- 10729 Spell Rd., Tomball [HAR]
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Interiors
- 10818 Pepper Ln. [HAR]
Prancing onto the market just yesterday: This 10,672-sq.-ft. gated bouquet in that cute little already gated neighborhood in The Woodlands, not far from the smaller mansion Chamillionaire generously handed over to the bank last year. Features 6 bedrooms, 6 full baths, 6 balconies, a 5-car garage, all guarded by a small army of spotlit corbels. There’s a putting and pitching green in the yard of the acre-plus lot; you can warm up there before braving the winding, mile-long trek to the Carlton Woods golf course.
That was fast: Yesterday, just a day before Valentine’s Day — and almost exactly 2 weeks after a seemingly candid photo of one of the home’s 2 full bathrooms gained attention all over the internet — the owner of this well-appointed condo in Crescent Park Village accepted a purchase offer. Congratulations! On January 30th, a photo that just happened to include what looked like a 9- or 10-inch uh, stress reliever mounted on the back of the toilet was taken down quickly — followed, in short order, by the entire listing. Really? Some sellers would do anything for that kind of attention. Well, maybe a different kind of attention. But with a new MLS number, the offending photo removed, and a sub-$70K asking price, this home still got noticed. Of course, we’re all hoping the buyer’s likely-to-be-very-careful home inspection won’t turn up any additional surprises.
For any of you who might have missed it the first time, Swamplot’s uncensored photo home tour from the original listing is reprised here:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE YOU WANT ALL THOSE FLOWERS “Seriously – in the bathroom sink? In the yard? By the pool? It’s like if you crossed Ladies Home Journal with Dr. Seuss (‘Would you, could you on the grass? Would you, could you on desk of glass? What about near the commode? Or three vases, on the road?’)” [LT, commenting on Old Braeswood House of Bouquet]
Flowers sure do dress up a room! . . . or two. But where’d they get the budget to deck this house on Morningside Dr. with so many identical arrangements and vases?
It’s not clear exactly who it was that first noticed the oh, maybe 9- or 10-inch-tall object sitting upright in the background of a bathroom photo included in the for-sale listing on Cressida Glen Ln. in Crescent Park Village. The listing for the Alief property — just minutes from the Westpark Tollway! — was first posted 15 days ago, but it wasn’t until early yesterday morning that email and online discussions about it really got going. The photo caption read “Large master with jacuzzi tub” and showed the sink, toilet, and a bit of the shower curtain, but that’s not what caught your attention. “I called [the real estate agent] to give her a heads up and she hung up [on] me so I took a picture to post on the internet for eternity,” a Reddit user commented around 1 pm. An hour or so later, the photo was gone from the listing.
What photo? The NSFW one below:
A reader who says he’s always been curious what the gaudiest house in Houston looks like on the inside tells Swamplot his wish has come true — now that photos of this 5-bedroom just-outside-the-Beltway home at 12930 Memorial Dr. have been published on MLS. Four readers have written in to express awe at its appearance. “I’m not sure how to even begin describing the living area decor,” writes another, who also seems transfixed on the “giant high heel and giant lady statues (or are those murals?) in the entryway,” as well as the mermaid-themed master bathroom.
Dusted off and back on the market with a new . . . uh, MLS number for the new year: This Rancho Escondido number from 1986 out there in Willis, putting in at the far side of Lake Conroe. We’ve tracked it back as far as last May and a $975,000 asking price; the 4,535-sq.-ft. home on a half acre is now down to $845,000. From the street the 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath home plays it quiet and Ranch-like, but once you’re inside the animal-skin prints and views open up:
THE KING OF KHAKI IS DEAD Interior designer Herbert Wells, who brightened up the heavily curtained homes of Houston’s upper crust with modern design, passed away just before Christmas, at the age of 86. The Connecticut native could only see out of one eye, but guided the design of homes with architects Frank Welch and Howard Barnstone, among others. Two more recent projects, completed with design partner, Jerry Jeanmard: The transformation of the Wiess House on the corner of Main St. and Sunset into a new President’s House for Rice University, and the renovation of the River Oaks Country Club. [Houston Chronicle; interview]
This early Nixon-era single-story at 418 Thamer Circle, which hit the market a few days before Christmas, offers plenty of domestic secrecy: no windows onto its Hunterwood surroundings, a walled-in central courtyard with a pool, a long and curving front driveway, and a three-quarter-acre lot on a cul-de-sac. And you’ll find plenty of era design in this home just north of the fairways of Houston Country Club, too: skylights, crimson laminated countertops, an old-school intercom system, and a showroom’s worth of sliding glass doors. Plus some old wallpaper styles that you didn’t think you’d have to kick around anymore:
So many cute little diamond shapes on display at the front of this redone 1963 Ranch on the western bank of White Oak Bayou in Timbergrove Manor! And a few more show up elsewhere: In the tile floor of the breakfast room and den, and on the lily pond backstop wall. But still, so many other places a new owner could add them:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DUMPSTER MODERN 
“This one looked like the love child of Bushwood Country Club and the Houston Junior League building on the inside, but remove the Boise State football field, consign grandma’s victorian chandelier collection, remove grandpa’s smoke infested wood paneling and replace with a mix of ranch-modern interior and 21st century awesome…[and] this place would rock.” [jg, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Ocee What’s No Longer There] Photo: HAR
Longtime Swamplot readers may remember Richard Maier as the listing agent who advertised his own Talbott Wilson modern as a freebie that just happened to come with the 1.35-acre lot on Glencove St. he was selling. (The pitch was successful, luring buyer David Mincberg and later, a demolition crew.) Michael X. Flynn was the designer and contractor responsible for transforming a small Upper Kirby office building into this little villa of vaguely Corbusian pleasures. (That one’s still on the market.) Now they’ve put their own little uh, white house on the market. The pair moved into 26 Crestwood Dr. a few years ago, though they previously owned the 2 properties that flank it. All 3 mansions share a gated driveway that faces directly into the southern reaches of Memorial Park.
Now’s your chance to peek around what they’re leaving — the scene of that Annise Parker fundraiser you missed:
