Attractions

Attractions
11/18/14 11:45am

Decorate Your Eclectic Home Compound with These Leftovers from the Houston International Festival

by
Fifth Ward, Home Decor
3 Comments

Auction Items from Houston International Festival

Auction Items from Houston International FestivalComplete the grounds of your Jamaica Beach canal-side palazzo with an actual-ish Venetian gondola! Bond with the family in the back yard while reconstructing a long-dismantled mockup of one of Ethiopia’s famed rock churches, the Great Wall of China, or the Sydney Opera House! (See photos above.) Restore a toppled statue of a Thanksgiving turkey in pilgrim attire to its former pride, and watch the neighbors turn green with envy when your work crew trundles it out to the front yard every November. Or add serious gravitas to your estate gateway through the addition of a giant clenched fist (the iFist?; pictured at right) or mini-obelisk!

All these items and more from the now-ended 27-year run of the Houston International Festival will hit the auction block at 9 am this Saturday in a warehouse at 3811 Clinton Dr.

Here are more pics of some of the choicest lots. Everything must go!

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Auction
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Attractions
11/06/14 10:00am

Golfers Appear To Have Won Gus Wortham

by
East End, Parks, Quicklink
29 Comments

GOLFERS APPEAR TO HAVE WON GUS WORTHAM Gus Wortham Golf Course, 7000 Capitol St., East End, HoustonIt might not have sounded quite so explicit to all onlookers, but the Chronicle‘s Mike Morris declares yesterday’s city council vote a death knell for plans to build a botanical garden on the site of the Gus Wortham Golf Course. The vote was taken in support of city efforts to come to an agreement with the Houston Golf Association for a plan to renovate the 106-year-old course at Lawndale and Wayside in the East End, which the nonprofit would then operate. But, writes Morris: “If the city cannot reach terms with HGA, the mayor said, she will seek proposals from private golf operators rather than hand the site to the botanic garden backers, as previously planned.” The HGA will need to meet designated fundraising targets — likely $5 million of a possible total $15 million renovation cost — for its plan to proceed. Mayor Parker and councilmembers appeared eager to steer the group pushing for a city botanical garden 6 miles southeast, to the Glenbrook Park golf course outside the Loop along Sims Bayou, just east of the Gulf Fwy. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: PGA

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Attractions
10/31/14 12:15pm

The Spooky History of the Minnetex Mansion Kids on Twitter Are Gearing Up To Haunt Tonight

by
Minnetex Place
10 Comments

Headed to that spooky Halloween “party” at 3015 Fuqua St. tonight all the kool kids are daring each other about today on Twitter? Here are a few things you should know about what might rank as one of Houston’s eeriest properties still standing, one complete with both its very own murder and a ghost video.

Our chilling tale begins in early February 2008, when the property was last on the market. Back then vandals held sway at the decrepit 11,640-sq.-ft. mansion in Minnetex Place. Was it Swamplot’s showcasing of the home’s skanky indoor pool, 5-acre lot, decorative graffiti, and grand, red-carpeted staircase that made it move? It had languished on the market for 7 months, but just 2 weeks later, the property sold — to an entity controlled by a pair of Houston investors. They snagged the 1950 mansion for just $265,000 — greatly reduced from its original $451,900 listing.

Since then, visiting vandals have been joined by a new, possibly otherworldly tenant.

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Fuqua’s Ghost?
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Art
10/17/14 11:15am

The Houston Sculptures and Artworks Most Likely To Show Up in Some Guy’s Tinder Profile Pic

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Attractions, Online Resources
No Comments

Tinder Guys Posing with Art, Houston

Why are so many of the men featured in the Tinder Guys Posing with Art Tumblr posing with art that’s in Houston? Maybe it’s because the website’s creator and curator, Sally Glass, is based here. Scroll through the entries Glass has been posting since April and you’ll not only find available men on Tinder who’ve staked out positions in and around some of the city’s more prominent sculptures and paintings, you’ll also find a handy guide to the works they favor:

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Local Screenshots
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Attractions
10/13/14 2:15pm

A San Antonio Architect’s Vision of a Better Saturn V Shelter for Rocket Park

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Johnson Space Center, Proposed Developments
9 Comments

Proposed Building for Saturn V Rocket, Rocket Park, Houston

The Saturn V rocket originally planned to boost a never-happened Apollo 18 spaceflight has been lying on its side near the corner of Saturn Ln. and 2nd St. and aimed at Lake Jackson since 1977. An air-conditioned, metal-framed structure was built around the Smithsonian-owned hulk 10 years ago to protect it from the elements, but it makes it difficult for visitors to appreciate just how hulking the rocket is. And recently the new structure has begun to look a bit dilapidated as well. Unprompted by any government agency or basketball team, San Antonio architect Brantley Hightower has been floating a proposal to wrap a more permanent structure around Houston’s most prominent rocketship — one that would restore the drive-by view of its full length (above) that the existing enclosure ruined, and make it clear just how big the Saturn V was:

