COMMENT OF THE DAY: UP OR DOWN “On the agent side of HAR, you can see the different listing amounts. So while you might avoid the big red arrow showing a decrease, any agent can still see the pricing history. What a lot of agents do is lower their places by a few bucks a day, that way people with searches setup for a given location will keep being notified of their listing (since a price change will kick in a notice to be sent out). I know it works as I just RAISED the price of a rental on HAR and got a ton of calls. Likely because anyone that has an alert setup for my rental type just got ‘re-alerted’ about the apartment.” [Cody, commenting on Back, Slashed: Ken and Linda Lay’s Huntingdon Penthouse]
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Real Estate Marketing
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TOO EASY “I was really interested in buying . . . when it wasn’t for sale.” [northside girl, commenting on On Second Thought: Yeah, It’s Available]
A few amendments appear to have been made to that giant “Property Not for Sale” sign on JFK Blvd. near Greens Rd. just south of IAH featured on Swamplot last month, notes reader Brett Jensen. Plastered over that simpler earlier sign (shown at right) are now indications of the property’s size, a revised phone number, a real-estate company name and contact, and what appears to be a complete reversal of the previous marketing strategy. An indication that that “don’t even ask” strategy was a flop? Or that it worked too well, and now a new owner of sign and land is simply trying a more practiced strategy to flip it?
- Previously on Swamplot: Not Even Trying
Photos: Brett Jensen (for sale) and Katie Pearson (not for sale)
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT TO RENAME THE HOUSTON ASTROS “Astros’ owner is considering changing their name and uniform once they join the AL? The lack of tradition I believe hurts a sports franchise. Alright, Swampies…let the names begin; The Houston Hurricanes?” [Dana-X, commenting on Headlines: IAH Expansion; Brazos River Battle]
WHAT LURKS INSIDE THAT SCARY, SCARY HOUSE ON ELYSIAN ST. 
Oh, what will they think of next to scare you away from the Fifth Ward? “I thought I read something odd” while driving by the “abandoned mess” at 1919 Elysian St. north of Lorraine St., reports reader Robert Searcy, who sent in these pix. “So I had to circle the block to see if what I thought I read was really what I read . . .” [Swamplot inbox] Photos: Robert Searcy
The late Charles Fondow’s castle-like construction at 2309 Wichita St. in Riverside Terrace has fallen into foreclosure, a source tells Swamplot. The neighborhood landmark was listed for sale at a price of $325,000 last May. That listing expired in November, but the home’s condition and an included stipulation that only all-cash offers would be accepted may have doomed it. Fondow’s legendary 31-year renovation and expansion project remained unfinished after his death last year; the former daycare center’s top-heavy rack of decks, gables, and turrets have long attracted attention from neighbors and passers-by.
- Previously on Swamplot: Everything But the Turrets: The Riverside Terrace Estate Sale You’ve Sorta Been Waiting For, Wichita St. Mystery House Goes on the Market Today: Your First Peek Inside, Charles Fondow Leaves His Wichita St. Mystery House Unfinished
Photo: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ORIGINS OF THE FRANKENTUSCAN STYLE “. . . It is an extremely unfortunate and yet pervasive fallacy to equate contemporary, non-kitschy architecture with splashy, risky design and poor quality construction done with non-durable materials. There are plenty of examples of understated, elegant, and yes, conventionally constructed and well-built modern design here in Houston. They include local firms such as Lake|Flato (designer of the new HEB) or Kirksey. It’s silly to lump all of modernism together, but depending on your definition of it, Modernism in one form or another has been extensively practiced all over the world ever since the Bauhaus school attempted to develop a formal pedagogy for it in the 1920′s. I *think* over 100 years and x-number of buildings later, we’ve figured out how to build it without leaks. Your second false assumption is that Marvy Finger builds in the Faux-traditional style because it’s ‘tried-and-true’ or ‘inexpensive.’ Ok, well maybe if you go faux all the way (as in crappy plaster cast stone facades) then it would be cheaper. But either way, I’d wager that Finger, who didn’t get to where he is by . . . losing money, is pitching his products at a very specific market segment. Namely, wealthy people and those with aspirations of even more wealth. In the United States it seems that modern architecture is associated with public buildings and some kind of suspicious, alien, and vaguely socialist agenda. Who wants their family, friends, or boss to think that they’re weird or some kind of communist? Hence, the best way to have your dwelling embody your conservative social stance and financial aspirations (or status) is to live in a nice replica of a Tuscan Pallazo or French chateau. Of course, this is absurd and impossible to pull off when you try to cram all the programming and functions of a multi-family apartment or condo building into it, so you usually end up with some kind of a hideous Frankenstein behemoth. Witness any Randall Davis project as an example. It’s alive… ALIVE!!!!” [JL, commenting on Comment of the Day: In Defense of the Same Old-Looking Stuff]
WHERE O WHERE HAS KEN LAY’S CONDO GONE? 
