Not many homes come with their own meat locker (top), but this one has kept its cooler from a previous life as a meat market and corner store. Located in the townhomey Magnolia Grove neighborhood of Brunner, south of Washington Ave. and east of N. Shepherd Dr., the former Laurnicella Meat Market (later Snow’s Corner Store) had living space upstairs for the proprietor. A 3-year renovation with various reconfigurations by the current owners (on top of efforts by their predecessors) converted the 1921 building into a tin-roofed home (middle) with back yardlet (above). Its listing, posted last Thursday, asks $2.1 million.
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Renovations discovered — and uncovered — a ceiling finished in old growth Douglas fir. Now restored, the planks cap various “rooms” that share sections of the open floor plan on the first floor:
What’s now the library has access to a small “Zen” courtyard:
Some of the wooden flooring comes from a Kentucky tobacco barn:
At the back of the home, the family room has windows on 3 sides. The curio cabinet on one wall isn’t a cabinet at all. It’s a collection of boxes from around the world:
Meat may have been sequestered in the refrigerator, but wine gets a small room of its own:
Now, about that former meat locker. It’s been converted into a funky powder room — but kept its original hinges and foot-thick door:
All bedrooms are upstairs. Eight skylights now punctuate the ceiling of the master suite . . .
which might more precisely be called a bed and bath . . .
since all functions share the 19 ft. by 22 ft. space:
The master closet has a small vanity within it:
Three of the 4 secondary bedrooms are also on this level:
From the sitting area, a staircase leads to the 4,128-sq.-ft. home’s fifth bedroom:
Its pop-out window faces east:
For a tad more living space, there’s a wrap-around porch. An account of the renovation (accompanied by a video full of interior and exterior drone shots) says the original proprietor regularly hung lists of the daily meat specials from the upper deck. It also recounts Prohibition-era (and later) tales of the property.
This stretch of lawn has artificial grass. The peaked glass walkway connects home and carport:
Once an exterior sign, a hand-painted logo fills an interior wall of the 1-car “show-car garage,” which also has a window into the Zen garden:
The last time the property changed hands, in 2010, it sold for $539K. Back in 2000, the unrenovated building went for $162,500.
- 701 Patterson St. [HAR]
good god that’s some bad taste on display. Lot value plus the value of a total rehab project. What a shitshow.
I really like that glass roofed canopy connecting to the garage in the backyard. I also think that’s some nice wood on the floors and downstairs ceilings. I’m not sure I comprehend how the value has quadrupled in 4 years however.
I want that tub.
I wish we had more buildings left with architecture like this in Houston. It’s a neat house. The interior is, indeed, tacky, though.
I love the place. However, I don’t know why there’s astroturf in the backyard and grass in the front – I would figure all of one or the other, especially if maintenance is the issue. I’d pay to rip up the astroturf and install grass, but another person would pay to remove the lawn bits and install astroturf. It’s kind of the worst of both worlds for the seller – no customer will be totally satisfied.
Is that price supposed to be in American dollars !?!??! Even in Pesos it’s still way too expensive. Someone has Delusions of Value.
energy is getting hammered in the market correction. now’s the time to float any wild valuations that you want to try and get away with because the ship is about to sail.
I really like the house. Unique. But seems like a very high price for niche appeal.
While it’s not my taste, these homeowners have some serious style! It would be fun to live here, for sure. I do agree with the other posters that $2.1 MM is delusional. Wouldn’t $800K be more appropriate for the area/location/schools?
this place is stunning…I have seen it at an open house and the pictures barely capture it due to the real panorama of all that’s going on in the house. Houston needs more gems from days gone past that can be turned into luxe homes like this. There’s a cool video too at http://www.pattersonandfloyd.com.
This place is totally my jam. Love the textures in this home although I’m not crazy about some of the textiles and paint colors they’ve chosen (makes the home look super cluttered). Totally overpriced, though.
Who rehab’d this Willy Wonka house ? Multiple ladders to 10 ft cabinets, giant soda ads, exposed HVAC ducts, little people room on the 3rd floor, stucco/beadboard/tile/sheetrock/shiplap/tin ceilings with hyper futuristic fixturess, glassed breezeways, and more dark wood than it knows what to do with ? Everyone loves a trainwreck, but finding the right buyer @ $2+M may be a trick.
WOW! Three blocks south from Washington..and the view from the second level are..wait….vertical mobile homes!
That’s a bonkers house. I love that about it. This is no prefab, granite/stainless rehab. There are buyers at the high end looking for something unique, and this has it.
But.
The ladders to get to half of the kitchen cabinets?
The astroturf in the back yard?
The PVC pipe sink fixture in the meat locker bathroom that still, you know, has all the warmth of a meat locker?
