Houston, Texas real estate development, home buying, landscape, and design

12 Comments

1. 1
   From Darby Mom:

   Bereft of care and dignity in their old age, they take up too much space/land, they shelter vermin/cancer, and their bones have weakened. Rest in pieces, nothing reclaimed, forgotten.

   October 10, 2012 at 10:15 am
2. 2
   From Rodrigo:

   How much would it have cost to repair the busting-out support on 1031 Tulane? I would be apprehensive about parking my car there, but then I don’t drive a box.

   October 10, 2012 at 10:56 am
3. 3
   From commonsense:

   A pathetic sight that’s not so rare
   Heaps of garbage everywhere
   Lead, asbestos, junk hardware
   Neighbors are a true nightmare

   October 10, 2012 at 11:02 am
4. 4
   From Ian:

   Coming soon to Tulane: 6 two-story 25×60 houses for $500k each.

   October 10, 2012 at 12:04 pm
5. 5
   From miss_msry:

   That’s a lot of ground; are they building a gated community, or some sort of hi-rise?

   October 10, 2012 at 3:23 pm
6. 6
   From Practically_Yours:

   It seems a silliness to mourn
   The past’s detritus, junk like this -
   To think of years a house has seen,
   Compared to what its present is.
   -
   Yet somehow I long to restore
   The leaning pillars, rotting wood,
   To shore beneath a sagging floor,
   To think that all that can be, could.
   -
   It’s not to be, this will be razed,
   Built up again in fashion new,
   O Soul, someday your turn will come,
   To be rebuilt – plumb, level, true.

   October 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm
7. 7
   From Chris Litherland:

   Commonsense, why do you hate the history of this city so much?

   October 11, 2012 at 12:21 am
8. 8
   From commonsense:

   I do not hate Houston history, I hate people who pretend every old house HAS history. These homes were the tract homes of their time, so nothing special, they are currently functionally obsolete, and they are a hazard to the environment and health of the people who live in them (asbestos, lead, etc.) Keep one or two for posterity and mow the rest of them down to make way for natural city evolution, new construction jobs, increase in property values.

   October 11, 2012 at 9:39 am
9. 9
   From HTX REZ:

   Coming soon to Tulane – 6 residents making a significant investment in a unique neighborhood mix.

   Leaving Tulane – 3 houses purchased for next to nothing, with even less invested in them in the recent past.

   I would have loved to see these 3 traditional heights style houses scoopped up, heavily renovated, and returned to former (and sometimes never before seen) glory — it would be preferable. BUT these houses went to market, stayed there for months, and WERE below dirt value…no takers.

   October 11, 2012 at 9:52 am
10. 10
    From Purdueenginerd:

    I agree with commonsense on this one(rare!)

    As for repairing a column like that, a couple of thousand. But I do structural repairs in industrial facilities; not residential

    October 11, 2012 at 10:14 am
11. 11
    From Chris Litherland:

    I would take tract housing from the 1920′s any day of the week over new 3 story garaged Montrose condos.

    October 11, 2012 at 11:47 am
12. 12
    From movocelot:

    Why do we champion this house?

    Because it’s ridge is still straight
    despite a lost column,
    And rafter-tails punctuate
    a steady decorum.

    Six columns of brick
    still happily work
    To take up the slack
    of the one that’s berserk.

    We’re charmed by its dated
    asbestos roof tiles,
    and the green-painted facia
    underlining its style.

    Shuttered dormers on axis,
    proudly facing the road,
    Though forlorn, they remind us:
    Everything grows old.

    And so we are torn
    about what to do.
    This picture is past;
    what’s next is “Just Do (it)”

    October 11, 2012 at 9:04 pm