- 1602 Hazel St. [HAR]
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Interiors
Is this Avondale property a home, a compound, or a discrete semi-plex? From the street, at least, the exterior remains discreet about its reworked interior space. And the downstairs does maintain much of the home’s original flow, heavy-with-trim formal rooms, and many of the 1940 structure’s early features (top). The same is true upstairs, though a section on that floor functions as an extensive separate suite. An aerie on the third floor adds even more living space. The property in the Avondale East Historic District appeared as a listing yesterday — with a $579,000 asking price.
4 Quarters
Even before hitting the courtyard pool, an Asian-inspired home in Pearland’s Green Tee Terrace golf community takes a dip with its pagoda-style roof — and hand-dipped gold leaf panels on the living room ceiling (top). Could the distinctive 1982 property be too distinctive for the area? In a series of successive listings, its price has kept dropping. Last week, the stately home popped back up on the market again, this time seeking $699,000. In its initial listing back in 2011, the asking price started at $1.2 million and was whittled back to $895,000 over a 2-year period. A 6-month interim listing in September 2013 found no takers at $800,000 or at the $750,000 reduction in December. Back in 2005, it sold at $614,000, down from a 1999 sale for $649,000.
Attention to detail is one of the property’s hallmarks; so are shoji screens in many of the rooms . . .
Serving Tee
Apart from the snazzy red cars parked by the home’s courtyard entry, a flat-topped 1963 Hilshire Village property keeps a low profile beneath the canopy of mature trees on its large lot, which is located in the Burkhardt Plaza neighborhood west of Wirt Rd. and just north of the Christ Evangelical Presbyterian Church on the eastbound I-10 feeder road. Updated in 2009, the midcentury modern with the not-so-modern decor landed on the market a week ago, asking $1.1 million. By the weekend, though, the price had dropped to $997,500.
Price Drop
It’s big, but not the biggest home on its cushy Bay Oaks block. Bigger still are the fairways of adjacent Bay Oaks Country Club, on display behind this fully loaded property that’s located south of Clear Lake Blvd. The updated 1989 contemporary clad with stucco, stone, and tile was listed this week. The asking price of $1.399 million marks a noticeable spike from the $898,000 paid in 2011, when the current owners took hold.
Clear Lake City
The inside of the Astrodome has been closed to the general public since 2008, when inspectors revoked its certificate of occupancy after discovering numerous code violations. Four years later, Swamplot’s publication of reader Russell Hancock’s snuck pics of the structure’s desolate innards spurred several local reporters to request their own tours of the structure. Later, the building’s caretakers offered up a few rounds of media tours of the dilapidated stadium on their own, leading up to last November’s defeat of a bond issue that would have paid for extensive renovations to the building. In advance of the vote, and then again shortly after, the Astrodome’s seating and other furnishings were removed and put up for sale.
But since the seat sell-off, the public hasn’t had a chance to see how the inside of the vacant sports stadium appears with the earth-tone rainbows painted in plastic backrest that once lined its upper decks stripped out and sold off. What does the inside of the Astrodome look like, now that it’s a whole lot less colorful, and pretty much standing-room only?
The End of the Rainbows
- 6538 Community Dr. [HAR]
Up next: This 1953 ranchburger with modernized trimmings in Braes Terrace (top). Had you looked at this Buffalo Speedway corner lot property when it was listed in March (at right), you’d have found it priced at $369,000. (It sold quickly, for $361,000.) Earlier this week, a re-imagined spread at the same address hit the market with a $698,000 price tag. In addition to designer-driven cosmetic tweaks, the overhaul included new electrical wiring and plumbing, roof, French doors, garage door, side deck and driveway. Do the results merit a $337K leap?
Smooth Moves
The interior of a decked out 1978 Spring Branch Estates home uses changing floor finishes to cue its ups and downs as the floor plan twists around a spiral staircase beneath a 20-ft. dome. The flow creates living spaces on several levels — and some rather unusual, futuristic features . . .
Taking Turns
- 15 Valcourt Pl. [HAR]
Surreal artwork and rustic structural components left exposed seem to meld into a single composition within the Fifth Ward home and studio of artist Bert Long Jr., who died in February 2013. Fifteen years ago, the attached double-shotgun row houses had been painstakingly renovated (and combined) as the year-long thesis project of Brett Zamore, then a Rice University graduate architecture student. Long, who grew up nearby and was returning to Houston at the time, bought the property near the end of its transformation but before an art studio was added — for $30,000 $70,000 — and lived there with his wife, artist Joan Batson. The mixed-use property is located in the Pinecrest Court neighborhood near Wheatley High School, east of Waco St. and south of I-10. It was listed for sale this morning, with an asking price of $200,000.
Home and Studio
- 5930 Woodway Place Ct. [HAR]
Note: The pricing history noted previously in this story was inaccurate. We’ve corrected it below.
From a pint-sized perch above a set of arched windows, saintly statuary appears to be keeping an eye o’er a updated 1925 Spanish Revival cottage near the Menil Collection. The heavenly presence might also guard against any sleepwalking encounters with the steep steps at the bottom of a flight of stairs . . .
Twists
 Through a Revived Spanish Revival in Lancaster Place... "Pin It")
- 11826 Kirkway Dr. [HAR]
- 14138 Barnhart Blvd. [HAR]
