Clear Lake laps placidly (at least for now) at the shore of a Mies-inspired home designed in 1974 by Houston architect Edmund Furley and located in Glen Cove (the one in League City, not the one near Houston’s Memorial Park). The waterfront retreat’s undated renovations (top) are attributed to interior designer J. Randall Powers and William Caudell (the still-living designer, not Bill Caudill the late CRS architect). Photos in the property’s listing last week generously tour the interior and grounds, but present just one through-the-gate peek at the home’s front (above). There’s a $4.3 million asking price dangling above the wowza waterside spread, but its $12 annual maintenance fee appears to be a real deal.
Weather Channel
“The ‘needs updating’ knee-jerk reaction that a lot of people have to mid-century moderns is one of the reasons there are so few good ones left. Unfortunately this one had some ‘updates’ at some point, and now those previous updates are, well, dated. If it had been left alone & original, it would still have its classic features and would have more people fighting over it. Of course that wouldn’t appeal to folks who think that anything that deviates from whatever is sitting on the shelves of your local home improvement store or being slapped up by every production builder in the suburbs is somehow bad. ‘Needs updating’ usually just means ‘let’s suck out the character, charm and personality out of it and dull it down architecturally, so it fits the more mundane taste of more mundane people.’ If you find yourself house-shopping and inside a good original MCM and think, ‘needs updating’ just go find the nearest Perry home instead and sign yourself up.” [
“It is disappointing that we lose so many interesting houses to the wrecking ball. Those of us who live in ‘crimeridden’ (*wink wink*) parts of town can take solace in the fact that at least our neighborhoods’ reputations keep the McMansions at bay. If you can cut through all the stories about crimes that happened ten or fifteen years ago, you can get a great, if dirty, Mod in Sharpstown, just waiting for you to fix it up and bring it back. And you really should look at those houses, because if you don’t, the ‘We Buy Ugly Houses’ people will. And they’ll make them worse.” [
