Renovations

Home Decor
07/25/08 12:48pm

The Osteens’ “Leopard-Skinned Luxury”: Fancy or French?

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Interiors, Real Estate Investing, Renovations
6 Comments

Joel and Victoria Osteen in Their Home

From a profile of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen by Karl Taro Greenfeld in next month’s Portfolio magazine:

The Osteens, like so many American families during the recent real estate boom, spent the better part of the past decade buying, renovating, and selling homes, and became so proficient in the process that Osteen and his wife were able to skip hiring a contractor for their last renovation and go directly to the subcontractors to complete their mansion. Coming off the boom, during which the average American dwelling doubled in size, the Osteens’ digs are more modest than one might guess. The house is decorated in a rococo style that Victoria has called “French” and Osteen calls “fancy.”

Photo of Joel and Victoria Osteen at home: Randal Ford, Portfolio

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Apartments
07/24/08 1:29pm

Help for the Huntwick

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Buying and Selling, FM 1960, Foreclosures, Neighborhood Disputes, Real Estate Investing, Renovations
4 Comments

Huntwick Apartments, 5100 FM 1960 Rd., Houston

A Dallas real-estate firm is ready to rescue the Huntwick Apartments on FM 1960 near Wunderlich Rd. from receivership — and also from its management, before that, by Louisiana real-estate investor Michael B. Smuck.

As of last year, just as it prepared to file for bankruptcy, Smuck’s Louisiana-based MBS Companies owned 65 apartment buildings in Texas — 33 of them in the Houston area. Even prior to that, the company’s property-maintenance skills had reached legendary status. The president and executive vice president of the Houston Apartment Association relayed complaints from residents and neighbors of MBS apartments to the Wall Street Journal last year, and reported that the griping had only increased after the influx of residents fleeing Hurricane Katrina in late 2005.

Here’s a commenter on the Houston Politics blog back in April (quoted in Swamplot), describing the scene at the 288-unit Huntwick:

Balconies have collapsed, lots of overgrown vegetation, the paint is peeling, there is obviously a total lack of maintenance. A large tree split in half on their property adjacent to Coral Gables Dr., and after the dead half lay on the ground (in plain view) for over 6 months, a crew finally cut it into smaller pieces, which then lay in the same spot for another 6 months.

After the jump: What’s happening to the Huntwick, plus the complete Michael B. Smuck Houston apartment roster!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Apartments
07/22/08 3:42pm

Where To Put Magnolia Glen

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Eastwood, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Renovations, Temporary Housing
5 Comments

WHERE TO PUT MAGNOLIA GLEN If the city will cough up $4 million, developers will turn a former temporary UH dorm next to Fingers furniture on the north side of the Gulf Freeway into a 220-unit housing project for Houstonians who are currently homeless. Mayor White supports the Magnolia Glen project, but district councilman James Rodriguez and some residents of nearby Eastwood don’t like the location. “Former Councilman Gordon Quan, a member of the blue-ribbon commission, said . . . money helps determine where sites can be found. ‘People say, “Why don’t you put this in River Oaks or Memorial?” We couldn’t afford the land in River Oaks. But we are cognizant that these need to be spread around,’ he said.” [Houston Chronicle]

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Buying and Selling
07/07/08 2:00pm

Heaven on Earth Being Reincarnated

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Commercial Real Estate, Downtown, Hotels, Renovations
3 Comments

Former Holiday Inn, Days Inn, and Heaven on Earth Inn, St. Joseph Parkway at Travis, Downtown Houston

“A group of doctors and entrepreneurs” calling itself New Era Hospitality is the mystery buyer of the long-abandoned 31-story former Days Inn-former Holiday Inn-former Heaven on Earth Plaza Hotel on St. Joseph Parkway between Travis and Milam, reports Nancy Sarnoff in the Chronicle:

. . . demolition has already started on the interiors, which are being gutted and will be replaced with 340 modern suites, 60 standard guest rooms, 32,000 square feet of meeting space and a swimming pool and bar on top of the attached garage.

That’s down from 600 rooms in the original structure. New Era is hoping either Sheraton, Marriott, or . . . Holiday Inn (again!) will operate the property when it’s finished, in January 2010.

Photo: arch-ive.org

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Home Design
05/27/08 1:41pm

Memorial Hollow Addition: From Vaguely Mod to Austinish and Odd

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Homes for Sale, Memorial, Memorial Hollow, Renovations
4 Comments

12415 Perthshire Rd., Before

12415 Perthshire Rd., After

From one of Swamplot’s initial correspondents, K, comes word of a redo in Memorial Hollow she says

looks like a Mr. Potatohead gone wrong — parts and bits and pieces on a foundation that don’t really go together. It still looks to me like the bottom half of an older house that someone plopped new construction on top of.

