- 2175 Dryden Rd. [HAR]
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Southgate
Stand next to the fridge on the first floor of this 2201 Southgate house from architect Dillon Kyle and you’ll see the whole thing: the kitchen with adjacent wine closet and the living and dining rooms to their right, fronting a row of glass windows that look straight out onto the pool at the eastern edge of the property. The price rounded down today from $1.75 million to $1.7 flat on the 3,376-sq.-ft. shed- and butterfly-roofed structure, viewed above from the north on the corner of Southgate and Montclair Dr.
A view from behind the couch’s elbow shows where you enter the place:
The Entertainer
Greystar plans to squeeze a 375-unit apartment highrise on the same 1.35 acre lot at 6750 S. Main St. as an in-the-works hotel from Medistar. That Medistar project, which was originally planned as a 220-unit hotel-slash-apartment building on the same spot, will now be a 357-room just-hotel, and will share a lobby with Greystar’s apartment tower on the southern half of the block between Travis St. and S. Main at Old Main St. (across the street from the Texas Women’s University building.)
The two towers (rendered above styled as 1850, seemingly in reference to the Old Main address) will slip in between a Best Western and a Wyndham Hotel, and would total in the neighborhood of 800,000 sq.ft. of floorspace, Greystar’s David Reid tells the HBJ’s Cara Smith. The apartment unit floorplans range significantly in size— the largest 2 suites measure in around 3,800 sq.ft., and the smallest bottom out at an Ivy-Lofts-esque 349 sq.ft.
Old Main St. at Main St.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A LINEAR PARK TO CONNECT THE MED CENTER TO RICE VILLAGE 
“If the Rice Village wants to be a retail goldmine, it should look outside its borders. My suggestion would be a linear public park that would take the residential properties between University and Dryden between the Medical Center at Travis all the way west to Greenbriar.” [infinite_jim, commenting on Haven Is No More; The Allure of the Suburban Town Square] Illustration: Lulu
With its streamlined demilune tower and moat-like driveway, an austere 1979 Southgate home could be considered a contemporary castle, particularly in the imaginations of neighborhood youngsters riding around the block of mostly thirties-vintage housing. There’s plenty inside this property’s C-shaped structure to make up for its no-peeking from curbside blankness, however . . .
White Castle with Sliders
Update, 9:30 pm: It appears the new hotel tower will fit entirely on the lot directly to the south of the Best Western Plaza Hotel at 6700 S. Main St. We’ve updated this story accordingly.
Medistar and an affiliate of the Redstone Companies are out today with this rendering of the 22-story hotel and apartment tower the firms are planning together for the west side of S. Main St. across the street from the western campus boundary of the Texas Medical Center. Unlike the 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar had proposed for S. Main across the street from the Texas Medical Center back in 2008 — which stirred up a bit of a fuss with neighbors in neighboring Southgate — this new building, designed by HOK’s Roger Soto, will be set away from the neighborhood’s entrance. It’ll sit next to the Best Western Plaza Hotel, on the 1.35-acre lot at 6750 S. Main St., on the southern end of the block bounded by S. Main, Old Main St., and Travis St. The taller tower Medistar planned in 2008 was intended for a site one block to the north, at the corner of S. Main St. and Dryden.
The Latest Medical Tourism Hotspot
A 1940 Southgate home is in the pink — and in the blue, peach, and mint — on a corner lot 4 blocks south of Rice University’s mid-campus entrance on Stockton. Looking a bit like an Amsterdam townhome with wings (and some Floridian overtones of old Coral Gables), the property made its market debut over the weekend and has an asking price of $1.19 million. Confectionery-inspired selections continue inside.
