The brave work of Southwest Houston and Houston Apartment Renaissance scholars has been rewarded — a second mid-1980s Colonial House TV commercial is now available on YouTube!
No it’s not quite as iconic and over-the-top as the one with the VCR in the pool, but look at that fabulous indoor-outdoor furniture! Almost a quarter century later, we know Michael Pollack is alive and well, but does anyone know where that living-room mandala and dining-room set ended up?
This charming period piece from the abortive early-’80s Southwest Houston apartment renaissance surfaced on YouTube late last month, to the great acclaim of chief Michael Pollack fan Lou Minatti, who has hosted an online shrine to the iconic and once high-profile Houston developer on his website for several years. Why was Pollack such a big deal?
What Gallery Furniture’s “We really will save you moneyyyyyyy!” was to the north side of town, the VCR in the Pool was to the southwest.
And really, who can forget the charms of Colonial House, at the corner of Chimney Rock and Gulfton? Writes Minatti:
Built in the late 1960s, Colonial House was in terrible shape.
Gangs and prostitutes had moved in, while basic amenities such as air conditioning had quit working. Pollack moved in and the gangs moved out. Pollack’s crew gutted and rebuilt each of the 1,800 units in just three months. But after all that hard work, Pollack had an even bigger task ahead: How was our suave, sophisticated hero going to fill those apartments? That’s where his infamous TV ads came in.
Here’s a question: Doesn’t the bench-pressing dude on the Nautilus about five seconds in look a bit . . . familiar?
After the jump: Pollack claims it was all an act! Plus, what he’s up to these days — with pix!
Some residents of the new Elder St. Artist Lofts (formerly the Old Jefferson Davis Hospital) in the First Ward are upset with the building’s management:
“To me it’s not an artist loft anymore,” says one resident who’s been there since the beginning. “We receive the newsletters from ArtSpace in Minneapolis and we see the artist live-work spaces that are opening up in Buffalo, New York and in San Francisco and other parts of the country, and they’re active and they’re artist-run and they’ve got the support of the city, they’ve got the support of the community and they’re vibrant. And we’re not on that level, and I don’t know if we ever will be.”
Current and former tenants gripe to the Houston Press that the resident managers play favorites and will only rent month-to-month, and that there aren’t enough artists in the building.
It’s hard to stop playing with the New York Times’s wizzy new rent vs. buy calculator, a freebie thrown in with a story urging (maybe a little late?) caution to would-be NYC condo or co-op buyers. Of course, the market’s different here, which is why the somewhat hidden settings on the calculator are appreciated: Click on the little question mark next to the words “Monthly Rent” at the top left, and you’ll unearth a secret tab where you can select average Houston data. Or plug in all the numbers from your recent decision, and see what horrible assumptions you made. Addictive!
Swamplot covers real estate, home design and renovation, architecture, and the landscape of Houston, Texas. Swamplot did not flood during Allison. Honest! Read more
