Back on the market for what looks to be the first time in a couple of years: This 1959 garage-free number on Westminster Dr. in Memorial, just a couple doors down from Chimney Rock. The house was designed by Houston architects Wilson, Morris, Crain, and Anderson — just a few years before the company drew up plans for the Astrodome.
What? No giant west-facing windows in front? And what’s behind door number 1, anyway?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SWAMPLOT READERS, SHOW US HOW YOU LIVE “My abode rather resembles the interior of Brian O’Neill’s pub – lots of green, old curiosities and dark wood, but not the square footage. Some friends more accustomed to large bright spaces say a Hobbit would feel right at home.” [Hellsing, commenting on Richelieu Style: The Patterns of Shepherd Park Plaza]
Missed out on putting in a bid on that pinkish coke palace up in Ponderosa Trails that went up for auction in March? Of course you did, because it didn’t sell. So now the 5-bedroom, 8,024-sq.-ft. mansion at 17907 Elk Valley Circle will be back on the virtual auction block again this May 18th to 20th— starting at the same $471,250 minimum bid.
Alas, the 2.54-acre property will be available “for inspection” just once, for a couple of hours on May 12th — by special appointment only. There’s a “Waiver, Release & Indemnity Agreement” you’ll have to sign to participate. And no, the former owner won’t be available to answer your questions about maintenance — Daron Odell Jones is still serving a 13-year prison sentence for cocaine possession with an intent to distribute.
According to law enforcement officials, Jones led a drug empire supplying the Mobile, Alabama, area and had ties to a violent Mexican drug cartel. (If he hadn’t cooperated with authorities, pled guilty, and forfeited this home, a small car collection, and some snazzy jewelry, he might have received a longer sentence and faced more serious charges.)
What distinguishes this druglord’s lair from all the lookalikes and wannabes builders have been putting up all over Houston?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON HOMEBUILDING TALES, ABBREVIATED “Once upon a time we knew how to build homes to take advantage of [things] like prevailing winds, natural shade, the position of the sun at different times of the day and year. Then we started just smacking them down in a line after clear cutting the entire sub-development and relying on being able to chuck in a bigger AC unit to take the load.” [Jimbo, commenting on Factory-Built Green Homes for Houston]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW MUCH TO TURN IT TUSCAN? “It’s not even $8 million! Merely $7,999,000! I’d love to buy this place but I’m afraid I’d end up baroque.” [wilf, commenting on Deep Discount Madness Returns to Piney Point Village: Megamansion Now 60 Percent Off!]
FACTORY-BUILT GREEN HOMES FOR HOUSTON 
A reader goes house shopping:
“Do you have any ideas on green modular/prefabricated homes available to the Houston area? There are lots out there, but most of them are so far away that the delivery cost defeats the purpose of low-cost housing and reduced carbon footprint. That even includes the Clayton Homes’ i-House! . . .
Something like Nationwide’s Osprey house (which isn’t available to Texas). Mass produced so they are cheap, but using green materials and finishes. . . . Seems like there are a lot of options out there, but mostly too far from Houston to be economically viable.” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of i-House: Life in the Country
Over the weekend we finally got the big reveal from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, featuring the 15-member Beach Family in Kemah. Pictured above: the new Therapy Room, modeled after “the carnival in Kemah.”
Next from the Beaches’ new 6,340-sq.-ft. home: magical mushrooms in the “Trees and Tea Parties Room.”
From online small-house-plan hawkers Hometta comes this video preview of H-Town, a virtual neighborhood where versions of the company’s modern home designs (several of which are from Houston architects) will always be open for visitors. If the preview bears more than a passing resemblance to Second Life, that’s because it uses OpenSimulator — an open-source Second Life-like 3D environment simulator.
H-Town isn’t modeled on Houston, explains Hometta’s Ann Chou — the H stands for Hometta. The small island features sidewalks, roads, a plaza, a gallery, and a market for Hometta’s small line of “Etc.” products the company also sells plans for, such as Collaborative DesignWorks’ 3×3 storage system:
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.
Yeah, there are lots of very large homes in Houston that kinda look like some drug lord’s mansion. But how can you find one that’s truly authentic? Here’s one way: Look for a property that’s been put on the market by actual U.S. marshals!
Like this 5-bedroom, 4-bath pinkish-brownish stucco crib at 17907 Elk Valley Circle in Ponderosa Trails. It sits on a 2.54-acre lot on a quiet cul-de-sac just south of Cypress Creek near Kuykendahl, and comes complete with the requisite pool and patio, hot tub, double-height porte-cochere, and 4-car garage.
Sure, it sorta looks like it might be the home of a drug kingpin, but so do a lot of other big homes in town built since, say, 2000. What’s this one’s pedigree?
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]
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?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOOK OUT FOR THOSE TWEAKED TOWNHOMES! “. . . My reason for staying away from those townhomes…Any one of those townhomes could be easily tweaked in the future to be 2 apartments. Pair that with the common driveways and you could easily have alot of people sharing a pretty small area.” [justguessin, commenting on Comment of the Day: Here Come the Almeda Promoters]
Sure, it’s a big break when local architects and designers get their work published in Dwell, but who knew that an appearance in the modern design magazine might ultimately be seen as just a stepping stone on the path to even greater fame? That’s right: With the recent appearance of the Unhappy Hipsters blog, Dwell‘s design stars will at last be able to reach a much wider circle.
Most photos on Unhappy Hipsters are taken from the magazine. But yes, the captions are changed — just a little bit — so that the work shown can reach a larger and perhaps more appreciative audience.
Already, two teams of Houston designers have been featured on the blog. A reader writes in to report that the photo above, showing the owners of Numen Development’s shipping-container house on Cordell St. in Brookesmith, was featured in a recent Unhappy Hipsters post. Except instead of the original caption from Dwell, which described the front porch, the species of grass on the lawn, and the bent-steel shade above, we have this:
Not on the grass, Sweetie. Never. On. The. Grass. See how much fun Daddy is having?
Who else is appearing on Unhappy Hipsters?
“Beautiful corner lot, gorgeous oak trees. House has been added onto and has 8 ft ceilings,” begins the terse listing for this 80-year-old property with a $1.6-million asking price on live-oak-lined South Blvd. It’s part of the newly declared historic district portion of Boulevard Oaks.
A 4,270-sq.-ft. home with lowish ceilings — is that a problem? Nothing you can’t make up for by taking your interior shots from atop a stepstool:
