Woodsy trim takes a casual course through a 1941 home in Idylwood, starting with a boarded up wall in the living room (top). The property’s listing earlier this week came with a $459K price tag — and a Sunday afternoon open house on its calendar.
Among the big game in Sherwood Forest (the close-to-the-Loop Memorial-area neighborhood, not the royal hunting spread poached by Robin Hood) sits an updated 1965 contemporary on its third initial asking price: $4.29 million. A 2013 listing took aim at $4.995 million, which dropped to $4.39 million for a few months. Last summer, the $4.375 million ask trimmed back to $4.32 million two weeks later in a listing lasting 2 months. One wing curves its window wall around the groomed front lawn and clipped landscaping (middle). Pool, terrace, and tennis court extend from the back of the stucco home, which has a 2-story wing for the bedrooms (above).
A ski-slope of a roof tops a 1974 townhome complex designed by Burdette Keeland — on land his mother owned in College Heights, now part of  the Upper Kirby District. The late architect taught at University of Houston’s College of Architecture for 40 years and served on the City of Houston’s planning commission for 30 years. Located at the center of the 5-plex property, the contemporary home is described as being in near-original condition. Since mid-December, the listing has been priced at $379,900. You can hit the slopes with a look-see scheduled by Houston Mod for this Sunday afternoon.
Growing conditions favor landscaping (and geegaws) inside and outside a mews-facing condo in the 1973Â Briarwest Townhomes development. Reddish hues are particularly abundant, whether in the decor’s high petal count or the brick exterior’s shutters. Updated a bit, the home is one of 194 2-story homes sharing the community’s 13 acres, with a pool, playground, and park (not a dog park, the homeowners association declares).
Ungated access is from Winrock Rd., located east of Voss Rd. and north of Westheimer Rd. Over the weekend, this home’s asking price trimmed again, this time to $268K, following a month at $275K. In its November 2014 initial listing, pricing got started at $285K.
In a niche neighborhood near the Museum District, a 1994 modern home designed by architect Natalye Appel blends into the stretch of custom homes on a wishboned street pair between Mandell and Montrose Blvd. The corner property was listed a week ago with a $995,000 asking price and held its opening open house last weekend. Updates since its 2012 change of hands (at $730,000) include a kitchen remodeling and access from the master suite downstairs to a new courtyard and pool.
In the Grogan’s Mill neighborhood of The Woodlands, a 1985 Mediterranean spreads across a half-an-acre lot served by a loop-tipped roadway that appears in aerial views to resemble an inverted golf club. That’s rather fitting — the property overlooks a fairway of the tournament course of the Woodlands Country Club. The floor plan, meanwhile, includes its own pool room (top photo). Laps on the housing market date back to June of 2010, when the asking price bobbed for a bit at $949,000 before sinking to $693K. A 2011 re-listing splashed water at $900K before a late 2013 surge upped the ask to $1.15 million. That’s also the price sought in a brief spring-to-summer 2014 listing as well as the re-re-re listing by a different agent dating from Black Friday. Let’s take a swing through the place:
More a reconstruction than a renovation, extensive work on a 1938 Mandell Place property is believed to have kept only the original slab, exterior walls and roofline. The rest has been reimagined by Fisher Homes, which looks to have reduced the number of interior walls but boosted the white trim package big time. Like a line of creamy frosting, wainscoting panels finish much of the home, which is located west of Mulberry St. and north of W. Alabama St. For the rebuilt results, the seller is now asking $1.35 million. The previously updated property last sold in 2011 for $485K. Do the modifications add up to the “90 percent new” touted in the listing, which went up earlier this month?
Tauping up a 1969 Westchester home as part of its updates this year seems to have decoratively straddled the great divide between the forces of gray and beige throughout the floor plan. Listed earlier this week at $620,000, the property has upped its game with new paint, roof, heating system, and a remodeled kitchen. Its Memorial West neighborhood lands west of Dairy Ashford and south of Memorial Dr.
Don’t be fooled by the apparent symmetry at the entry (top). Once you’re inside the updated 1982 home in Cambridge Green, a mewsy subdivision just west of Kirby Dr. and south of W. Holcombe Blvd., you’ll see that much of the footprint swings to one side. A combo living-dining room further emphasizes the long and low of the lot-filler’s layout. The north-facing front entry looks down the length of a pedestrian-minded greenbelt that spools off the neighborhood street’s loop. A listing that began in July 2014 terminated earlier this month; a relisting by a new agency last week carries a $984,500 price tag.
Garden trumps garage in this 1930 cottage in the Lawndale neighborhood of Greater Eastwood. The home, renovated in 1990 and updated inside more recently, looks to have lengthened its footprint at some point on the midblock lot. A tad of leftover lawn behind the house (top) extends into a stub of land by the parking area. In the next block, the street dead ends at the railroad tracks that cross Lawndale St. and Telephone Rd. Listed earlier this month, the home bears an asking price of $349,900.
Despite a series of remodeling tweaks, this 1970 Thornwood contemporary’s rebirthing still has a way to go. Its listing earlier this week pegs the property’s status as ripe for renovation, and sets the ask at $345K. Several rooms already feature updates (and the pool got a redo back in that “watershed” year of 2008), but others show their age, work in progress, or the effects of what’s gently described by the listing agent as “recent moisture and plumbing issues.”
Can the home’s renovations be completed? Should they be? Look for clues in the photos below, or see for yourself at this Sunday’s open house.
The frontrunner on a split lot with a shared driveway, this 2002 contemporary in the Westhaven Estates area captures space for a splash zone courtyard. Sculpted landscaping and decorative panels soften the curbside appearance of the sturdy wall erected near the sidewalk on Inwood Dr., south of San Felipe Rd. between Nantucket and Potomac drives. The front property’s relisting by a new agent this week set a $1.139 million asking price. Back in February, a previous market appearance had begun with a $1.195 million price tag. A reduction in April, to $1.145 million, briefly snagged a contract in June before the property took off for the summer.
It’s a mod with original features still intact through and through. Attributed to architect Joseph Krakower and Herb Greene, a designer who worked in his office, the well-preserved and well-screened (top) custom mid-fifties property has deep eaves beneath a hipped roof (redone in 2008) and spreads across a quarter-acre Braes Heights lot. The location is on the spit of homes between Brays Bayou and N. Braeswood Blvd. near Edloe St. The home was listing a week ago with an asking price of $518,000.Â
The biggest windows in this renovated 1975 townhome in the heart of the Museum District appear to be the glass-panel garage doors, which split their at-the-sidewalk orientation between both streets forming the corner property near Bell Park. But there’s more glass to see inside. A week ago, the asking price on this property dropped to $620,000 from a May listing kickoff at $640,000.
On a cul-de-sac’s wedge lot in The Woodlands neighborhood of Cochran’s Crossing, an updated 1987 home with an outdoor oasis (top) has back fence access to forested pathways and a putting green of The Woodlands Country Club’s Palmer course. The park-like property teed off in early April, but sank its asking price by $30,100 earlier this week to rest at $269,900.