Accustomed to seeing Ken and Linda Lay’s castle-like penthouse suite on the 33rd floor of The Huntingdon at 2121 Kirby for sale at a steadily decreasing price month after month (it’s been on the market since the fall of 2009), a reader is shocked to discover that the 12,827-sq.-ft. trifle — at last note listed at $6.99 million, nearly half off its original asking price — is no longer listed on MLS: “Did it sell?” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33: HAR
Possibly the largest house numbers in Houston belong to this painted-brick structure at — what is it? Oh, yeah — 2101 Banks St. in Boulevard Oaks. Among the perks available with the revamped 1935 home: built-in bookcases in the entryway, a 2-story back porch overlooking a landscaped back yard, and a vastly reduced likelihood that you’ll ever receive someone else’s mail by mistake.
Workers began taking down the engraved stone Stanford Financial Group sign embedded in the facade of the company’s former headquarters building at 5050 Westheimer last Friday, reader Andrew Tyler reports with this tweeted photo. Federal law enforcement officials raided the building and Stanford Financial offices in Galleria Tower II almost 3 years ago; company founder Allen Stanford was arrested 4 months later. In July of 2010, Woodlands-based Black Forest Ventures bought the 3-story, 71,000-sq.-ft. structure across the street from the Galleria for $12.5 million.
- 5050 Westheimer [Black Forest Ventures]
- Previously on Swamplot: The Black Forest Mix, Comment of the Day: Inside the Stanford Financial Group Offices at 5050 Westheimer, Westheimer Office Building and All: Allen Stanford Says Sell!, Feds Now Raiding Stanford Financial Group Offices in the Galleria
Photo: Andrew Tyler
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SORRY, BULK SALES ONLY “$20 a square foot? I’ll take a couple of feet. Can I pick which ones?” [big cat, commenting on Not Even Trying]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PLAYING COY “’Yes, I’m calling about the property that’s not for sale. No, I’m not interested in buying it.’†[ricemilitaryboy, commenting on Not Even Trying]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THEY STILL MAKE IT HERE “Houston isn’t a small, postindustrial city like Portland where PhDs drive cabs because they’re there for the ‘quality of life.’ Houston is a big industrial city that still makes stuff. You can’t look at a ‘cruddy’ low-rise industrial or manufacturing district and wish to replace it with trendy lofts, because those industrial districts are a big part of the city’s prosperity. The oil company office jobs could choose to locate *anywhere*; they choose to locate in Houston because it’s close to where their industrial operations are.” [Keep Houston Houston, commenting on The Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl: The Official 2011 Ballot]
- 10302 Metronome Dr. [HAR]
SHE WOULDN’T GET OUT OF BED, SO I SHOT HER 
A magazine for Houston real estate agents has this version of the backstory behind the body-in-the-bed photo featured in a Heights-area bungalow listing posted last week: “The current tenants are being evicted, and therefore, were uncooperative in making the home look attractive to any other buyers. They refused to clean it for showings and, clearly, even refused to move when [real estate agent Traye] Wise and his assistant stopped by to take interior photos for the listing website; Wise said he asked the husband if he could rouse his wife from bed so they could take just one photo of the bedroom’s interior sans tenants, and while the husband allegedly told his wife to get out of bed, she refused. ‘This was in no way done on purpose,’ Wise said about the bedroom photo. ‘It was supposed to be edited to take (the woman sleeping in bed) out. It was supposed to be Photoshopped, and my assistant put it up by mistake.’†[Houston Agent Magazine; previously on Swamplot]
