Friday, January 23, 2009

From Vo’s Folly to Hall’s Hall: The Outsize Rivercrest Mansion for a Man Who Would Be Mayor?

Remember that crowd-friendly but vacant and unfinished mansion on Rivercrest that State Rep. Hubert Vo has been trying to unload since mid-2006? It may soon have a buyer! Abc13 reporter Miya Shay says former city attorney Ben Hall — who would need to move inside Houston city limits from his current home in Piney Point Village if he decides to run for mayor — is interested in buying it!

The house is nice, very nice. It’s currently listed for $3.9 million on HAR. There are 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and 2 half baths, and an 8 car garage. So, if Hall buys the house, you can bet that his mayoral ambitions are pretty real. Imagine the fundraisers he can hold there!

The $800K price cut apparently went through last May. And though the revised listing still lists the home as “under construction,” the rooms now look . . . finished!

* * *

The 23,090-sq.-ft. complex sits on a 2.66-acre lot and features two separate Master Bedroom suites, one with this Roman-style bath:

Hall may also be attracted to some of the house’s security features:

Rivercrest has also been in the news because some of its wealthy neighbors wanted to take the street private. Nearby, Hubert-voless affluent neighbors cried foul, and it was made sorta-private with some controversial concrete barriers.

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13 Comments

  1. 1
    From Marie:

    That house is awful….not a home, a museum of sorts = demonstrating too much money and not enough heart.

  2. 2
    From Brad:

    That building is too obscene to call a home.

  3. 3
    From Zippy:

    I wonder if/once he’s Mayor.. he can have his property taxes lowered too! eer.. I mean “appraisal”…

  4. 4
    From Miz Brooke Smith:

    Them’s some ceilings. And how ’bout that pink media/ballroom? And the double-debutante staircase action in the foyer? Woo! This place isn’t a private home, it’s a party facility. Maybe it could take over the business from the failed pseudo-Tuscan hacienda on the site of the late lamented Bill Mraz Ballroom.

  5. 5
    From Howard Hughes:

    Wow, that’s almost as bad as the Speer house.

  6. 6
    From rollo:

    why does the term chicago come to my mind suddenly? and why does this blog assume this guy will get it. he is another wanna be. of course he has been around since our past lady mayor utilized his services.

  7. 7
    From Miz Brooke Smith:

    Rollo, you may be thinking of Anthony Hall, not Ben Hall.

  8. 8
    From EMME:

    The ceilings look…heavy.

  9. 9
    From Jimbo:

    Not sure why Chicago would come to mind. When I look at it the only thing that comes to mind is “only in Texas”.

    Got to love that vaulted bathroom. If there is on thing I can’t stand it’s columns that serve absolutely no structural purpose whatsoever. Mind you maybe they’re needed to hold up all the plaster in the vaulting.

  10. 10
    From Neil:

    Maybe he will get it by reviving the Roman model of civic largesse. The Ben Hall Public Baths will become the one and only place to take a sauna, watch a movie and raid the fridge.
    Chicago would come to mind because Daley patronage is not a whole lot less explicit or more ethically appropriate, but for rollo it probably came to mind because of its general atmosphere of shrugging approvingly at someone’s moneyed ambition to power in the machine. There will be insiders anywhere, but Texas north of about San Antonio retains a much more wildcatting sense of potential. You only get approval of public strongmen, as in Chicago, when there’s fear of your share of something dwindling and the voters are offered protection.

  11. 11
    From Tex:

    “Chicago” has nothing to do with this dose of hideousness thanks very much! Only in Houston would something like this ever get built and “zoned”….Oh, wait….that’s right! You have no zoning down there…

  12. 12
    From EDward:

    One of the UGLIEST houses ever built ,anywhere! I toured the God awful thing. No wonder Hubert Vo is trying to unload the dump. Its hideous . It looks like a Pimp built it. Its 7 YEARS old. Rivercrest was horrified when he built the monstrosity. It should be TORN DOWN.It looks a designer on BAD drugs designed the interiors. And there are too many driveways. Just plain horrible.

  13. 13
    From miss_msry:

    Anthony Hall. And that is the most ludicrous excuse for a “house” I’ve seen in a long time. Bad L.A. comes to mind.

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