If you didn’t get enough time to linger inside during one of the home tours — or if you’ve always been curious about the concrete-block construction at the corner of Peden and Van Buren in Hyde Park — now’s your chance: The “Zen like” home and garden that architect and UH professor John Zemanek built for and by himself in 2000 is now available for lease. Yes, every view and material and juxtaposition has been selected, crafted, and stuck together with care, but there’s only a single bedroom, and the kitchen isn’t exactly made for large baking projects. But at $3,000 per month, this 2,352-sq.-ft. Texas farmhouse–Japanese Teahouse hybrid could be a relaxing place to call home.
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Take out the books, and “large study could be 2nd bedroom,” declares the hopeful broker.
- 1117 Peden St. [HAR]
- Previously on Swamplot: John Zemanek’s Next Home Will Be Just Down the Street, Pieces of Old Fort Bend County, at Rest in Montrose: A Peek Inside the Architect’s House
Does the furniture stay? I would go broke for this place, but not $3,000/mo broke.
Looks like stuff they build in rural Mexico. Where’s the outhouse?
Now that is very interesting!
I must admit I have never seen varnished OSB used as a finish material. Not exactly what most people have in mind when they say they want wood floors.
Just looking at these pictures trigger the PTSD I got from this guy’s Postmodernism course at the UH College of Architecture.
Varnished particle board for $3,000 a month???
A nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Nothing like living in a cold, grey, ” prisonish” abode for $3000 a month.
Interesting.
I once lived in a concrete cinderblock building. The sensation was damp.
neat place, and fair rent price for that area/sq footage/condition of house. i couldn’t live there long term, but would be fun for a year
So, when’s he going to finish it?
There are good reasons that concrete blocks are usually plastered over.
$3000/mo for this? Pass…
If this is is great architecture, $3,000/mo seems reasonable. If it’s a prison, $3,000/mo is the bargain of a lifetime!
commonsense – your negativity never ceases to amazing me. do you think of outhouses as you stand in your standard backyard, staring at the roofs of the little boxes in your suburban community?
$3000 for this place is a decent starting point for negotiation in the current Montrose lease environment. The biggest drawback is the single bedroom.
@d713, The little box behind my house is 10k sq ft and I suppose he does have an outhouse, but he prefers to call it the pool house.
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This “structure” is made with the cheapest materials known to man and is unfinished. You can actually see terrible workmanship in the pictures, which means in real life it’s an abysmal dump. They build similar building in 3rd world countries because of insurmountable poverty, what’s this guy’s excuse?
Interesting home, but it always amazes me that architects build these unique, very specific structures, never seeming to think or care that at some point they have to sale or rent these things–this is built for a very specific taste and thus will take very specific person to buy or lease it, unlike say a classic Geogian or Tudor.
I’ve always been curous about the inside of this place. I guess my curiosity is satisfied now. It really looks like a temporary building or something that was supposed to one day get real walls and floors. it barely looks like it cost 3000.00 to build.
I love it! Not for most Houstonians who would prefer suburban traditional architecture.