Neighborhood Guessing Game: Laptop Faceoff

Who’s sponsoring the prize for this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game?

New Swamplot advertiser Houston. It’s Worth It. Guess the right neighborhood this week and you’ll win a copy of Houston It’s Worth It’s brand new hot-off-the-presses book, HIWI: Ike — featuring accounts, photos, and mementos of this town’s Hurricane Ike adventure last year, contributed by actual Houstonians.

But that’s not all: Win now and HIWI will also throw in a copy of the original Houston. It’s Worth It. book, plus your very own HIWI-model “Hunkered Down” stencil kit, so next time you can let everyone know when — and where — you’re hunkering.

How can you win all these hometown-branded riches? By guessing where the pictured home is. If more than one of you guesses the correct neighborhood, the player who provided the best explanation for the guess will get the prize.

If you already know this property, or if you find the listing online, please don’t ruin the game for everyone else by blurting out the answer. Instead, send Swamplot a link to the listing, so we know that you know. Then submit a fake guess that sounds really good. If you do this well, throwing other players off in the process, you’ll get special recognition when the actual location is revealed. And if nobody has guessed the correct neighborhood, you could win the prize!

So let’s look at the photos, shall we?

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Taking in all these photos? Need to take a break?

Okay, but hurry!

Well, then: Where do you think this is? Add your guesses in the comments! The answer will be revealed on Thursday, right here!

Update, 9/3: Time’s up! Here’s your answer.

Photos: HAR

43 Comment

  • Looks like a modernized 50’s-60’s Oak Forest/Sharpstown/Meyerland house.

  • Could be any of a million. How about Briargrove?

  • That may be the original dryer in that last photo. I’m thinking Westbury or Meyerland.

  • This house kind of reminds me of an updated version of my great-grandoarent’s old house out in Spring Branch. The layout of the kitchen/breakfast room/den with divider between the den and breakfast room, especially. Real similar floor plan. Their house was built in the early 50’s, I do believe.

  • i think Helen is right! I think it is a lightly renovated house in the more mexican side of spring branch vs. the korean side, and by that I mean closer to Hempstead Hwy.

    Although Glenbrook valley isn’t a bad guess either.

  • A nicely-rennovated, newly-yuppified early ’60s ranch in Oak Forest / Mangum Manor.

  • the 60s. not bad decorating. the front window in the living room really dates it. I’ll say Westbury. I could be Westbury or any other of those neighborhoods in sw Houston – could be one of the Willows too.

  • Without any real justification except for the old-fashioned bathroom, I’m going to guess Lindale Park. (Old Spring Branch is a good guess, too.)

  • Guessing circa 1961 Afton Village and that’s all i have to say.

  • Have I lost my mind finally? I thought earlier today we were looking for chickens in a kitchen?

  • Hmmm, big lot, lots of living space – can I say a Westview lot anywhere from the Pech bridge to Witte?
    Or if that won’t work, how about somewhere east of Bingle in Spring Valley?
    They’ve done a lot with it – love the colors!

  • Looks like they’re regular patrons of CB2. Love the turquoise travel case in the closet.
    All the obvious guesses have been taken, I think. I’ll guess Braes Heights.

  • I think Timbergrove Manor. Could be one of any number of remodel/refresh jobs I have seen over there. Why is that guy in the painting above the sofa on all fours?

  • Wow–the first of the Guessing Game houses that I would actually live in! It’s not a nightmare in decorating, so I’m guessing it’s a younger family that lives here in one of the smaller ranches in Old Braeswood. Maybe they’ve managed to make a little more money in their upwardly mobile careers and are moving closer in to town….

  • Simmer down, sboney. The subject of the painting is laboring under a heavy basket of tomatoes.

  • Mmmmm, tomatoes

  • mmmmmm, mid-century modern

  • Well, someone decided they liked this house enough to spend some money upgrading. Close in, mid-century-style details, probably decent lot size and lot value. How about Riverside Terrace?

  • I’m going to have to say a mid-century modern in Tanglewilde, based on the scale, the big front windows, and the recent updates.

  • Pretty, cool, modern, practical house inhabited by pretty, cool, modern people. Those living room windows say the eastern or southern parts of Southgate, somewhere toward Travis or MacArthur.

  • 1950s/1960s based on that window shape and the terrazo entryway. Seems too big for Memorial Bend. Memorial Plaza?

