You’d probably heard that the whole Tuscan thing was big up in the northern burbs, but did you imagine it this big? This “Outstanding 15 Century Tuscan Custom Home” in the gated Legends of Augusta Pines development — with garage space for 5 cars — was listed last week for $1,499,000. It’s hard to imagine any size person that wouldn’t fit in this home — though actual Tuscan giants might want to upsize the furniture and bathroom fixtures:
Reader Claire de Lune has a reconnaissance report on the mysterious home at 9765 Oak Point Dr. in Spring Branch Woods Swamplot highlighted yesterday — you know, the new “enter at your own risk, with a mask” $110K listing apparently so horrifying to the agent that only a series of seemingly random stock photos could properly represent it. “There IS a house behind all that foliage,” our volunteer correspondent assures us. But then: “I must say, of all the stock photos [the listing agent] used, the little children running away in fear is the MOST appropriate.”
Claire de Lune reports that the rest of the street is pretty, but there’s no for-sale sign in front of this home:
This is a corner lot, overgrown with a minimum 3-4 years of neglect. Dead tree limbs on the roof suggest Ike damage. I suspect someone who really knows where and how to dig can find out when the taxes were last paid. . . . This place is within walking distance of the ginormous HEB @ Bunker Hill and all that surrounds it.
A couple more photos from the scene:
Must be pretty bad, if a brand-new listing has to resort to a gallery of stock photos (some shown above) in place of actual property pix. “Enter at your own risk, with a mask,” reads the description. But the note to agents is more colorful and contradictory:
Sold As is. Investors only. Cash Only. A diamond in the WAY rough, enter at your own risk, with a mask. Unoccupied, Feel free to walk on property. Inhabitable. . . . Drive by only, just make offer.
“I can only imagine what condition this place is in,” writes the reader who sent us the listing. All the excitement and adventure can be yours — for just $110,000.
Here’s a 1920 bungalow taking up valuable space on a 7,000-sq.-ft. lot on Merrill St. near Watson. The lot size and the Woodland Heights address make the “perfect combination for building your new home in the Heights,” declares the new listing. The structure, “in need of extensive repairs,” features 3 apparently unphotographable bedrooms and 1 bath. List price: $245,000.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SECRETS OF THE METRONATIONAL DEATH STAR — REVEALED! 
“Could this be an air traffic control tower for getting the Chemtrail plane patterns accurately placed in skies… for desired weather pattern chemical fallouts… aluminum oxide, barium oxide and ethylene dibromide… very harmful to us.
No one is allowed to go to these top five floors all owned by MetroNational Bank (who own the whole building plus more). The rest of the floors 28 and under are doctors offices and hospital. I thought that was a bit odd.
It just looks so much like an air traffic control tower… but with no airport near-by… then one must ask…â€what in the air.. are they controlling… if not planes landing?†Possibly Chemtrials floating?
I invite any comments. Please research Chemtrails first. I am not a conspiracy theory person nor do I believe in UFO’s, ghosts, or [Morgellons] disease.” [CLD, commenting on There Will Be No Tours of the Death Star, and Other Details About the Hospital in the Belly of the Memorial Hermann Tower] Photo: Tony Sava
Bringing you the happening sounds of the vacant former Morse Wholesale Paper Co. on the east side — live, via YouTube!
Can’t get enough of this sort of thing? More Industrial:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SOMEONE WAS SLEEPING IN MY ROOM! “Never mind houses that have experienced murder-suicide or even natural death. A lot of today’s Houston area buyers seem to be creeped out by the thought of buying a house that someone else has LIVED in.” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Comment of the Day: Deal Killers]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DEAL KILLERS “. . . the fact of someone breathing their last at a property holds no ick factor for me. Once, at a Closing, in that long interval where you are waiting for copies, the little old lady Seller told me about her boyfriend dying at the house I had just bought. Didn’t creep me out at all– just a sweet sad tale. But . . . I am really curious as to what house history would be a deal breaker for you all. [Death] by natural causes? By violence? Creepy perpetrators of off-site crimes?” [Harold Mandell, commenting on A Swank Modern Meyerland Home with a Record]
That rock hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the offices of architecture firm BNIM in the old Weldon Cafeteria building on Main St. is “most definitely real,†Norhill Realty leasing agent Vincent Biondillo tells Swamplot. It came from San Jacinto Stone. What’s it for? Well, Wichita St. ends across the street, shooting all sorts of negative T-junction Feng Shui energy straight at the building. And the availability of large stocks of chi-fortifying Red Bull and Chester Fried Chicken at the Chevron food mart on the corner probably doesn’t help. Biondillo, who’s still trying to lease a few vacant spaces in the building at 4916 Main, explains the rock was placed recently by a Feng Shui Master hired by BNIM to solve the problem.
