02/21/08 4:48pm

Penthouse View, Randall Davis’s Proposed Titan Condo Highrise, Post Oak Blvd., Uptown Houston

All the condos in Randall Davis’s new Titan condo tower on Post Oak will be named after . . . industry titans! Get it? On the 18th floor, for example, you’ll have units named after J. Paul Getty, Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso, and . . . Bill Gates! Now that’s a party. Floor 14? More people of brilliance, though a few of them might not actually get along so well with each other: Frank Sinatra, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Rudolph Valentino, Steven Spielberg. Isn’t that clever?

It gets better: The Brin/Page is . . . a two-bedroom! Strangely, the Buffet has a Kitchen and Dining Room that are separated from the rest of the unit’s living space. And the three-bedroom penthouse named after Mies van der Rohe — whose neighbors are of course Rupert Murdoch and Neil Armstrong — has a Great Room with a curved wall in it, and is connected to the Entry Foyer by a long hallway.

One unit on floors 23 and 24 is simply named The Titan. But there’s no reason for Randall Davis to be so bashful — he really ought to go ahead and name it after himself. Is there anyone else in Houston who even comes close to his stature in the themed-condo market?

The Titan is a break from Davis’s earlier projects, though — because it seems to have so many different themes! Put all those architects, movie stars, musicians, Silicon Valley insiders, oilmen, and suicidal novelists together in a tower styled vaguely like a comic-book rocketship, add in Michelangelo’s sculpture of David as the naked brochure-and-website coverboy, and you’ve got the Titan’s winning marketing formula! A bit confused? Sure. But if anyone can mix all this stuff up and make it work, it’s Randall Davis.

After the jump, floorplans that prove what we all know already: Designing a great building is just like planning a great dinner party that includes a few famous dead people!

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02/21/08 10:34am

View of Proposed New Galleria Whole Foods at Blvd Place at Former Eatzi’s Site

It may not count as confirmation exactly, but we now at least have repetition — from two separate sources — that the new Whole Foods Market our readers have been worrying about will in fact be coming to the Galleria area.

The first source is the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff, who — after interviewing Boulevard Place developer Ed Wulfe — states that a new Whole Foods will be the anchor of Wulfe & Co.’s new mixed-use development on Post Oak Blvd. . . . though it won’t open until 2010.

The second source is . . . a little unusual. We’ll tell you about it in our next an upcoming post.

Update, 2/26/08: That second source.

Boulevard Place Whole Foods image: DMJM H&N

02/20/08 10:54am

Garden of 6040 Glencove St., Memorial, Houston

This 1.35-acre lot at the end of the cul-de-sac on Glencove St. has been on the market for almost 16 months, so you can imagine during that time owner-broker Richard Maier has been trying just about every marketing angle possible. There’s some evidence of it too: The records are a little screwy, but it appears the asking price has been raised three times and lowered four. As of last week, we’re on an upswing! At $2.65 million, it’s back up $51K from its all-time low, but still down from the $3 million of early ’07.

So what do we got?

ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SETTINGS NEAR DOWNTOWN JUST BEFORE MEMROIAL PARK. GORGEOUS VISTAS OF ROLLING HILLS, RAVINES, GARDEN TRAILS, CREEKS AND TURTLE POND! ALL LANDSCAPED WITH THOUSANDS OF EXOTIC PLANTS AND TREES! IRRIGATED BY PRIVATE WELL AND LIGHTED BY NIGHT! THE GROUNDS ARE CONTIGIOUS WITH ACRES OF NATURE PRESERVE & BIRD SANCTUARY!

Clearly, though, Maier’s latest sales tactic has just got to work — now he’s even gonna throw in a genuine Midcentury Modern home with the property. Absolutely free!!!

ALSO INCLUDED IS A CLASSIC MID CENTURY MODERN HOME BY NOTED ARCHICTECT TALBOT WILSON WITH 14 FT.WALLS OF GLASS!

Yeah, it’s a risky strategy: This is Memorial. So better end the listing on a more direct note:

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!

After the jump, exotic plants!!! Plus an actual interior shot of the 5,000-sq.-ft. 1950 home Maier snuck in.

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02/19/08 12:15pm

Menil Townhomes at 608 Stanford St. A, Temple Terrace, Houston

Deck of Menil Townhomes at 608 Stanford St. A, Temple Terrace, HoustonRemember those sleek modern million-dollar white-stucco townhouses designed by New York architect Francois de Menil for a small lot over in Temple Terrace, just behind Allen Parkway?