  • I’m in love with my neighborhood and wish I’d held out for front windows like this! Oak forest

    facing 43rd ya’ll! Near tc jester.

  • Even though friends had a house *just* like this by the South Post Oak ramp of the Loop between Meyer Park and Westbury Square, those aluminum casement windows in the living room appear a little too old for most houses there. I’m confused by those cornice boxes in the den, because I’ve seen Ernest Shult use them in the 1950s to carry plantings indoors and make rooms feel less enclosed from the outside; and yet the house has indoor hookups for washer and dryer, which make 1950s too early on this size of house. That window hardware was in a 1967 home I had (farther out) as a kid, so I will hew to that timeframe.
    I know a S’lot guesser would take from the hardwoods and pendant lighting that this is an area whose desirability has been ticking up in the past 5-10 years, but in the event that it isn’t right close to the freeways with my friends’, then I’m going to go head to the other end of Bellfort and talk about Simsdale (if that isn’t a neighborhood, I mean the area across the bayou north of Garden Villas, around Reed Rd south of Bellfort, east of Mykawa). Hardwoods and countertops aren’t all upmarket anymore.

  • I Say Midtown- What say That?

  • The older part of Sharpstown, Sutton Elementary area.

  • How about Robindell?

  • My first reaction was Timbergrove – which means sboney can rest easy – no chance of winning.

  • Shadow Oaks west of Conrad Sauer.

  • My guess is Sharpstown One, the part with Sutton Elementary. Looks like a hip little mod with some Home Depot sass.

  • I’m guessing Lazybrook, which I suppose would be considered Timbergrove, but more specifically the area north of 18th and west of west TC Jester that forms a triangle by white oak bayou, 18th, and 610 (how’s that for specific). I have a friend that has house in that area that looks eerily similar.

  • I’m thinking around the Robindell/Maplewood area.

  • gonna say ella around 11th.. not sure what that neighborhood is..

  • Its okay finness I am the same way and may have jinxed you in the past! Seen the other comments an still think Timbergrove Manor.

  • I was originally thinking Larchmont or Afton Oaks, but thought a little harder as I think both neighborhoods have been played before. The style of the house is similar in those neighborhoods, with young/up-an-comers getting a great lot and investing in upgrades, rather than building. So, I switched tinkered my thoughts a little and was thinking Oak Estates or the outside edge of River Oaks along Weslayan near River Oaks Baptist. I live in the area and drive through Oak Estates often and notice the remainging smaller homes in the neighborhood (for the most part) are not as well kept…so, I am going with the outside edge of River Oaks near Weslayan, fit with a big lot and close to great schools for the kids.

  • Getting in late on this one but I would like to win the prize. Robindell area.

  • Spring Branch is good, but I think Spring Valley is better. It’s just that much closer to Ikea – which is where they’ve picked up a good bit of furniture. Quite tastefully decorated though and I’d be curious as to why the young couple (or maybe just a single woman?) is moving since they don’t seem to be forced out by a growing family or anything. Perhaps the dining nook just wasn’t cutting it as a home office. It looks more like a setting for the best game of battleship….EVER. Are the black beehives in the living room security cameras or speakers?

  • Don’t know either neighborhood name, but either the area between West Alabama, Weslayan, the 59 Feeder and Drexel but not north of West Alabama/Highland Village) OR that neighborhood where all the streets are named for operas, right around Memorial/Briar Forest and the Beltway.

  • I was discouraged and jealous because a couple of posters beat me to some really good guesses. But I’ve had my eureka moment– Ayrshire, where cul de sac streets dead end at the railroad tracks. The builders have scaped so many of the originals in there, but proximity to the tracks saved this one– and allowed some creative family to do a great job with it. Last laugh, (and good investment) now that the trains are quiet

  • Speaking of Glenbrook Valley, which is probably where this house is but somebody beat me to it loooong ago, have you noticed ad on Swamplot’s site. How cute how clever! Smart of that realtor to promote a whole neighborhood. Makes me want to move there.

  • Tough one. I’m going to guess wildly and say its in the Norhill area of the Heights.

  • Updates in this cute ranch brought to you by TS Allison. This is house on Brays Bayou, or very close to it, along North or South Braeswood, between Kirby & Stella Link.

  • I don’t go there often but it looks like a house I have been to in Braeswood. So, that’s my guess. Braeswood.