Modern Design

Apartments
09/23/11 6:19pm

The End Comes for Central Presbyterian

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Churches, Demolitions, Greenway Plaza, Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Modern Design, Proposed Developments
8 Comments

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:

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Homes for Sale
09/15/11 1:55pm

A William Floyd from the Pine Hollow Modern Showcase

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Pine Hollow
8 Comments

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.

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Galleria
09/13/11 12:12pm

As It Is and Was: Preston Bolton Single-Story Townhome Near the Galleria

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Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Townhomes
16 Comments

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:

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Bunker Hill Village
09/08/11 2:43pm

Lost Mod in Bunker Hill Village, $800K

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Modern Design
8 Comments

Note: Update below.

The hip roof on this 1958 modern home in Knippwood is only 7 years old, but whether it had a different shape originally isn’t clear from the outside photos — they stand back from the building on its 17,120-sq.-ft. lot. There’s no seller disclosure available, and the place is being sold “as is.” What will you find inside?

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Apartments
09/06/11 9:39am

Mod Richmond Ave. Church Ready To Fall for New Apartments

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Churches, Demolitions, Greenway Plaza, Historic Preservation, Houston Architects, Modern Design, New Construction, Proposed Developments
21 Comments

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.

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Braeburn Valley
08/26/11 6:49pm

Fixing to Sell: Braeburn Valley Mod

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For Sale by Owner, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design
16 Comments

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.

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Homes for Sale
08/03/11 8:22am

Preston Bolton’s Pine Hollow Home — For Less!

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Pine Hollow, Price Reductions
20 Comments

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:

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Demolitions
08/02/11 4:47pm

Ball of Mangled Steel Slowly Taking Place of Noted Sugar Land Mod

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Houston Architects, Modern Design, Sugar Creek, Sugar Land
6 Comments

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)

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Buying and Selling
07/29/11 11:46pm

Comment of the Day: Salvage Value

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Comments, Construction Materials, Modern Design, Quicklink, Recycling
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: SALVAGE VALUE “I am not attached to the nice appliances, wood floors, etc. . . . but they have a very large and easily accessible resale market . . . its not being sentimental it is just not wasting money on something that can easily be resold. A mod house like this has a very small market. Only a select few like this style of house, and even fewer are willing to pay for them.” [Marksmu, commenting on Battle Over Swank Sugar Land Supermod Won By Komatsu Excavator]

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Demolitions
07/27/11 4:26pm

Battle Over Swank Sugar Land Supermod Won By Komatsu Excavator

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Houston Architects, Modern Design, Sugar Creek, Sugar Land
35 Comments

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:

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Houston Architects
07/27/11 9:14am

Remaining Houston Mods To Star in Their Own Movie

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Modern Design
7 Comments

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.)

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Buying and Selling
07/25/11 1:07pm

OMG Mod Begone: Sugar Land’s Lott House Meets Its Wrecking Crew

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Demolitions, Home Design, Houston Architects, Modern Design, Sugar Creek, Sugar Land
52 Comments

Yes, it looks like demo equipment has already arrived in the driveway of the MacKie and Kamrath house in Sugar Creek featured a little less than a year ago on Swamplot. The home was originally built in 1975 for Astrodome builder H.A. Lott, in the Houston architects’ famed signature Frank-Lloyd-Wright-without-the-cape style. The photo above was sent in by a reader, who passes on a rumor from neighbors — that the 4,426-sq.-ft. home’s new owners plan on tearing down the structure and putting up a 2-story something in its place. After an extensive renovation, the the 4-bedroom on a 36,041-sq.-ft. waterfront lot was listed for north of $1 million last August. It sold in April for around $800K. A few pics of what now appears to be headed for the landfill:

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Modern Design
06/03/11 10:57am

Village Louver Loser: The Defiftification of Fu’s Garden

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Renovations, Restaurants, Retail, Rice Village
17 Comments

This drive-by pic of the former Fu’s Garden Restaurant space at the corner of Kirby and University shows what looks to be the exfoliation of some of the building’s 1950s-era accoutrements. The longtime Rice Village restaurant closed quietly several months ago: “They seem to be removing the vertical louvers from the second story and boarding over the windows,” notes the reader who sent in the photo.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

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Houston Architects
04/07/10 5:00pm

Hometta Explains the Crazy Kitchen Lady: No Carrot Cutting, Just a Little Architectural Air Guitar

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Modern Design, Online Resources
1 Comment

Hometta’s Ann Chou has an answer for all of you Swamplot readers still wondering about those bizarre arm motions one of its characters was making in the promo video for H-Town, the online small-home plan-sales company’s new virtual environment. She was just — you know — chatting!

Amid the feedback on last Friday’s release of the H-Town preview has been a seemingly recurring question. “um – what is that lady in the kitchen doing?” asked a commenter on ArchDaily. Over at Swamplot, someone described the lady in the kitchen as a “humanoid” that “has taken to some sort of repetitive carrot cutting activity with a roll of drawings (presumably architectural drawings).”

They are indeed architectural drawings belonging to our architect avatar, the firstborn in a cast of characters from which you will choose when H-Town goes live. Then, you too will be able to gush with your fellow avatars about 48′ House’s U-shaped kitchen!

So that’s how you gush in H-Town?

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