THURSDAY IS ROYCE BUILDERS TURKEY DAY! “There are dozens of homeowners, contractors and other consumers who lost money when Royce closed its doors. If you are one of these people or businesses, November 26th is the deadline for filing a “proof of claim†in Royce’s bankruptcy. If you file, you may be reimbursed when any of Royce’s remaining assets are distributed among creditors. There’s no guarantee you will see any money. But it’s a sure bet you’ll never get a dime if you don’t file. If you had a warranty on your home, but you haven’t been able to get the work done because of the bankruptcy, there is a value on the warranty that you are owed. If you put earnest money down on a home that never closed, and you never got a refund, you should file. . . . For now, the Royce bankruptcy trustee says Royce owes more than $17 million; but he believes it’s much more… and that many people just haven’t filed.” [Ask Amy Blog]
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Channel 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis sends a KPRC newschopper to buzz the 80-acre Cypress party pad estate of former Royce Builders president John Speer. More than a year after we featured the innumerable builder upgrades of that Mack-Daddy mansion on Swamplot, it’s still sitting on the market — for the same $9.8 million.
Meanwhile, less than a mile to the west, sales aren’t going so well either in former Royce Homes subdivision Grant Meadows:
“Houses are in disrepair. Fences are in disrepair,” explained homeowner Matt Adams. “The whole neighborhood’s been left in ruins.” . . .
Royce stopped paying the bill for the street lights in Grant Meadows in July 2008.
Reliant recently switched them off, and told homeowners they must pay the $14,000 owed before they can turn them back on.
“It’s pitch black out here at night,” said homeowner Evit Byrd, who planned to retire in Grant Meadows with his wife. “You can’t see anything.”
But there’s some good news: Speer has been building again! His new company, Vestalia Homes, which Speer founded 3 weeks after he closed down Royce, is busy constructing and selling homes a little closer to FM 1960, in a subdivision called the Lakes of Cypress Forest.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ROYCE BUILDERS LEGACY “I think the real story is all the trades and other businesses who wound up getting stiffed out of tens of thousands of dollars in some cases. Royce was a poorly managed company… especially in its final year. They built an empire building houses on credit and pocketing entirely too much cash. When the loans on new starts stopped, Royce found themselves way over their heads in debt from the thousands of spec homes sitting on the ground. But the cash was in their pockets… so they walked out and left all the trades and homeowners to drown. Anyone ever stop to think how this effected small companies like Conkir Electric or all the painters and sheetrock crews who worked for pennies anyway?” [Former Royce, commenting on A Chance To Relive All the Excitement That Was Royce Builders]
A CHANCE TO RELIVE ALL THE EXCITEMENT THAT WAS ROYCE BUILDERS Royce Builders alumni and victims: Do you miss all the intrigue that surrounded Royce’s implosion last year? KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis tells Swamplot she’s working on a story about Royce Homes and its various reincarnations. Got any news to pass on about former Royce subdivisions? If you have any information to share about Vestalia, WG Builders, or any other entities where former Royce higher-ups might have resurfaced, she’d like to talk to you. Just send her an email — she says you can remain anonymous! [Swamplot inbox; email]
Note: Story updated below. Stand by for . . . the turret!
One of the nicest things about Swamplot is that we all care about our neighbors! So when one reader sends in a photo of a unique garage-chimney configuration balanced carefully on a townhome near the corner of Ashland and 16th St. in the Heights, it’s only natural that others in our community will want to volunteer their talents and services to help the situation.
The problem: The obvious allures of lick-and-stick stone facing have left a Heights homebuilder with a street face that’s a little . . . attention-getting?
The solution: It’s nothing an architect can’t fix — with a fresh copy of Photoshop and a toolkit of contemporary design favorites! Here’s the completed rendering that was sent into us:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE O WHERE HAS OUR SUBDIVISION’S BUILDER GONE? “Does anyone have any information of OBRA HOMES bankruptcy? I am also in TimberMeadows and a few of us are trying to organize a meeting this coming Sunday, Nov 15th at 6 pm to see about hiring an attorney to contact OBRA Homes. Any info will help. Thanks.” [Miguel, commenting on Obra Homes Secret Hiding Place Revealed!]
