10/28/11 9:12pm

Going up in place of those 2 mod office buildings at 3210 and 3310 Eastside St. east of Greenway Plaza that were scraped earlier this week: this 2-story, $6.3 million home for Houston’s branch of Dress for Success, a national charity that provides support services, career help, and a free store of interview-appropriate attire for women in need of a working-world boost. Once it’s complete, the Houston Dress for Success will be the first of the organization’s 80 U.S. affiliates to own its own land and building. Included in the upgrade from the current leased warehouse at 3915 Dacoma St.: a larger store and dressing-room area, more clothing storage and sorting space, more meeting space, a babysitting area, and much better access to public transportation. Crews demolishing the 2 existing buildings took a break for Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony, where fundraisers announced that pledges covering 97 percent of the cost of the Ziegler Cooper-designed structure have already received.

Rendering: Ziegler Cooper Architects

10/25/11 2:05pm

The Sylvan Beach Pavilion, a dancehall and conference hall on Harris County’s only public beach — with a 10,000-sq.-ft. glass-walled ballroom overlooking Galveston Bay — has been boarded up since its pummeling by Hurricane Ike in 2008. But thanks to a $3.6 million grant awarded last fall by the state Dept. of Rural Affairs, the modern building at Sylvan Beach Park is now headed for restoration to its original 1956 glory (above) — with a few tweaks directed by the architects at Kirksey to gussy it up for weddings, quinceañeras, local meetings, retirement parties, and other La Porte events. Construction is scheduled to start early next year and take 9 months.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

10/03/11 5:07pm

Arthur Moss’s 1950 Penguin Arms Apartments at 2902 Revere St. behind the Kirby Dr. Whole Foods is now on the market. Sadly, no pix showing the condition of the interior are included with the listing, though the agent’s reference to “lots of deferred maintenance” — along with the comments of a former tenant — should provide a clue. What gives this unique building its Googie cred? Well, a photo of it was included in the original 1952 House and Home magazine article that gave the style its name (amidst complaints about its “orgiastic” and “organic” features, of course). Penguin Arms “looks like something that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for George Jetson,” Chron columnist Lisa Gray declared a few years ago. These days, that’s considered a compliment.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/23/11 6:19pm

Reader Brian Thorp sends in a couple of photos documenting the final hours of what he’s now labeled the “holiest” church in Houston — it was, at least for a time today. The Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond Ave. was designed in 1962 by Astrodome architects Wilson, Crain, Morris and Anderson; it sits on the site where the Morgan Group is ready to build a new apartment complex. By 9 am this morning (above), the church had developed a few punctures in its side. By noon, much of the dust, and a good portion of the church’s walls, had cleared:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/20/11 9:15am

The facilities steering committee at UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has decided to demolish what’s left of the institution’s Houston Main Building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. with several blasts of dynamite — before the end of the year. The announcement in an online employee-only newsletter cited safety concerns for the decision: “Manual demolition with jackhammers and blow torches would expose our employees, our patients, the public and dozens of construction workers to noise, dust and vibration for months. Implosion reduces that exposure to a matter of minutes.”

The 18-story Med Center structure was known as the Prudential Building before M.D. Anderson purchased it from the insurance company in 1975. It was vacated last year, and demo work on the building began this past April. The newsletter announcement also recaps the institution’s explanation for knocking down the structure, which was designed by Houston architect Kenneth Franzheim in 1952 as part of Houston’s first suburban office park:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/15/11 1:55pm

This home nestled on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou north of Woodway and just outside the West Loop has made brief appearances in the MLS for the last 2 fall seasons. This time, though, the price is almost $200K lower. It’s a 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath open-plan home designed by William Floyd in 1954, sporting a few obvious updates and alterations. The 3,519-sq.-ft. home is now on the market for $1,299,000; it’s just a few doors down from the home fellow architect Preston Bolton built for himself on Pine Hollow Ln. 16 years later.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/14/11 7:01pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SHARON TYLER’S TILES “I have to agree this house is over the top and she went ‘architect’ nuts with it. I actually live in one of the few other houses that Sharon Tyler built in West U. She built a few others and acted as the ‘architect/builder.’ I have to say the house is built super solid and has a timeless design to it. The bathrooms did have the Sharon Tyler signature floor to ceiling 2×2 tiles and that got old as soon as the 90s hit. Hoewever, in one of the bath remodels I brought a tile vendor to give me a quote to knock down all the tiles and put something more current. The guy liked the Sharon tiles so much that I thought he was going to hit me with a bat for wanting to tear them down. So to each its own. However, I have to say that having lived in a Sharon Tyler house, I have the outmost respect for that woman. No detail was overlooked and I understand she oversaw the construction herself and it was not uncommon for her to stop at the construction and asking to start from scratch on a particular job if she was not pleased with the work. And it shows, the house is solid quality construction.” [west u rez, commenting on Living Large in Houston, Before Her Homes Got Not So Big]