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Houston Rockets
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Attractions
10/06/14 1:30pm

This Mystery Steel Structure on I-10 Between Bunker Hill and Blalock Is a UFO

by
New Construction, Spring Branch
5 Comments

iFLY Indoor Skydiving Facility Under Construction, 9540 Katy Fwy., Spring Branch, Houston

A mere half-dozen readers have written Swamplot to ask about this strange multi-story steel-framed structure that’s been going up next to the Lowe’s on I-10 between Blalock and Bunker Hill — or its twin on the site of the former Casa Elena restaurant across the freeway from The Woodlands at 26824 Interstate 45 North. And we’re guessing a few more of you are curious as well, but just haven’t had the time to send in your photos and speculation. Capitalizing on the freeway mystery, the company behind the structure has set up a website at GuessWhatThisIs.com. (With indoor-skydiving facilities in 9 other U.S. cities already, iFLY has been through the drill before.)

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Indoor Skydiving
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Attractions
08/14/14 1:15pm

A Storied Schulenburg Dance Hall Compound Steps onto the Market

by
Buildings for Sale, Land for Sale
7 Comments

Swiss Alp Dance Hall, 7024 N. US Hwy. 77, Schulenberg, Texas

Swiss Alp Dance Hall, 7024 N. US Hwy. 77, Schulenberg, TexasSeeking a spot about halfway along the drive from Houston to San Antonio where you might be able to kick up your heels — and hang your shingle? Look no further than the tin-roofed Swiss Alp Dance Hall on Hwy. 77 between Schulenburg and La Grange. The concert and wedding venue, which was built in the early 1900s but “remains very much as it was back in the 1950s,” was listed for sale earlier this week.

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Swiss Alp
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Attractions
08/05/14 3:45pm

The Lonely Spot East of the Heights Where the Operators of Fitzgerald’s Are Planning a Massive New Concert Venue Complex

by
Glen Park, Proposed Developments
32 Comments

Rendering of Proposed Concert Venue by Schaum/Shieh Architects, 2915 N. Main St., Houston

Map of Planned Sites Adjacent to 2915 N. Main Concert Venue, Houston

The operators of Fitzgerald’s and the Free Press Summer Fest are planning a large multi-venue development on N. Main St. on the east side of I-45. Renderings of 2 of the buildings, designed by a firm run locally by Rice architecture professor Troy Schaum, show a separate concert building with at least 2 separate stages inside and a freestanding ice house, which would be adjacent to a separate outdoor stage at the corner of N. Main and North St. The southern portion of the site (outlined in yellow in the map above) where those 2 structures would sit backs up to Little White Oak Bayou.

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North Main Music Central, by the Bayou
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Attractions
05/20/14 2:00pm

Lucky Buyer of Castle-Like Riverside Terrace Wichita St. Mystery House ‘Mulling Over’ What To Do with It

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Buying and Selling, Houston Landmarks, Riverside Terrace
7 Comments

2309 Wichita St., Riverside Terrace, Houston

More than a month after purchasing the duplex-turned-31-year DIY renovation-and-expansion-project that became the life’s work of its owner, former VA nurse Charles Fondow, buyer Nick Ugarov tells the Chronicle‘s Craig Hlavaty that he’s “still mulling over plans” for the 5-bedroom, 4-and-a-half-bath, 2-turret still-not-quite-finished home at 2309 Wichita St. near Dowling. Ugarov picked up the foreclosed deck-bedecked structure for $251,000, from a bank sale that closed on April 11th, according to MLS records. That’s $101K over the ridiculously low asking price the sales agent had placed on the property, a well-known and much-gawked-at oddity in Riverside Terrace that’s been described as a poor man’s version of the Winchester Mystery House.

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Will It Stay or Go Now?
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Art
05/02/14 11:00am

Construction Starts Next Week on Main St. MATCH Arts Complex in Midtown

by
Attractions, Midtown, New Construction, Proposed Developments
6 Comments

Rendering of MATCH from Main St. and Holman, 3400 Main St., Midtown, Houston

Having matched the $20 million it decided it needed before beginning building its full-block Main St. arts complex, the organizers behind MATCH (the strikingly nicknamed Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston) have decided to kick off construction work after an on-site event next Wednesday. The $25 million shared facility for more than a dozen independent arts groups (it was originally called the Independent Arts Collaborative) will go up on the 3400 block of Main St., also known as the former parking lot for the city’s former code enforcement building on the next block toward Downtown. The new rendering above of the design by San Antonio’s Lake Flato and Houston’s Studio RED shows the view from Main St. and Holman, looking north.