At first, K thought the house

was being torn down like so many other 1960s-era homes in my neighborhood. It was a one-story, typical little cottage on a big lot — the kind they love to demolish and then fill up the entire lot with a three-story monstrosity. But then I realized that they were, in fact, totally remodeling it. They tore the roof off and blew out the back of the house until only three brick walls were standing.

Then they rebuilt the back wall and added a second story to the house. It looks pretty bizarre now, although I can’t tell if that’s because I was used to the little bungalow that was there before or because the house really does look weird. You be the judge.

Below: More before-and-after photos of this hollow sixties memorial in Memorial Hollow, ready for your verdict!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Historic Preservation
05/23/08 12:41pm

No White Tablecloths: Kraftsmen and Textile in the Heights

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Houston Heights, Houston History, Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants
1 Comment

Oriental Textile Mill, Houston Heights, Houston

On June 1st, Scott Tycer will be opening a new wholesale and retail location of his Kraftsmen Bakery in 10,000 long-vacant square feet of the old Oriental Textile Mill on 22nd St. and Lawrence in the Heights. Also opening in the space two months later: a 1,200-square-foot restaurant with a garden patio and bar area, designed by Ferenc Dreef.

Tycer, who was the chef at Aries and then Pic on Montrose, and who runs Gravitas on Taft (which Dreef also designed), will be cooking at the restaurant, which will be called Textile. Tycer described Textile to blogger Cleverley Stone:

We’re going to build out the dining room with textiles, lots of hanging fabrics and different tablecloths on each table. This will not be your typical white-tablecloth restaurant.

Tycer is right: White tablecloths would probably not be appropriate for the space. A history of the Heights written by Sister M. Agatha of the Incarnate Word Academy and published in 1956 describes the operations of the textile mill, which was originally built in 1892 as a mattress factory:

B. J. Platt for years was superintendent of the plant that turned out a product which looked like long rolls of carpeting and which was used for pressing cotton seed oil. The plant’s capacity was about 50 rolls a day, varying in price from $200 to $400 a roll.

The textile was woven from hair. Old residents of the Heights have handed down the story that in the beginning much of the hair was obtained from China when pigtails were being discarded. But certain it is that camel’s hair in time came to be the staple used in production.

Photo of Oriental Textile Mill: Tasty Bits

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Brookesmith
05/01/08 8:17am

The Neighborhood You Would Never Guess

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Interiors, Renovations
8 Comments

Interior of 701 A—– St., Houston

So you think this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game is tough? Sure it is. But it’s not impossible.

You want to see impossible? Try guessing the neighborhood of the home shown in these photos. This is a home we decided not to use for this week’s contest . . . for, uh, reasons that should become clear when you read all the way to the end of this post.

But don’t do that just yet!

Look at the photos of the interior below, after the jump . . . but stop scrolling before you get all the way to the bottom, so you can spend a minute or so testing yourself, to see if you’re the kind of Houston real-estate savant who really could figure out this home’s location, just by viewing images of the inside.

Swamplot readers are very sharp . . . but this has got to be impossible. Without seeing the pictures of the exterior (added at the very end), there’s no way you’d ever be able to identify the correct neighborhood. Well, okay — you might just get lucky. But there’s no way to figure it out, really.

Office Area, 701 A—– St., Houston

Ready to see more interior photos?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Chinatown
04/30/08 10:28am

New Home for Vietnamese Food in the West End

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Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants, West End
3 Comments

4705 Inker St., Houston

Discussing Vietnamese restaurants in Houston, Food in Houston’s Anonymouseater notes the upcoming launch of Pagoda Vietnamese Bistro and Bar — the latest addition to the agglomeration of restaurants off Shepherd and Durham, just south of I-10. But Pagoda appears to be struggling to gain its bearings. The restaurant’s website and menu claim:

We are the first authentic Vietnamese eatery west of downtown with a full menu comparative in traditional quality that can be found in Southeast Houston better known as Chinatown.

There’s more Houston neighborhood-related entertainment in Pagoda’s description of itself on its website:

Up and coming restaurant surely to be a neighborhood favorite to the Heights hippies, Midtown young professionals, Montrose eclectic crowd, Museum District artisans, River Oakies, and the Downtown/Allen Parkway industry professionals.

Anonymouseater provides a helpful summary — and preliminary verdict:

Translation: bringing Vietnamese food from Bellaire to a non-Asian audience with nice decor and high prices. Sounds like Vietopia? Those goals are not necessarily bad. But the food has to be compelling for it to work.