It was unusual to include the One-Two Townhomes being on the AIA Houston 2006 Home Tour in that they were, and are, unfinished. “My concern was that they would soon be sold,” says [developer Carol Isaak] Barden, “and then nobody would get to see them.”

She shouldn’t have worried. One of the units apparently sold a little less than a year later, and the other is still on the market — though it’s not a million-dollar townhome anymore. After construction finally ended last July, there were five successive price reductions. Since the end of last month this 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,845-sq-ft. townhome has been available for a humbling $779,000. If you count the garage level below and the rooftop deck as a single story, that’s almost as good as getting one whole floor . . . free!

After the jump, a brief gawk inside.

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02/14/08 3:15pm

Georgia Gulf Nighttime View

Available now: A whopping 286.4 acres of lovely and historic waterfront property . . . inside Beltway 8! Easy freeway access. Close to . . . everything! Sealed bids are being accepted until April 7th.

Cushman & Wakefield, the real estate firm listing the site, said the property contains some of the last remaining large tracts of . . . land with water frontage in the Gulf Coast region.

This sounds almost too good to be true.

Photo: Georgia Gulf

02/13/08 11:27am

View of Proposed New Galleria Whole Foods at Blvd Place at Former Eatzi’s Site

Uptown residents have had a lot of fun speculating about just how enormous and feature-filled the new Galleria Whole Foods flagship store on Post Oak Blvd. will be. The Whole Foods website lists it at a massive 78,000 sq. ft. — though the page it’s on hasn’t been updated since last October.

But now from our mailbox comes this gushing report:

Rumors have been circulating for the last week that Whole Foods has pulled out of Ed Wulfe’s BLVD Place development on Post Oak Blvd. The owners of a prominent jewelry store across Post Oak Blvd. have been telling people that the deal fell through.

Is this just shopping-center trash talk? Or has something changed? Our informant provides more Boulevard Place and Whole Foods FUD:

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02/12/08 12:50pm

Elevation of Proposed Belgravia Condos at 4026 Bellefontaine, Houston

Nineteenth-century British architect John Nash is apparently staging some sort of comeback in Gramercy Park. Here’s some of the marketing copy for the Belgravia, a 44-unit midrise condo building planned for Bellefontaine St., just west of Stella Link:

Following the traditions of neo-classical design, by one of Englands greatest architects John Nash, The Belgravia takes us to one of the most exciting times of British innovation where the most remarkable landmarks were sought, built, and admired.

The planning commission recently approved Sunhill Development’s replat of the property, over some vocal neighborhood opposition.

After the jump, more pics of the former British Empire’s Braeswood Place outpost!

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02/07/08 11:30am

The McIngvale Home at 3002 Pine Lake Trail, Northgate Forest

We now have the scoop and an update on Gallery Furniture owner Jim McIngvale’s mansion in Northgate Forest, and it’s a doozy. Yes, it’s still on the market. Yes, the price has been cut. But didja know the extent of the damage?

When last we left the Mattress Mack Pad, it was still soaring at $1.25 million. Well, now it’s down to . . . $885,000. Here’s the timeline:

Total savings overall: Almost 50% . . . if you buy now!

And here comes the Houston real estate cliche: You can take the mansion way out of the Loop, but you can’t take the “way out of the Loop” out of the mansion.

Or something like that.

02/06/08 10:29am

616 E. 18th St., Houston Heights

$1.2 Million in the Heights. And not budging. Since September.

Three bedrooms. Two full and 2 half baths. 3,758 sq. ft. Big lot. Built in 2003. Too many features to list, but that doesn’t stop them. Here’s a partial word count of the listing’s exhausting description:

suite: 3 mentions
custom: 4 mentions
Pella: 4 mentions
audio: 4 mentions
brazilian: 4 mentions
fireplace: 4 mentions
steel: 4 mentions
wood: 5 mentions
marble: 8 mentions
large: 9 mentions

After the jump, a few more photos.

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02/05/08 11:13am

My Houston Home Page, from visithoustontexas.com

The Greater Houston Convention and Visitor Bureau’s celebrity-laden “My Houston” campaign hits the web!!! And it sure looks a lot like Facebook or MySpace, doesn’t it? All the kewl kids are on it, like Beyonce, and Yao, and AJ, and George and Barbara, and Chloe, and Yolanda. And they’re all saying great things about your city!!!