Here’s a fly-through in and around the main breezeway corridor of the 59,000-sq.-ft. collection of theaters and galleries and plazas and office spaces, starting from the same corner:

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Could Use $5 Million More
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Attractions
04/01/14 12:30pm

How a Botanical Garden Would Fit on the Gus Wortham Golf Course and Other Tidbits from Last Night’s Hullabaloo

by
Country Club Place, East End, Idylwood, Proposed Developments, Simms Woods
86 Comments

Public Forum on Gus Wortham Golf Course, E.B. Cape Center, 4501 Leeland St., Houston

A reader sends in a report from the “spirited debate” at Monday night’s public forum at the E.B. Cape Center on Leeland St., covering proposed plans to convert the Gus Wortham Golf Course at Wayside Dr. and Lawndale St. in Houston’s East End, just north of Idylwood, into a new botanical garden: “Councilman Robert Gallegos, Mayor Parker, and many other politicians were there, as well as a standing room only crowd of those for the botanical garden (wielding the provided flowers), and for saving the golf course (fanning themselves with provided Gus Wortham fans). The crowd was encouraged to be quiet to keep things running smoothly, but this didn’t always happen, as many folks were pretty passionate about their opinions. Those wanting to save the golf course had at least double the presence of the garden folks, and were admittedly louder as things went on.”

Our correspondent, who claims to support renovating the existing golf course and putting a botanical garden elsewhere, notes that an earlier proposal in which the 150-acre site just west of Brays Bayou would have been shared by a 9-hole golf course and a new garden in the northern half has been scrapped. Houston Botanic Garden president Jeff Ross showed the latest “rough draft” of the proposed garden plan. Here’s a screen-shot photo:

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Tee’d Off
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Attractions
03/12/14 10:15am

New Names for Reliant Stadium, Reliant Park — and the Astrodome?

by
Public Buildings, Real Estate Marketing, Reliant Park
12 Comments

Reliant Astrodome and Reliant Stadium, Reliant Park, Houston

In what appears to be a bid to get more people to pronounce Houston’s major industry in a stilted quasi-drawl, the parent company of Reliant Energy has decided to rebrand Reliant Stadium and Reliant Park. The Houston Chronicle‘s Kiah Collier reports that henceforth (or after a vote by county commissioners at least) they shall be known as NRG Stadium and NRG Park. Collier’s sources don’t seem to have mentioned whether the name-change will result in similar switches for the other structures in the sports-and-convention complex, labeled the Reliant Center, Reliant Arena, and Reliant Astrodome since 2002.

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The New Old Home of the Texans, Etc.
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Attractions
10/02/13 3:45pm

The Stand-Up Job on the New Veterans’ Memorial in Sugar Land

by
Fort Bend County, Sugar Land
10 Comments

It would seem that tilt-wall technology is not just for office buildings in the suburbs — but war memorials in the suburbs too! Yesterday, the Sugar Land Parks Dept. and local members of the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (whose national conference is in Houston this year) dedicated this site in Sugar Land’s Memorial Park for the Veterans’ Memorial, designed by the same firm, Powers Brown, that’s engineering the 6-story Sierra Pines II in The Woodlands, thought to be the tallest tilt-wall building in Texas. If you’re into this sort of thing, you can see how the memorial was propped up into place, thanks to plenty of pics the Parks Dept. posted to Facebook:

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Art
09/03/13 11:00am

The Last Remaining Piece of the Prudential Tower

by
Attractions, Demolitions, Public Buildings, Quicklink, Texas Medical Center
19 Comments

THE LAST REMAINING PIECE OF THE PRUDENTIAL TOWER It made it: The 1952 Peter Hurd mural, formerly of the wall of the demolished Kenneth Franzheim-designed Prudential Tower in the Med Center, has completed its 2-year stop-and-go journey from 1100 Holcome Blvd., to a storage space in Midland, to the brand-new Artesia Public Library in northern southeastern New Mexico. The largest ever to be transported, the 16-ft.-by-46-ft. mural, titled “The Future Belongs To Those Who Prepare For It,” underwent a successful 20-hour installation last week, reports Swamplot commenter Artesia_NM Resident. And Albuquerque’s KOB Eyewitness News reports that the big unveiling of the big thing is planned for November 9. [KOB; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia

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