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Condos for Sale
Main Street and its rail line lie 6 floors below this lofty condo unit within a converted 1908 downtown office and retail property. The unit has a grilled-out balcony right across from the limestone frieze of the former-but-still-formidable Gulf Building, a 1929 skyscraper that’s now the J.P. Morgan Chase building. Architect Alfred C. Finn designed both buildings.
Another unit has waded into what seems to be a recent flurry of turnover in Lovett Square, the 36-stuccoed-condo community occupying a city block at Bagby-Tuam-Brazos-Anita in Midtown. The 1979 project by William T. Cannady Architects was an early stab at high-density redevelopment of an area once considered downtown’s South End, where vacant and aging properties and freeway ramps hung out together. This was before the Midtown moniker and the multifamily multiplier effect grew legs, however.
One of the larger homes in the staggered-like-a-pueblo project listed Friday at $193,000. The gated complex has several courtyards off a central promenade. This unit’s entry, however, is off a shared mezzanine-level terrace (above), reached by this exterior staircase:
- 915 Franklin St. Unit 2M [HAR]
- 2016 Main St. Unit 2313 [HAR]
From the for-sale listings, at least. A reader tips us off that the former Enron CEO’s 12,827-sq.-ft. condo on the 33rd floor of The Huntingdon highrise at 2121 Kirby — which with a break or 2 has been a fixture on Houston’s MLS since early 2010 — is no longer listed for sale. Is the property’s owner — Lay’s widow Linda — just taking a summer break, is another re-listing planned, or is something else going on?
Developer Gerald Hines added a lake to a 32-acre slice of woodsy Memorial back in 1978. Around it, he built Ethan’s Glen, a townhome community with 288 units divided into 2-building clusters of quadplexes. One of the enclave’s larger units came on the market earlier this month, asking $275,000. The 2-story townhome, which has east and north exposures, retains some of that seventies style, such as rough-hewn cedar siding outside and a living room with walls of rustic planks installed in a herringbone pattern. But it also has new paint, new bathrooms, and new, as in last month, carpet upstairs.
- 10211 Beekman Place Dr. [HAR]
With a giant piano illuminated atop a neighboring property’s parking lot, it’s easy to miss the little griffin statue pictured atop a brick column here. It serves as sentry to the unassuming gate of LeMans Townhomes, located on the south feeder road of the Southwest Freeway, just east of Buffalo Speedway. The 1965-built property has a courtyard shaded by trees in place for decades. Today, the canopy buffers part of the complex from passing traffic and from some of the signage for fast food restaurants and strip centers sharing the stretch of freeway.
A new listing asks $72,5000 for a first floor unit that looks out onto the complex’s landscaped commons.
Good news for those of you saddened by the disappearance of Ken and Linda Lay’s gargantuan 33rd-floor Upper Kirby condo from the MLS rolls at the end of last month: Your opportunity to watch the asking price on the castle-in-the-sky penthouse float down to earth is back! Where had it gone? “It appears the Huntingdon high-rise condo at 2121 Kirby was removed from the multiple listing service for a few days so it could be relisted without showing that the price was reduced . . . again,” reports the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson. “That seems to be a common trick of the trade with Realtors.”
WHERE O WHERE HAS KEN LAY’S CONDO GONE? 
Accustomed to seeing Ken and Linda Lay’s castle-like penthouse suite on the 33rd floor of The Huntingdon at 2121 Kirby for sale at a steadily decreasing price month after month (it’s been on the market since the fall of 2009), a reader is shocked to discover that the 12,827-sq.-ft. trifle — at last note listed at $6.99 million, nearly half off its original asking price — is no longer listed on MLS: “Did it sell?” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33: HAR
That thump you heard? The sound of this 33rd-floor Huntingdon penthouse once owned by Ken and Linda Lay dropping another million dollars. Over the weekend the asking price for the 12,827-sq.-ft. castle in the air fell to $6.99 million. Enron founder Ken Lay died in 2006, shortly after being convicted of 10 counts of securities fraud and related charges. His widow first put this little pied-Ã -terre at 2121 Kirby Dr. on the market in the fall of 2009, for $12.8 million. By the beginning of this year, it had floated down to $8,875,000.