Only . . . there doesn’t seem to be a way to post your own page. Or add your comments to theirs. Or participate in any way.

All those local celebrities? They are not your friends. Clay and Brian and Hilary are not in your extended network.

Loser.

01/30/08 3:14pm

Legacy at Memorial 25-Story Apartment Tower in HoustonThis is the best image we’ve been able to find online of the 25-story apartment tower about to go up at the site of the former Ed Sacks Waste Paper Co. at 440 Studemont, just north of Memorial Dr.

And it makes you wonder: Do these out-of-town developers really know what they’re doing here? First they give the project a name — “Legacy at Memorial” — that makes it sound like a funeral home, in a town where death is already a major industry. Then . . . they think Houston residents will stand for 15 percent of the units in the combination highrise-lowrise development being marketed as “affordable housing.” But weirdest of all . . . it looks like they forgot to give their building a theme!

Memo to Legacy Partners and your California retiree funders: Your tower is going up against some aggressively themed competition. When renters can go next door and feel like they’re in Italy, or go down the street to get a little stucco taste of New Orleans, or cross Allen Parkway for a full-fledged Beaux-Arts Alamo resort revival, just who do you expect is going to want to want to live in an apartment that looks like . . . a building in Houston, Texas?

More on the tower that forgot to put on its clothes and makeup . . . after the jump.

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01/29/08 11:15am

Family Room of 403 Westminster Dr., Houston

A reader reports that the Frame House, a fifties-Modern classic tucked off Memorial Dr., is up for sale for a cool $3 million. Designed by Houston architect Harwood Taylor in 1960, this is about as close to a Case Study House as Houston ever got — and it perches just about as close to Buffalo Bayou as you’d ever want a home to get. Its recent restoration from a mid-eighties whitewashing earned the current owner, his architects, and builder a local preservation award.

If you’re a fan of this kind of Modness, the best news of all is that you don’t have to pay to play: An open house is scheduled for the afternoon of Sunday, February 17th. If you’re not a fan, you can visit and imagine how it would all look with crown moulding and a nice, traditional pitched roof.

After the jump, a few more details about the home, plus a demonstration of the real value real estate agents can bring to a fine listing like this.

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01/22/08 8:36am

Interior of 2103 Berry St., Third Ward, Houston, Under Construction

Renovate or demolish? It’s a false choice, really. Now you can do both!

If ever one listing encapsulated the essential paradox at the heart of the Third Ward’s uh . . . “resurgence,” it’s the one just posted for 2103 Berry St.

Contractors are hard at work completely renovating this Third Ward duplex . . . so that you can buy it and tear it down. Then you can start over and build brand-new townhouses! The brand-new listing features the construction-site photo above and the following description:

GREAT DUPLEX UNDER RENOVATIONS LOCATED MINUTES AWAY FROM DOWNTOWN,MIDTOWN, TOYOTA CENTER AND MINUTE MAID PARK. CORNER LOT SURROUNDED BY NEW CONSTRUCTION. PHENOMENAL OPPORTUNITY FOR A DEVELOPER’S OR INVESTOR’S TO BUILD TOWNHOMES.

Who says you can’t have it all?

After the jump: Can’t we just slather the stucco over the exterior brickwork and call it even?

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01/21/08 11:54am

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLnLsrK5Tjs 400 330]

The brave work of Southwest Houston and Houston Apartment Renaissance scholars has been rewarded — a second mid-1980s Colonial House TV commercial is now available on YouTube!

No it’s not quite as iconic and over-the-top as the one with the VCR in the pool, but look at that fabulous indoor-outdoor furniture! Almost a quarter century later, we know Michael Pollack is alive and well, but does anyone know where that living-room mandala and dining-room set ended up?

01/08/08 4:01pm

Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, by Joel OsteenThere’s more to the story of the Lakewood Church pastor’s amazing house flip: How were Joel and Victoria Osteen able to unload their townhouse in order to buy that house they made so much money on?

Readers of Joel Osteen’s previous book — Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential — already know the answer. From page 265:

Victoria and I had been married a few years when we decided that we wanted to sell our townhome and buy a house. We put the townhome on the market for six or eight months, but we never had a serious offer. Hardly anybody looked at it, even though we were praying regularly, asking God to help us sell it.

We really wanted the other house, but we couldn’t afford it until we sold our townhome. Finally, we decided to do more than pray. We needed to sow a special seed in faith, believing for that townhome to sell.

There’s more!

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