About a year after snatching up the Penguin Arms building at 2902 Revere St., Dan Linscomb and Pam Kuhl-Linscomb announce to the Chronicle‘s Lisa Gray their plans to incorporate Arthur Moss’s pedigreed 1950 Googie-style apartment building into the multi-building streetside campus of their Upper Kirby home-furnishings-and-knick-knacks empire: “In about a year, after a round of renovation and restoration, they plan to open the Penguin Arms as a showroom,” Gray writes. “Maybe, Dan says, they’ll reserve a little piece as an apartment, so they can literally live above the shop.”
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The Kuhl-Linscomb shopping campus already includes 6 formerly residential structures along Steel St., along with a main space in a strip center facing all the action in the Whole Foods Market parking lot across Argonne St. But the Penguin Arms won’t be isolated, Gray writes. The owners plan to tear down the building’s parking structure and add “some sort of link through the unused alleyway so customers can walk in air-conditioning” through the back yard to Building 2. “It’ll be tasteful, Dan promises: ‘This sounds overblown, but like the Guggenheim or the Louvre additions — the addition its own contemporary thing, but not overpowering, not obtrusive.’”
- Penguin Arms gets the owners it deserves [Houston Chronicle]
- Showrooms [Kuhl-Linscomb]
- Previously on Swamplot: Penguin Arms, Houston’s Only Googie Apartment Building, Is Now for Sale
Photos: HAR
12 Comments
Actually, that’s a great idea, turning that building into a showroom. While the design of the apartment building is cool, the building doesn’t look very “residential-y” if you know what I mean, so using it for commercial purposes makes more sense.
For the over 20 years I lived in West Montrose, I have always admired that building. Thank goodness it will not be destroyed.
That’s AWESOME. Perhaps someday I can afford to shop there.
Tremendous news that it will not be torn down! They just don’t build them like this anymore! Kudos to the owners!
It might “make more sense” (whatever that means) only looking at it from the curb. It was plenty “residential-y” form the inside.
I love the name. Penguins WISH they had arms! (and hands and snowmobiles)
I do wish there were photos of the apartment insides. I’d like to see the way all those windows work with the walls.
I too am happy that the building will be saved.
Very happy that this building will survive. That is an amazing building. I’ve never seen it in person and don’t know the area, but I’d gladly call that home.
I’ve loved the Penguin Arms since I first laid my eyes upon it in the late 1970′s. Awesome then,more awesome now. Especially since it WON’T be razed and some obnoxious, overly blown ,full of himself “developer” throws up some lame, stucco new construction monstrosity!!!
This makes me smile!
I looked at this place as a rental property. It was not priced at land value, but rather had a nice premium due to the building on the land. That made it pretty safe from the wrecking ball.
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I couldn’t make the numbers work due to the price, but I’m happy someone else did. It would be a shame to have that place sit and rot.
They might even get permits for this building!