Pastel Property
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE TORN-UP STREETS ARE KEEPING THE KIDS SAFE “As a parent of students at Roberts Elementary, I both dislike and love the condition of Greenbriar. I hate it because it is awful for our cars. But I love it because it calms the traffic considerably and forces drivers to pay attention — we all fear the speeding that will occur when it is nicely reconstructed. We have been told that if Greenbriar makes it to the city list this year, we should expect the start of construction planning in 2017. Who knows if the current street will last until then!” [No History Remains, commenting on Headlines: More La Madeleines for Houston; Montrose’s Worst Potholes]
- 2169 University Blvd. [HAR]
The all-day buffet line for Filipino dishes and Mongolian stir fry just west of the Med Center could be winding down. This standalone building at 2416 W. Holcombe, home to Gold Ribbon Bake Shop and Restaurant since the mid-nineties, has been listed for lease by Pipeline Realty. Located in the shadows of a recently completed storage facility, the property shares a back parking lot with an adjacent medical office. There are 48 parking spaces by day and another 40 after office hours. Interestingly, a sign on the door says the place is hiring, seeking new hires who speak English and Tagalog.
- Restaurant Property for Lease [LoopNet]
Photo: Pipeline Realty
“One of the construction workers told me that a self-storage place is going in here,” reports the Swamplot reader who sent in these photos of the “massive pile and hole” taking shape at 2412 W. Holcombe Blvd., on the northwest corner of the Morningside intersection, west of the Texas Medical Center. Look, flatlanders, before it’s gone: This is kinda what an actual hill looks like!
A representative of Margie Beegle Sales expects this two-story home in Southgate across the street from Rice University to hit the market next month. If you’re interested in a sneak preview of the home or would enjoy the opportunity to participate in the frenzied dismantling of the rather astounding collection of collections mounted inside, here’s your chance. The estate sale at 2141 University Blvd. is this weekend. Looking for a Kabuki mask or a vintage Hell Driver Rodeo racetrack? You’re in luck! A few more featured items from among the assembled treasures: KISS Psychic Circus action figures, some rather large Nutcracker figurines, and two full size mirror-image representations of Cracker Jack’s blue and white logo-man Sailor Jack with his dog Bingo. A much abbreviated preview of the scene:
Yes, there’s a straight shot from that outdoor fireplace in the back of this house all the way to a walled-off courtyard in the front. And it’s all lined up for you from the back patio: Kitchen, Dining Area, Living Room, and front yard beyond. If you took down that front wall you’d have a better view — past a row of oaks and some bushes — of the Rice Stadium parking lot across the street. The address is 2239 University Blvd. in Southgate.
The home was designed by Strasser Ragni Architecture’s Erick Ragni and his wife, Emily Sing. It’s theirs.
So what’s new?
- Opening: There’s a big new Gallery Furniture taking over the old Pier One space in the Post Oak Shopping Center, across from the Galleria. Isiah Carey notes that there’s a (much smaller) “coming soon” sign out front. Also coming to the strip from Mattress Mack: a new and more upscale Kreiss Furniture store, where Pier One Kids used to be.
- Closed: Paulie’s restaurant reports receiving an undisclosed “offer we couldn’t refuse” to close its Holcombe at Kirby location, and dutifully complied on Monday. The original Paulie’s, on Westheimer at Driscoll, will remain open.
- Hoping to Spread: And Katharine Shilcutt reports that Otilia’s Mexican restaurant, the longtime Long Point standout, now “a bastion of the upper class yuppies who reside quietly in the nearby Memorial Villages and wash down their rice and beans with bottles of Merlot,” isn’t closing, despite rumors she had heard. But:
it turns out instead that Otilia’s is actively seeking to franchise their restaurant. A bright sign by the register blinked this advertisement every five seconds as we ate, while the waitresses sullenly confirmed this fact.
Then there’s that Main St. mulch . . .
Itinerant Interior Designer Ginger Barber is moving yet again: Her latest redo is on the market, reports Cote de Texas’s Joni Webb. This time it’s a 3-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath 2-story near the corner of Greenbriar and Holcombe in Southgate — but Webb spots furniture in the photos she’s seen in earlier Barber homes:
Her wonderful assortment of pine and dark wood furniture, down-filled upholstered pieces covered in linen slips, and all her textural wicker, seagrass, and stone moves from house to house almost seamlessly. . . . With no wallpaper, colored walls or patterned fabrics to contend it, the nomadic Barber can reuse her possessions, over and over again – which is a wonderful lesson to take from her.