Photo of 4705 Inker St. (from 2006): HAR

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Commercial Real Estate
04/28/08 7:18pm

Building Smaller, Building Green, Adapting, and Reusing: The Home Depot Way

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Green Design and Development, Industrial Properties, New Construction, Northwest Houston, Real Estate Marketing, Renovations
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Site of Fallbrook Distribution Center, 8103 Fallbrook Dr., Houston

Just add punchline: If all goes as planned, Home Depot will soon be operating a LEED-certified distribution center just south of the Sam Houston Race Park in Northwest Houston.

Pennsylvania REIT Liberty Property Trust began constructing the enormous 535,000-square-foot Fallbrook Distribution Center at the southwest corner of Fallbrook Dr. and Fairbanks-North Houston on spec, and plans to submit it to the U.S. Green Building Council for core & shell certification. Home Depot will be leasing the entire facility.

But Home Depot wanted a few changes made . . .

Liberty Property . . . switched gears in the middle of construction to make the facility — originally planned as 615,000 square feet — smaller to suit the long-term tenant. “We disassembled the east side of the building and relocated tiltwall concrete panels to create a larger employee parking area,” [Liberty Property’s Joe] Trinkle says. “We had to take apart the building to accommodate their need.”

The west side of the building was also disassembled and reconstructed in order to add a third loading dock, he says.

Gary Mabray, an industrial broker with Colliers International, says it is unusual for a construction project to undergo as many changes as this one did.

“That building was basically finished,” Mabray says. “They had to go back in and demolish slab and everything.”

Liberty Trust, a real estate investment trust, offered the tenant a build-to-suit option at another site so the building would not have to be converted, but Trinkle says the timing was off.

Photo of Fallbrook Distribution Center under construction: Liberty Property Trust

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East Downtown
04/21/08 11:53pm

Pierce Elevated Face Change

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Medical Buildings, Midtown, Office Buildings, Renovations
1 Comment


View Larger Map

The St. Joseph Professional Building, which looms over the Pierce Elevated, will be getting some sort of face lift soon, reports Amy Wolff Sorter in Globe St.:

The building, which underwent a $10-million renovation in the past year, will get an additional $7.8 million of upgrades from its new owners.

Alex Brown Realty of Baltimore and locally based Mission Equities GP LLC are taking on the 44-year-old building at 2000 Crawford St. St. Joseph Professional Building has a mix of retail and medical office space. . . .

Upgrades to the 18-story building will include replacements of the HVAC and sprinkler systems. Also on tap are upgrades to the elevator, life-safety system, exterior façade and interior common areas. The renovations are anticipated to be completed within six to nine months.

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Montrose
04/09/08 12:41pm

Feast: Going Whole Hog on Lower Westheimer

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Openings and Closings, Renovations, Restaurants
1 Comment

Interior of Feast, 219 Westheimer Rd., Montrose, Houston

Anonymouseater, writing in the Food in Houston blog, begins discussion of a brand-new restaurant on Lower Westheimer with this caution:

Warning: This post contains material for an adult audience. Children, sensitive readers, and vegetarians should read no further. They also should not go to one of my new favorite Houston restaurants called “Feast.”

Anonymouseater is wrong about the vegetarian part. The proprietors of Feast claim to serve “great vegetarian food.” For example, in today’s lunch menu, “Roasted Vegetable Salad with Chickpeas and Homemade Yoghurt Cheese” is listed next to . . . “Tongue and Testicles in Green Sauce.”

And just above the “Lamb’s Tongues, Bacon, Rutabaga and Swiss Chard” is “Thyme Braised Lentils with Balsamic Tomato Salad.” So you see, Feast offers fine dining for every taste!

But really, why all the strange animal parts?

Real carnivores eat meat from the whole animal.

Oh. Feast’s home at 219 Westheimer is the former location of Chez George. Notes another reviewer, at Tasty Bits:

A few months ago it was a charming old house with creaky floors and ancient diners in suits eating continental food. Walk into Feast today you might think you’re in a neighborhood diner on Notting Hill. The space looks more open and full of light. Where a place like Ristorante Cavour feels like a facsimile created by an interior designer, Feast with it’s dark woods, family photos and subtle touches throughout the restaurant make it feel as if someone actually lives there. It’s a great place to eat.

After the jump: More cowball!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Development Restrictions
03/14/08 4:00pm

Sunset Heights: Will Not Subdivide

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Development Strategy, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Sunset Heights
6 Comments

Former Post Office at 2601 Baylor St., Sunset Heights, Houston

East Sunset Heights Methadone Clinic Ad

This Methadone Clinic graphic was posted today on the Medusa Properties website, and conveys in slightly different fashion the same news we received in our email from a Heights-area reader:

The oh-so-neighborly Mr. Jared Meadors did *not* receive the variance he requested for the Baylor St subdivision.

