Roset USA. The closest Ligne Roset showroom now: Dallas.

Photo: Swamplot Inbox

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Comments
08/26/10 2:48pm

Comment of the Day: Staging Is for Wusses

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Furniture, Home Decor, Interiors, Quicklink, River Oaks
11 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: STAGING IS FOR WUSSES “yeah, we are fun people to know. this was my mom’s amazing project, so much fun to see it take shape. if you’d seen it BEFORE the makeover, THAT was tacky. what do you expect us to do, waste money redoing the whole house just to sell it? i’ve lived there my whole life, love it to death. cream colors? BORING!” [prudoodle, commenting on Magenta Is the New Fuschia: A River Oaks Home That Glows Inside]

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Online Resources
08/25/10 6:11pm

Why Google Won’t Let You Peek at All Those Fancy River Oaks Houses

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River Oaks, Tall Timbers
14 Comments

If you’d ever noticed that Google’s Street View feature is completely blacked out in the northern part of River Oaks and just presumed that your inability to see online images of all those fancy houses in Tall Timbers had something to do with their residents’ wealth, access to lawyers, or private security services, your presumption is wrong — or so says the Chronicle‘s Dwight Silverman, after a Google spokesperson sets him straight. Apparently the River Oaks gap in the Street View map is “just an oversight” on Google’s part:

I asked Google spokesperson Deanna Yick about this, and after checking in with the Street View team, she said this part of River Oaks simply hasn’t been imaged yet. She said Google eventually plans to fill in all the gaps in Street View “as soon as possible”.

She also said Google’s Street View cars will take pictures on any public street, and whole neighborhoods or communities can’t opt out of the process. However, individuals “can ask for images of their house, car or themselves to be removed from Street View,” she said.

Swamplot first noted the Street View black hole north of San Felipe and west of Kirby in 2008. Since then, Google has added a loop of coverage on Willowick and Inwood. But to see street-level images of the rest of that area, you’ll need to drive, pedal, or walk through the neighborhood on your own.

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Home Decor
08/24/10 4:41pm

Magenta Is the New Fuschia: A River Oaks Home That Glows Inside

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, River Oaks
59 Comments

It only went on the market yesterday, but Swamplot readers are already gawking at this house on Locke Ln., across Eastside St. from the Lamar-River Oaks shopping center. The 3-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath number is listed for $1,089,000, and sits on a 10,147-sq.-ft. corner lot. What’s to look at?

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Comments
04/09/10 12:04pm

Comment of the Day: Chin Up, Weingarten!

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Commercial Real Estate, Demolitions, Development Strategies, Historic Preservation, Leasing, Quicklink, Redevelopment, River Oaks, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
18 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHIN UP, WEINGARTEN! “I don’t totally understand Weingarten’s defensiveness here. After all, they totally earned the wrath of people in the community who would like to see older, architecturally significant buildings preserved in some fashion when they tore down the north side of the shopping center at Shepherd and Gray. They made a calculation then that peoples’ upset feelings would not outweigh the financial benefit. Given this, why do they care what people think now? Did the negative publicity before actually hurt them in any material way? (I’ve made a point of not shopping at the new B&N even though I am a compulsive book-buyer, but I have no illusions that me and people like me have any impact on their bottom line.)” [RWB, commenting on Weingarten Exec Blames Those Alabama Theater Demolition Drawings on Staples]

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Afton Oaks
03/22/10 1:19pm

Hazards of the West Loop

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Bellaire, Freeways and Toll Roads, Quicklink, River Oaks, Traffic, West University
18 Comments

HAZARDS OF THE WEST LOOP Except for a memorable afternoon of standstill traffic — and the maybe 1,500 gallons of gasoline that made their way through storm sewers to Galveston Bay — no major disaster resulted from that tanker spill 2 Fridays ago on Bellaire Blvd. below the West Loop. That’s better than the last time: “[L]ongtime residents of the area remember an incident in May 1976 when a truck carrying anhydrous ammonia slammed into a bridge railing on the connector from the West Loop to the southbound Southwest Freeway and fell onto the freeway below. Of those within 1,000 feet of the spill, six people died, 78 suffered serious injuries and 100 more were treated for their exposure. That tragedy played out only about a mile from the site of Friday’s accident. Thirty-four years after that terrible day, nothing has changed. The poorly engineered West Loop, as it approaches the 59, is one of the worst sites for accidents in the U.S. — yet it is also designated pathway for some of the most hazardous cargo in the world. More is transported on the vulnerable tracks that run through southwest Houston, divide West University and Bellaire, skirt along Afton Oaks, River Oaks and Memorial Park.” [West University Examiner]

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Comments
03/11/10 12:39pm

Comment of the Day: The River Oaks Middle Age Spread

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Demolitions, Home Design, Landscape, Quicklink, River Oaks
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RIVER OAKS MIDDLE AGE SPREAD “What’s sad is that River Oaks is losing the land versus house battle . . . What made River Oaks so elegant, really, was the amount of land on each lot which was probably 1/3 house to 2/3 land in most cases. Now it’s more like 2/3 house to 1/3 land. Many are nothing more than enormous townhouses with front yards.” [Matt Mystery, commenting on Down and Out in River Oaks]

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Demolitions
03/10/10 8:52am

Down and Out in River Oaks

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Home Design, Houston Architects, Interiors, River Oaks
28 Comments

We just know you’ll be wanting to get in one last snoop-through of that 5,701-sq.-ft. 1928 mansion on Chevy Chase that received its demolition permit yesterday. And who is Swamplot to deny you?

Who’da thunk that — try as he might, River Oaks society architect Charles Oliver still couldn’t design something as attractive as the four-fifths-of-an-acre lot he placed it on?

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Leasing
01/04/10 4:26pm

Taking the Shepherd Balcony: Américas River Oaks

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Restaurants, River Oaks
No Comments

And now the official announcement of “what everyone already knew” about the new River Oaks Shopping Center: That second-story space with the overextended (and intensely negotiated) porte-cochere facing onto Shepherd is slated to be a third Américas restaurant. Weingarten Realty reports that Michael Cordúa will open a 9,150-sq.-ft. West-Gray-and-Shepherd version in the fall of this year, featuring an elevated bar area and private event spaces. Cordúa will work again with Cheesecake Factory stylist Jordan Mozer to design his 7th local restaurant. Tony and Jeff Vallone backed out of plans to open a restaurant named Il Tavolo in the same location one year ago.

Photo of River Oaks Shopping Center: River Oaks Examiner

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