And then the price. Wow. Drop it a million and it’s still in the “hmmm, something doesn’t add up here” range. Well, good luck to the sellers. You can’t blame folks for trying right now.
I suppose that anyone making comments here has actually been in the home. I have been there and it is a totally different property than I would look for or design for myself. But the amount of time, effort and money that the owners spent designing, building and remodeling the structure was very evident from the moment that I approached the home. Most of us would prefer something we might see in a design magazine, like our neighbors have. But for those who need to be different or unique, at least they have a choice here. And the artificial grass allows people to enjoy being outside at a party without messing up their shoes. Brilliant use of space…in my opinion. What price? That will be between the buyer and the seller, not us.
I live in the area, and run by this house every day. One day I got the chance to meet the owners, and they gave me a private tour. This is the MOST incredible house I have ever seen, and I have lived all up and down the West Coast. Everything has a story. Very unique house.
Incredible house. I went to an xmas part here a couple years ago with a friend and it stopped me in my tracks with a “wow”. Having a background in architecture I’m more inclined to re-imagined spaces than homogeneous new construction. They did it right. It’s seamless….not to mention the history. Nobody I know lives in a house with this much history!
I want to like it. I really do. I. Just. Can’t. Train Wreck.
Uh, yeah it is between the buyer and seller, but anyone paying anywhere close to that amount for this weird house in that area should be held on a 5150. Fifteen years ago this house in this area would have been worth 2.2…dollars. This price point is so nuts I can’t believe they’d get one even counter offer.
Glad some of the Architects like it, but I doubt even one in Houston could afford it at this price, unless awash in family money. Maybe one can “re imagine” it as a Louisiana Prison in the Kahn style or as an old shoe a la The Lady who lived in the Shoe, it’s your palate, design away, yeah and like with this house you’ll never find anyone to buy it. If you’re independently wealthy build what you like, otherwise keep your UH Architecture Projects on the drawing board where they belong.
It was a tear down until they put lipstick on a pig…
This is one of those listings where you wonder if the selling agent is embarrassed to have a home priced so incorrectly under their name.
.
Though knowing most agents, I doubt it
If ever there were a property that would show better empty, this would be it. There is so much clutter that it is difficult to see the essence of the house. It looks like it would at least be an interesting house. The realtor should hire a stager and a decent photographer at that overly ambitious asking price. Considering there is a 1980s town home complex that is literally falling apart directly across the street and everything else in that neighborhood tops out at 900k, it seems like like it is 600k too much. A meat locker powder room isn’t tantamount to saying George Washington slept here in the history department.
This place is incredible. I’ve been here a couple times for a Christmas party the owners hold and it’s very well done. Kudos to the owners for refurbishing the old and no knocking it down for yet another overpriced condo.
I went to the website and HAR.com as well and this home reportedly contains 5,427 square feet of interior living space. There are some rather large room sizes in there. While I believe that the ASKING price is high, the price per square foot is only about $387, and with all of the work done to the property, including an addition, this building is simply going to cost more than some have posted here. ($800,000 = about $147 per square foot) Regardless of what we think about style, the fact is that this is a large single family home in a great location (I know that’s important) that costs a lot of money. I can’t buy it, not on my salary. But someone will negotiate a price they are comfortable with and love it and throw awesome parties such as I attended at this unique home.
So much secondhand embarrassment when friends of the owner come and white knight this property. There is no way in hell this home is appropriately priced for this area despite how cool it is (and I love what I’ve seen of this property) – no matter how nice/fun/cool the owners are and what awesome parties they throw.
I preferred it in the days when it was Snow’s Grocery . . . . . cold beer, eggs & bacon, Houston Post,
etc. Mr. Snow was always an entertaining character walking around with a holstered pistol.
Current owners have terrible taste.
$2.1 million? In that neighborhood? Where it’s surrounded by all those cheaply constructed townhouses going for 1/4 of that price? Where the streets have no curbs, just ditches? These people can’t be serious.
Very cool place indeed esp for Hou – at first in the Swamplot title I thought they were referring to the Meatpacking dist section of NY. For all the negative posters on here thank goodness you hate this house cause you have plenty and plenty of typical low-grade big box houses to choose from all over the city.
cool place – reminds me of the sandwich shopt, Potbelly’s where they have the gym in the rafters playing a guitar and singing a bit. This home really reminds me of something you see in your mind on the East Coast but not really in Houston or maybe Austin?
As a Real Estate investor in Houston’s upper end neighborhoods I can say from experience this home will sell at the listing price with ease. The city is in a building boom set to last for at least 2 more years and properties like this one are rare and very hard to come by. Since Swamplot is the site to post negative comments the only negative I see if there is any is the lot is a bit small for $2.1mil. At the end of the day, the buyer that loves this home will pay the asking price as Houston is Chock Full of dull econo stucco boxes and this one is one of a kind, Bravo to the homeowner!