Photo of 2601 Baylor St. and Methadone Clinic Graphic: Medusa Properties

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Development Restrictions
03/13/08 6:23pm

A Sunset Heights Lot Size Turf War

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Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Sunset Heights
25 Comments

Former Post Office at 2601 Baylor St., Sunset Heights, Houston

Here’s just one paragraph from a nine-page variance request application submitted for consideration at today’s Planning Commission hearing:

So what message does this whole process send to people like me who are willing to go out and spend their time and their hard earned money and take risks in order to improve the city and improve our neighborhoods? The message is: Only the guys with deep pockets and deep connections—the Perry Homes, the Tricons, the Fingers, the Olmsteads, the Levits, the Weingartens—only those guys get to win at this game. Those guys can build what they want when they want. Everybody else loses. Everybody else gets bad advice and the run around. Everybody else should just stay home and sit quietly on their couches and watch TV.

There’s more to like in Jared Meadors’s request to subdivide the 49-by-120-ft. property he owns at 2601 Baylor St. in Sunset Heights into three separate lots — including an accounting of his annual net adjusted income over the last three years, two HAR.com screen shots, and some occasional heavy leaning on the CAPS LOCK key. But it’s nothing, really, compared to his more wide-ranging complaints about his difficulties with his neighbors and the Prevailing Lot Size ordinance that he has posted on the website of his company, Medusa Properties. It begins:

NEW CONSTRUCTION! SUNSET HEIGHTS – MODERN CRAFTSMAN STYLE – AVAIL SPRING 2008
*** UPDATE *** THE BLUE HAIRED LAWN NAZIS OF EAST SUNSET HEIGHTS STRIKE AGAIN!

More name-calling, after the jump!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Construction Materials
03/04/08 11:47pm

Just Listed: Little Green Rehab in the Sixth Ward

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Development Strategy, Environmental, Green Design and Development, Historic Preservation, Homes for Sale, Old Sixth Ward, Real Estate Marketing, Renovations
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706 W. Sawyer St., Old Sixth Ward, Houston

It’s a little old bungalow on a small lot . . . but it’s clean and green inside! The sellers of this 2-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath, 960-sq.-ft. home say they’re trying to get this Sixth Ward home LEED certified:

The 1920 facade has been preserved, but when you open the door, its all about 21st century. The hm has been renovated using non toxic materials, low VOC paint & sustainable design materials.

A neighbor who watched the work reports the house was sold to the current owners as a teardown:

It was a nasty, dirty, filthy, funky house with a garage in the front yard. They tore the garage off the front, moved the house around on the lot a tad, and have done an outstanding renovation.

Plus: the neighbors are very very quiet, says our correspondent. The house is next to Glenwood Cemetery.

Read on for more pics, from before and after!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Avalon Place
02/15/08 7:02pm

River Oaks International: Out with the Old English, In with the Old Swedish

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Home Decor, Interiors, Renovations, River Oaks
No Comments

Avalon Place House, Old English Version, Family Room, River Oaks, Houston

Avalon Place House, Old Swedish Version, Family Room, River Oaks, Houston

Houston interior designer Joni Webb takes time out from her usual focus on French design to tell the story of a home in Avalon Place that was done up first in an English country style (top photo), and then — some years later — completely redone by the same owners to something more . . . 18th century Swedish (second from top).

The English incarnation, which was captured in a Country Living magazine feature in the 1990s, had taken years to perfect, Webb reports:

. . . the finished project was perfect: a cozy English, country-style home, filled with authentic antiques, Italian oil paintings, wall to wall seagrass, faux painted yellow and red walls, toile wallpapers, Bennison fabrics and Kenneth Turner candles. It was an open, fun house – the site of many parties where people gathered around a roaring fire and lounged in the deep George Smith sofa, all the while remarking on how warm and inviting the home was.

So, it was a great surprise to many, including [Houston interior designer Carol] Glasser herself, when the wife declared she had changed. She no longer loved her home’s decor, she wanted a new look – a Swedish look – and not just a Swedish antique here and there, but a total, complete Swedish home. And so, for the second time, everything in the house was either sold or was stored and they started the process of decorating their home, completely from scratch, again.

Who best to complete this European migration? Carol Glasser, the same designer who had created the house’s first look. (This time, she enlisted help from Swedish Style expert Katrin Cargill.) After the jump, more before-and-after photos, plus nitty-gritty details of international style-travel.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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