Summaries

No open house tour this weekend . . . but let us know if you see any you like. In the meantime, enjoy these fun comments posted on Swamplot over the past week:

• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Something Fishy
  From Pat: “The Dalai Lama needs to use these photos in his Powerpoint presentations — SEE what happens if you concentrate too much on acquiring stuff?“
• Mosaic Rumor: Second Tower Going Rental?
  From MLN878: “What is the big deal with renters vs buyers? Every high-rise in Houston has renters. If you know one that doesn’t please tell me the name.”
• Venue-Appropriate Stucco Repair
  From Chris: “If the crack doesn’t spread any further you all will feel pretty silly.“
• Daily Demolition Report: Living Improvements
  From Pat: “I can’t let the passing of the State Grille go uncommented-upon. I remember its previous incarnation fondly — it was The Black Angus, and the restaurant’s name was emblazoned in three-dimensional, hammered-on lettering across the side of the building. Every so often, some wag would steal the ‘g.’ Truly, inside of my middle-aged female body beats the heart of a 13 year old boy. It would crack me up every time. The disgusted proprietors finally took to painting the “g” onto the side of the building in the appropriate place. Ahh, Houston landmarks.”

Just a few of the notable contributions from Swamplot readers this past week:

• City Shuts Down Gables of Inwood; Park Memorial Condos Next?
  From John: “. . . the problem is that 80% of the parking is directly UNDER units. So if the parking is in danger of collapsing there are some people that live right above the garage that may be a bit incoveniened if their homes go crashing through the floor.”
• Bennigan’s Rides into the Sunset
  From IJ: “I’ll mis eating the Monte Cristo. I will not miss the writhing agony of allnight heartburn that followed.”
• Antique for Sale: Heights Theater on the Block
  From Neil: “Are you sure this hood isn’t Citibanked yet?”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Draped
  From karen: “I was all like ‘finally, an old ranch from Old Braeswood!’ until I got to the conference rooms and then the pool. Not Old Braeswood!”

Swamplot had more than 100 comments from readers this week. Thanks, everybody! Here are a few favorites:

• Pearland Town Center Ready To Open: Pull on Up!
  From Brian: “For 1300 a month, you can have the “downtown feel” in…wait for it… downtown!”
• Those Aren’t Live Oaks on Kirby Anymore
  From EMME: “Not every street has to be an expressway. Why not leave Shepherd as the expressway for the area and leave Kirby alone as a scenic drive?”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Marble Steps
  From Chris: “It’s like the Home Depot ceiling fan section with all the different options, except that you have to walk through the house to see them all.”
• City Shuts Down Gables of Inwood; Park Memorial Condos Next?
  From Bernard: “The land under their units is so valuable that brokers are telling them that a land sale to a developer will bring them all a substantial premium over the market value of the units sold to residential users. How do you think they enticed 95% of the condo owners to sell out?”
• Enter the Pipe Wrench: The MainPlace Movie
  From Highlander: “I half expected to see Darth Vader choking some generals in that board room…”

Your comments make Swamplot much more tasty! Try these bites from the past week:

• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Stuffed
  From karen: “I can’t believe how many houses were built in Houston between 1950 and 1970. It’s like a population explosion happened at the same time that central a/c was invented.”
• InnerLoopCondos Wants To Know: Would You Prefer Ugly, Pretentious, or Simply Out of Place?
  From Chuckles: “I agree with littlehands…If they put the mountain in that’d kickass…then maybe they wouldn’t need the indoor ski arena…”
• Help for the Huntwick
  From Robert: “The dregs of the apartment business that couldn’t get hired anywhere else would end up there, for awhile at least, but the lunacy of the organization ultimately would drive most sane people away.”
• Snow Mountain, Texas: Indoor Skiing in Houston
  From laanba: “Part of me wants to make fun of this and the other part of me wants to go skiing.”
• The Osteens’ “Leopard-Skinned Luxury”: Fancy or French?
  From Miz Brooke Smith: “What are they trying to do, re-create the Garden of Eden? If so, the tiger-skin chair is a no-no.”

Swamplot loves comments! You make ’em, we rate ’em. Here are a few of the best from the past week:

• Man Living in Billboard: No Film at 9
  From Dirty3rd: “The place might be a bit drafty, but the views!”
• Grace Community Church and the Giant Crosses on I-45
  From Evan.mintz@gmail.com: “I wish a Catholic church were doing this, then we’d also get an awesome giant Jesus attached to the cross.”
• Finding Hidden Value in the Tremont Tower
  From Nancy: “Dismissing consumers who have proof of fraud has put our entire nation in danger of severe deep recession.”
• Spring’s Eternal Hope: Release from Houston ETJ
  From Eric: “. . . why do people here in the south love to have two names for everything! Why not just call it Klein (small in German), or Spring – what the “old town” was named after. Perhaps they can call it Small Spring, Texas. Or even better – Sprung, Texas.”
• Weekend Open House Tour: Glenbrook Valley
  From Robert: “It is not an area for everybody. But if you are going to live close to town in Houston, with our no zoning you better be used to the block by block adventure of good areas next to bad.”
• Parting Shots: Houston Starbucks Farewell Photo Album
  From Jessie M: “. . . are they good for anything else besides another coffee shop? If they couldn’t succeed there, will a mom and pop one?”

Hey, great comments this week, everybody! Here are a few favorites:

• Finding Hidden Value in the Tremont Tower
  From RWB: “Tremont Tower has plenty of value for me. Amusement value. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.”
• The New Regent Square: Details and Drawings
  From Elouise A. Jones: “Ugly brick without the proper pigments is very dull, depressing and flat. Unfortunately CVS has put it all over Texas. So have the corner banks. It’s not too late guys to reconsider your choices. Think Texas vernacular, please. Overhangs and trees, clean lines, and don’t forget the sky and good lighting, park benches, birds and a place to water your dog.”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Open Bar
  From Ryan: “They really want to be artsy. The statue of the horse on the breakfast table is an interesting way to go about it though, as you have to look under the horses belly and around its junk to talk to someone on the other side.”
• White Oak Tower: It Was All Just a Bad Drawing
  From Corey: “Leave the single-use, single-family-only building to the dying exurbs. A nice mix of land-use has been and will continue to be the strong suit of the Heights.”

Just a few of the many entertaining comments Swamplot readers contributed this week:

• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Hearth and Home
  From GoogleMaster: “The tilted cross on the mantle, the dead animal skull with uneven horns, the all-white paint job reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — where do you find these things?”
  From Karen: “I’m so damn addicted to this game that I am posting this from a business trip in Moscow.”
  From margo: “I do think the house is in Garden Oaks. Balding person lives there, Nixon shampoo in the bathroom.”
• Head of the Titans: Cosmopolitan Pissoirs on Post Oak
  From Miz Brooke Smith: “The juxtaposition between the grandiose buildings and Mr. Davis in unbuttoned shirtsleeves waggling his hands like a TV furniture salesman seems in keeping with the weirdness of the whole enterprise.”

No open-house tour from us this weekend . . . you can go it alone! Let us know if you see anything interesting. In the meantime, enjoy these tasty reader comments from the past week:

• Heaven on Earth Sells Again
  From mt: “8′-0″ ceilings are the best you will ever do on this building. Brave souls have looked at removing floors to increase ceiling height, (or even better, adding double height spaces to the ends of the building) but the cost is ridiculous.”
• Most Unknown: Ashford Point Palace of the Golden Orbs
  From Ben Berwick: “It’s as if each level in the temple serves as a higher order of sought righteousness, whereby a zenith of faith (or brainwashing) culminates on a small platform within the apogee of the dome”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: House Pool
  From margo: “I’ve been known to hang a few bras from my treadmill but never a dead animal.”
• Tips Only: Downtown-to-Midtown Zero-Emission Shuttle
  From Jim: “I dunno … the resemblance is uncanny. Then again, TV’s William Frawley and architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe also looked a lot alike, and I’m at least 65 percent sure they weren’t the same person.”
• Between Gotham and Renoir: Squeezing New Apartments into the Shepherd Curve Theme Park
  From Pat: “We’ve GOT to get some decent sidewalks, more than one-half person wide, that actually go somewhere and keep all of our residents, neighbors and dog-walkers out of the middle of what is already a major “cut-through” street. Where the Sidewalk Ends is not just a children’s book.”

Smart comments make Swamplot so much more fun! Here are some of the best from the past week:

• River Oaks Shopping Center Redo: Not Much of a Curve, but a Decent Wedge
  From marmer: What’s with all the Audi’s in the rendering? I drive an Audi, and I have better taste than that!
• The New Regent Square: Details and Drawings
  From Scott Bodenheimer: Houston is about the same latitude as Cairo and New Dehli, why can’t developers figure out that building types more suited to Toronto or Boston are really stupid for our climate?
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Parquet
  From margo: I cant sleep .. I keep thinking of the ex-inlaws. They have my china cabinet! Damn you swamplot!
• The Secret Pattern Language of Shadow Oaks
  From Brad: Six visual patterns in one kitchen view… argh, my eyyyyeeessss.
• Tremont Tower: How Bad Could It Be, Really?
  From Heather: I moved out to regain my health, not because I wanted to lose my dream of home ownership. Since, I declared bankruptcy, and have watched my unit foreclose four times over four years. What I purchased for $229,000 went to auction for $49,000.

Swamplot loves comments! Here’s a roundup of some of the best comments submitted by our readers over the last week:

• “Dude, What Gives?”: Cafe Artiste’s Disappearing Act
  From Jackson: “. . . I used to like their brunch that came with eggs and tamales, and I never hurled after eating there.”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Brick Bath
  From GoogleMaster: “That bathroom really creeps me out. A bathroom should feel private, not like a locker room at 24-Hour Fitness. . . .”
  From Miz Brooke Smith: “. . . love those saloon doors to the his & hers lavatories so convenient to the hot-tub/fireplace disco fern bar love nest. Also the way the glossy-painted low ceilings and the slate floors have…the same texture! . . .”
• That Enormous Parking Garage Behind the River Oaks Shopping Center
  From Jim: “I assume the large circular thing behind Barnes & Noble is Weingarten’s Brain-o-Tron, which they’ll use to send out radio waves out that will erase our thoughts and replace them with the feeling that this crappy strip center is better than what was torn down. . . .”