SECRET POWERS OF THE CORDELL ST. SHIPPING-CONTAINER HOUSE The Brookesmith home of Kevin Freeman and Jen Feldmann — fashioned from shipping containers by Numen Development’s John Walker and Katie Nichols — meets a national audience in the pages of the latest issue of Dwell: “The meat distributor [across Cordell St.] begins loading trucks as early as 5:30 a.m., but the couple imagines themselves as hipsters living in New York City’s meatpacking district, and that makes it okay. . . . The corrugated steel of the container that houses the master suite becomes a textured wall for writing messages in the home’s entrance. ‘When we were furnishing the house, I thought, “Oh no! Our fridge isn’t magnetic for Eli’s artwork,” but then I realized the whole house is magnetic,’ Feldmann says. ‘We’ve become magnet connoisseurs,’ Freeman adds.” [Dwell; previously in Swamplot]
LOW-INCOME VETERANS’ HOUSING IN BRIDGELAND U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates presented the keys to a new lakeside cul-de-sac home in Bridgeland yesterday to Purple Heart recipient Capt. Daniel Moran, USMC (Ret.). Moran, who was severely injured twice while on duty in Iraq, qualified for a low-cost housing program for disabled veterans administered by HelpingaHero.org. “The new 3,300-square-foot home was funded by the Strake Foundation, Rex and Marilyn King and the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund. Perry Homes built it with special accommodations for Moran’s physical condition. It features tinted windows, a high-efficiency air conditioner and heating system and other enhanced temperature-control measures because Moran is no longer able to control his body temperature. The lot was selected to allow the least amount of direct sunlight into the home. The house also includes an extended covered porch to allow him to spend time outdoors with his two children, Trey 4, and Macy, 2, without direct sun exposure.” [DefenseLink]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CUE THE WILSHIRE VILLAGE SALE AND REDEVELOPMENT RUMORS “I heard (not joking) that KB homes (I think, or another home builder) was looking at this site for a new style of very small and relatively inexpensive 1,000 sf-ish single family hyomes on very small lots. The [target] pricepoint was about $150k I believe.” [Charlie, commenting on Boyd’s Wilshire Village Prayer, with Photos]
Houston, the Toll Brothers have been looking for just the right home for you:
“We have been studying the Houston market for a long time and have been looking for the right opportunity to enter it,†Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “In 2008, Houston was the second-largest home building market in the nation.â€
Actually, the “nation’s leading builder of luxury homes” is headed to The Woodlands. The Pennsylvania-based company, which already operates in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio, promises its first houses in the Village of Creekside Park will be complete early next year. Sales will begin this August.
Toll Brothers at Creekside Park will offer homes on 80′ wide home sites and will showcase five floorplans with multiple exterior designs.
A Swamplot reader comments on the photo accompanying the announcement that appeared in the Houston Business Journal:
The story includes a photo of one of the exterior choices: A French provincial pastiche. What in the name of pete does anything like this have to do with the climate and traditional architectural style of the Gulf Coast? Do the Toll Brothers even pay attention?
Well, that may not have been the company’s intent. On its own website, Toll Brothers illustrates its press release with this separately tuned sample:
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST “The days are long gone when sales were so brisk that everyone from accountants to lawyers snapped up empty lots to build homes in Houston, where loose laws meant at the height of the property boom anyone could be a builder. . . . Mike Salomon, president of Sandcastle Homes, however, says those unprepared for an inherently risky business have been chased out of the industry. ‘We’ve gone from a market that was very forgiving, and you could make mistakes and still be profitable,’ he says. ‘We’re close to what it should be like, where people who don’t know what they are doing are going out of business.’ His profits were down by 30 to 40 per cent in 2008, but volume was up 37 per cent. ‘We have to do more stuff to make the sales, but we have a profitable business that we’re still running.’” [Financial Times, via Swamplot inbox]
Regular Swamplot readers will remember all the fun surrounding the collapse and shutdown of Royce Builders last year. What’s happened since? Chapter 7 bankruptcy! Plus now, says the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff:
Wisenbaker Builder Services, Suncoast Post Tension, Builders Mechanical and Luxury Baths by Arrow are collectively seeking to recover more than $1.1 million from the builder, according to the petition filed last month in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Thousands of home- owners could also have claims against the company.
Attorney David Jones, who is representing Royce in the bankruptcy, is compiling names of potential creditors that lists more than 12,000 people.
“Homeowners are the biggest portion,†said Jones, a partner with Porter & Hedges.
Oh, but there’s more! In a separate legal action, an educational charity that Royce owner John Speer used to promote his businesses and solicit contributions from customers is claiming that Royce failed to deliver funds raised on its behalf. A struggling charity that renamed itself the Royce Homes Foundation for Youth in 2003 — after Speer apparently promised to deliver several hundred thousand dollars a year in support — says Royce still owes it about $400K:
PUTTING STOCK IN THE SPREAD Pulte Homes announced yesterday it will swallow up Dallas-based Centex for $1.3 billion in devalued stock. The new Pulte Homes, based in Michigan, will be the country’s largest homebuilder — with twice the revenue of its nearest competitor. Together, the two combined sprawling companies are building in 31 separate Houston-area developments, but only 3 of them are inside Beltway 8. All but 4 of the rest lie beyond Highway 6. [Houston Business Journal]
NEW MARK FOR LAYOFFS Newmark Homes, a local brand of failed Florida homebuilder TOUSA, will be laying off 156 Houston employees beginning in May, according to a filing with the Texas Workforce Commission. Another 63 employees in Austin will lose their jobs. The company, which filed for bankruptcy back in January 2008, had been trying to sell Newmark and its other local brand, Trophy Homes. “The company said in a recent statement that it would stop building new homes and focus on selling its remaining inventory of speculative homes and its land holdings.” [Houston Business Journal]
Here — minus mysteriously absent lots 5, 7, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21, and 23 — are the outlines of the 19 homesites carved from the 10-acre wooded property that Holy Name Retreat Center sold off last year in Bunker Hill Village. Black Diamond Companies, the purveyors of two elsewhere-themed, other-worldly developments — the Cáceres Andelusion in Rice Military and vaguely Francophile Bammel Lane Park Homes on . . . uh, Bammel Lane — so far appears to be soft-pedaling the existence of any foreign entanglement in this latest development.