09/13/11 12:12pm

Also in the brand-new listing for a single-story “patio home” designed for the original owner by Preston Bolton off Yorktown: photos of the 2-bedroom, 2-bath pad from closer to its 1971 debut. If the now-empty home and its original blue kitchen don’t convey quite the air of Watergate-era sophistication you were looking for, try picturing yourself relaxing, internet-free, in the included black-and-white views. The 2,630-sq.-ft. home’s roof, AC, electrical panel, and water heater have all been replaced recently, but almost everything else is still as it was:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/06/11 9:39am

Construction fencing has already gone up around the Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond near Greenway Plaza, a reader reports. The Modern church campus was designed in 1962 by Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson — just a few years before the same local architecture firm set to work on a small project called the Astrodome. Two years ago the congregation moved a couple miles northwest to merge with the St. Philip Presbyterian Church, just outside the Loop on San Felipe. Houston Mod fans have been trying to save the vacant church from demolition ever since.

But the church buildings won’t be sticking around for long.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/26/11 6:49pm

This Lucian Hood-designed Midcentury Mod across the street from the Braeburn Country Club in Braeburn Valley hasn’t exactly been listed for sale anywhere yet — well okay, the owner has shown it off on HAIF. But Jason Jones says he’d be willing to part with it for, oh, $298,000. After he finishes patching and painting and getting it all ready for sale, that is. Over the last 5 years, Jones says, he’s done a bit of foundation work and put in a new 3-phase AC system and a new roof, but the home is still sporting the same 3 bedrooms and 2 baths it started out with in 1956.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/03/11 8:22am

When last we left this little number in Pine Hollow — the longtime home of Preston Bolton, the Houston architect who did tall ceilings before tall ceilings were cool — it was 2008, and the place was listed for just south of $2 million. But it didn’t sell at that price, or a few other ones tried later. Last week it went back on the market at a new low: $1,450,000. Anything in this 1970 structure been, well, updated in the 3 intervening years? Well, the photos at least:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/02/11 4:47pm

A reader sends us this latest photo (at bottom, with close-up) of the ongoing smashing and crushing action at the former home of Astrodome builder H.A. Lott on Sugar Creek Blvd. in Sugar Land. The low-slung, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish house designed for Lott in 1975 by Houston architect Karl Kamrath was put on the market last year after a renovation.

Photos: HAR (before), Swamplot inbox (after)

07/29/11 5:00pm

When he isn’t busy rebuilding the entire block of Colquitt between Greenbriar and Morningside, Houston architect Scott Ballard puts his mind to work solving difficult domestic problems. F’rinstance: how to enjoy indoor sports in the comfort of your home more . . . oh, unobtrusively? Ballard’s wife “wasn’t thrilled” about the ping-pong table he and his kids parked in the family’s living room a couple years ago, he tells the Chronicle‘s Ken Hoffman. A few sketches, hired guns, and failed prototypes later, and — presto! Ballard came up with the solution: The Ping Pong Coffee Table. And it’s for sale!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

07/27/11 4:26pm

Courtesy of a Swamplot reader who spied the wreckage, we now have photo confirmation that the recently renovated former home of Astrodome builder H.A. Lott, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright devotee Karl Kamrath in 1975, is currently being smashed to pieces. That’s the steel frame of the north end of the house being mangled above. And we have a video, too! Not of the demolition — but of the sleek-looking home itself last year, when it was on the market for just over a million bucks. Treacly but ultimately ineffective soundtrack included:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

07/27/11 9:14am

The director of a recent documentary about the late architect and educator Samuel Mockbee says he’s already received pledges for about half the money he thinks he and his production team will need to raise for his next project: a feature-length film about midcentury modern architecture in Houston — or what’s left of it. Houston native Sam Wainwright Douglas’s Citizen Architect: Samuel Mockbee and the Spirit of the Rural Studio has appeared on PBS, in local theaters, and on the museum circuit since its debut at SXSW last year. Douglas says he hasn’t fixed the lineup for his Houston movie, but he’s hoping to profile local architects Harwood Taylor, Hugo Neuhaus, Howard Barnstone, and William Jenkins and their work, as well as buildings by modernist firms such as MacKie and Kamrath and Lloyd & Morgan. (If he wants to capture any portions of MacKie and Kamrath’s Sugar Land oeuvre, he’ll have to hurry.)

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY