07/07/16 10:30am

2330 N. Braeswood Blvd, Old Braeswood, Houston, 77030

2330 N. Braeswood Blvd, Old Braeswood, Houston, 77030

Per historian Steven Fox’s telling, the 1933 home at what’s now 2330 N. Braeswood Blvd. is the work of architect Joseph Finger (a few years after the Lancaster Hotel was built, and a few years before Finger went on to design City Hall). The 4-bedroom house sits on 1.13 acres and was the first one built along Braeswood Ct. (which loops off of N. Braeswood just west of S. Main St.). The exterior railings shown above are copper, and the enthusiastically tropical painted tile mural on the chimney reportedly dates back to the 1930s as well.

The Old Braeswood Property Owners Association traces the house’s Houston-history-heavy ownership record in a 2013 newsletter; the article follows the trail from a mysterious associate of Spindletop oilman T.P. Lee, to friends of future Texas governor Ross Sterling, to the son of Meyerland namesake Frank Meyer and beyond.

Want to add your name to the list? The current asking price is $2.6 million. Look around below:

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06/16/16 3:45pm

TRUMP’S LAST-MINUTE VENUE SCRAMBLE ENDS AT WOODLANDS MARRIOTT, GILLEY’S BAR The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, 1601 Lake Robbins Dr., The Woodlands, TX 77380Yesterday morning presumptive GOP presidential nominee and figurehead of an alleged real estate education scam Donald Trump briefly appeared to have cancelled public rallies scheduled for Dallas tonight and Houston tomorrow, in both cases for lack of a venue. Multiple major Dallas-Forth Worth-area convention centers, citing unusually short notice and security concerns, reportedly refused to host the event. The campaign announced hours later that it would be holding tonight’s rally at a Gilley’s-branded nightclub in Dallas; tomorrow’s Houston event landed a convention room in the Woodlands Waterway Marriott immediately next door to Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. During the interrim, the Houston Press tried to help Trump out, checking on availability at venues ranging from NRG Stadium to the Sam Houston Race Park, as well as some concert spots; a Warehouse Live employee told reporter Diana Wray that the venue was otherwise engaged for Friday, but that the hypothetical pairing of a Trump rally with tomorrow night’s planned BET-sponsored Trap Karaoke night would be “something to see.” [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Houston Press] Photo of Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center at 1601 Lake Robbins Dr.: Marriott International

05/24/16 4:15pm

UH Downtown STEM Building Purchase

Outlined in red is the next addition to University of Houston Downtown’s campus, per last Thursday’s meeting by the UH system’s board of regents. The image above comes from a marketing flier included in the board’s agenda notes (as presented by board member and real estate reality TV star Tilman Fertitta). The 17-acre parcel on the north side of I-10 runs along the Daly St. student parking lot by the Burnett Transit Center light-rail station, and includes several areas west of N. Main St. already in use by UHD as faculty and student parking.

The land, bounded on the southwest by White Oak Bayou,  will likely house a new science and engineering building — though it may have to cozy up with some additions to the downtown freeway system still in the planning phase. UHD VP David Bradley tells Nancy Sarnoff that the parts of the tract that may end up inside the expanded right-of-way will hang around as green space until TxDOT’s map lines are firmed up.

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Rail Yard Revival
05/20/16 1:30pm

Proposed University Light-Rail Line

A letter from the Federal Transit Authority released this morning by the office of long-time light-rail derailer US representative John Culberson announces that the comatose plans for rail construction along Richmond Ave. have now lost eligibility for federal funding due to the project’s lack of major progress, reports Dug Begley for the Houston Chronicle.

Previous plans for the University Line show it running from the Wheeler Red Line station along Richmond to Cummins St., where a turn south would take the line down to Westpark Dr. before continuing out to the Hillcroft Transit Center just past 59 — connecting along the way to the also-stalled Uptown rail-turned-bus-line). The Richmond part of the route includes a 1.7 mile stretch west of S. Shepherd Dr. that falls in Culberson’s district; the rest of the route to Hillcroft falls within 7th district territory as well.

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Use It Or Lose It
05/17/16 12:30pm

Weingarten flier for The Centre at Post Oak, 5000 Westheimer Rd., Uptown, Houston, 77056

A northern ambassador to the Houston restaurant scene appears to be moving into the Uptown spot recently vacated by southwest-centric Canyon Cafe. The logo for Canadian fusion chain Moxie’s Grill & Bar now shows up on Weingarten’s leasing flier for The Centre at Post Oak, across Westheimer Rd. from the Galleria. Tom Gaglardi, the current owner of both the Moxie’s chain and the NHL’s Dallas Stars, told the Dallas Business Journal early last year that he was planning to push Moxie’s into the US market by way of several major Texas cities.

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Uptown Moxie
04/26/16 4:30pm

The footage above captures Ed Nelson’s high-water trek last Monday through an overflowing detention basin at the corner of Bob White Dr. and Reamer St. just north of Brays Bayou. Nelson narrates his soggy expedition through the basin (which sits at the south end of the Robindell and Braes Timbers neighborhoods, between Hillcroft Ave. and Fondren Rd.) as he attempts to document different flows of water into and out of the pond; he ultimately claims that water is flowing into the detention pond from Brays, and moving from there into the floodway easement running behind nearby houses on Reamer.

Nelson and other neighbors claim that the surrounding area did not flood prior to the detention basin’s completion in 2008, and that the detention pond was intended to collect water from the surrounding neighborhood and prevent it from flowing too quickly into Brays bayou  — whereas during the Tax Day and Memorial Day floods, the basin purportedly collected water from the bayou and channeled it into the neighborhood, causing houses to flood that neighbors believe might not have otherwise.

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Brays Out of Bounds