A chi POV shot and closeups of the Museum District’s fiercest Sha Chi assassin:
OUR KIND OF TOWN, CHICAGO IS 
United Airlines buys Continental, decides to stay home: “Chicago will be the new headquarters, which is already causing a stir in Continental’s home in Houston. Smisek was asked on the call this morning why would the new airline be centered in the windy city when Houston has a ‘lower cost of living,’ and a ‘better business environment’ Smisek said simply that the only way the deal would get done is if Chicago became the headquarters and emphasized the importance of O’Hare airport as a vital hub.” [Deal Journal]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE 15,000-ACRE BEAST AT CEDAR CROSSING “It’s an industrial park that is about 6.5 miles across (the distance between Allen’s Landing and the Astrodome, or UH and Hobby Airport). It has its own wharves, it’s own freeway (purpose-built for all intents and purposes), is rail-served, and is adjacent to the RWJ Airpark, which has a 5,111-foot runway suitable for general aviation activities. It’s not Hillwood’s Alliance Texas. It’ll never be an air cargo epicenter. But it doesn’t need to be. Wharves and railheads aren’t synergistic with air cargo. It’s truly amazing, in so many respects.” [TheNiche, commenting on Courting the Smiths: We Don’t Care Who You Are, But Please Please Like Us!]
What secretive out-of-town company is scouting out a 60-acre tract on the far side of Baytown in the world’s 5th-largest industrial park? The Texas Enterprise Fund and the Greater Houston Partnership likely don’t know either, but both are working hard to get the company to develop its mysterious $200 million facility here, near huge existing Wal-Mart and Home Depot distribution centers.
The HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson reports that executives from the unknown company have only conducted 6 stealth visits of the property:
Cedar Crossing [Business Park] executives know only that the potential buyer intends to manufacture something large, and that Project 21 is being spearheaded by McCallum Sweeney Consulting, a site-selection company based in Greenville, S.C.
Charles Iupe, general partner of the 15,000-acre industrial park, says he has met with Project 21 executives on several occasions, and they have only given their first names.
During a site visit in February, the incognito executives took a helicopter ride for an aerial view of the location. Before leaving the ground they were required to sign waivers. Each one used “Smith” as a last name.
But surely the brokers must know who these people are . . . ?
An amused reader points Swamplot to the HAR listing shown above for a newly discounted home in Bridgeland. Conveniently, HAR highlights MLS listing price drops — and the occasional price correction — of a certain weight. And which one is this? The price for this 4-year-old “hardly lived in” 4,061-sq.-ft. home was adjusted downward by a little more than $4 million on . . . April Fools Day.
When last Swamplot visited the tiny Freeland Historic District at the foot of the Heights almost a year ago, Samantha Wood and her husband, architect Jack Preston Wood, had just given up on plans to purchase a little bungalow at 536 Granberry St., demolish it, and replace it with a new 1-1/2-story bungalow. The Woods’ earlier plans — to build two 4-story townhomes on the property — stirred up protests from neighbors and a rejection from the city historical commission.
Did all that hullabaloo in the newly-minted historic district scare off potential buyers? A Freeland neighbor says no — and suspects most of the neighborhood’s new attention is coming from builders:
525 Granberry Street (now listed on the tax rolls and MLS as 525 E. 5th 1/2 Street) went on the market last week. So many offers have been received they ask that final bids go in tomorrow, April 16.
Why would builders be so interested in this property?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOUR LOVELY NEW HOME IN TALLOWOOD “. . . I was in Dallas this weekend and while flipping through channels in the hotel room, I came across one of those Sunday morning suburban real estate infomercials where they showcase a single builder in one neighborhood that is under construction. During a testimonial from a recent homebuyer, the guy lauded the ‘acres of beautiful forests’ surrounding his new home. As the camera panned the landscape, I saw nothing but 10 foot tall invasive mesquite trees as far as the eye could see. Seems like our Houston realtors should start cashing in on the ‘aesthetic value’ of the ‘tallow forests’ – especially emphasizing the ‘fall color’ and its function as an ‘environmentally friendly privacy screen.’ Most homebuyers would have no idea what they’re looking at. Carefully rewording reality is usually what realtors do on HAR, anyway!” [Superdave, commenting on What Happens If You Don’t Garden the Wild]
