We’ve got 13 interior photos of a home to show you. Can you tell us where it is? If you can guess it, there’s a one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance in it for you!
What happens if more than one of you guess the correct neighborhood? The RDA prize will go to the player who gave the best explanation with the guess.
What if you already know this home — or if you come across the answer while we’re playing the game? Well then, please don’t just blurt out the answer and ruin the fun for all the other players. Instead, play this screwy version of the game: Send us an email with a link to the listing; then post an incorrect guess — but make it sound plausible, just to throw other players off! If you do this well, you’ll get special recognition when the winner is announced. And if nobody guesses the actual location, that winner could be you!
A dozen more pix, coming up!
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Think you can figure this one out? Go figure!
Look carefully! Your guesses go in the comments section. We’ll have an answer for you on Thursday!
Update, 2/25: The results are in!
- This week’s prize sponsor: Rice Design Alliance
Photos: HAR
Las Vegas
Damn, Matt – you beat me again!
Has that upscale splashy-flashy-trashy look and I can think of about ten areas that it could be in but the window views indicate some vistas with what appear to be palm trees and there is something royal about it all and while there aren’t many oak trees to be seen, that perhaps is a clue so my guess is Royal Oaks.
Which probably should have been called Royal Palms since the last time I was out there, quite a while ago, it seemed there were more palm trees than oak trees.
Matt Mystery beat me to the punch. Incidentally, there is actually a small subdivision called “Royal Palms” across Wilcrest from Royal Oaks. The lots are smaller, but the houses are just as tacky and there are plenty of palm trees.
Interesting. Old technology everywhere. I’ll call it whatever that area just north of Highland Village, off Dunvale, is. Pretty fancy and big McMansion.
Something about this one just yells SUGAR LAND to me. I’m guessing Avalon, off of Commonwealth Ave. It looks like a early to mid 2000’s “custom home”, complete with all the faux finishes any suburban lord and lady could dream of. The exterior, from a few vantage points, is obviously fake stucco, and about 99% of the homes in the Avalon subdivision have that.
I don’t often guess, but I think of two different neighborhoods when I see these pictures. One of those McMansion neighborhoods like the one off of Tanner Rd and Ginger Pond, or off of Champions Forest or Northgate Forest off of 1960. Those neighborhoods have those over the top, new money-looking styling similar to the pictures in the contest.
I dont know where this is but it sure is awful! Cheap furniture and horrible accessories. I know several interior designers who can fix this mess!
Something about this one just yells SUGAR LAND to me. I’m guessing Avalon, off of Commonwealth Ave.
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Avalon would be number two on my list – something about the vista and the palm trees, however, just screams Royal Oaks. And it could be the way the photos are blurred but there do appear to be the “faux hills” in the background. One of the few really nice things about Royal Oaks is the illusion of hilly terrain although that is as fake as everything else.
I’ll vote Bay Oaks…Clear Lake City Blvd/El Dorado area. Custom builder, Carmela Soprano interior designer.
Second guess is Lakes Of Stonehenge (the gated section).
I say somewhere around Friendswood.
Sienna Plantation!
I think it’s Katy.
New Jersey
Buckingham Drive area, South of Memorial.
This has got to be SugarLand.. South of 59 in the “older” McMansion area.. ’90s or so build.
Kids left the house, so now time to sell and downsize..
It’s the tabletop plants vs. chandelier battle that gets to me. Bet some of those plants have consumed the previous occupants, leaving their skins on the LR floor. Something’s encouraging all that green growth, so I’m saying SOUTH – Quail Valley.
Matt, you may be right about Las Vegas – is that a costumed Elvis doll in the office, top left shelf?
Gus is probably off somewhere saying “bwah hah hah” to himself – cause this one is really near the planned trike track in Hockley, neener neener neener.
Marina del Sol…League City
I was going to say Royal Oaks as well, but I’ll move my guess north on Eldridge around Clay/W. Little York. That or somewhere in Katy. Perhaps a neighborhood with a lovely fake lake or two. Cinco Ranch? Windsor Park Lakes? Anywhere along Fry south of I10?
Or Las Vegas.
I have to say Royal Oaks. Based on the columns and the fireplace mantels, the floorplans out there all look like this; the landscaping you see through the windows and the brick walls surrounding the property. And I too think the decor is tacky.
From the cheesiness it smells like Royal Oaks.
Most of these guesses have been out in the burbs, but I’ve been to this house’s doppelganger in St. George Place, immediately west of Williams tower. 100% identical in layout, tile/details – even similar decorating style. I don’t think that homeowner is selling their house right now, but I have to guess that neighborhood because I know one such house exists there for sure. The small walled backyard with pool is another clue.
I’m with the Sugar Land commenters above, but not Avalon. This property is a little too old for Avalon. The projection TV built-ins and beech blonde wood suggest early to mid nineties. Probably Sweetwater, one of those houses where the cul-de-sac is its own gated community off of Palm Royale.
The wall in the background of the bedroom photo is another clue I suspect. And it does have that Royal Oaks look. They use walls everywhere as I recall, particularly to section off sections within the subdivision. Some are less than others I suppose. Not sure about the walls in the other areas. Particularly “Kickerillo Acres” along Eldridge. Also on my list along with the Sugar Lakes subdivision. Not sure about Sweetwater. Most of those are custom and this home screams tract home. The other clue is that “balconette” over the living. A slight little alcove for effect I suppose. One of the little tacky touches in the upscale tract home subdivisions.
Yup – this house absolutely has to be in Royal Oaks or it’s half-breed little neighbor Royal Palms. But, if for some reason its not, then all that suburban new money elegance has to be in Rock Creek up in Cypress, or maybe even in Bellaire – notably on that one little cul-de-sac street that was built about ten years ago off of Jesimine right on the side of Loop 610. I dunno though – I’m sure it’s Royal Oaks.
Something tells me this monument to faux finishes and silk flowers is located in Cypress. Coles Crossing?
I still say Royal Oaks. There’s also the interior treatments. I wonder if the buyer incentive was the decorator? Who decorated them all the same with what she, or he, had overbought and had stored in warehouses.
Some passed on the “house decorator” and have managed to achieve the House and Garden look. But for the most part the look is part Tuscan Nightmare and part model apartment. And not an upscale apartment I might add.
Royal Oaks in some ways was the beginning of the “Tuscan” style for those who don’t remember. And like all invasive species, and looks, it spread rapidly.
And is that a dead animal under the coffee table or the Blob? If you’re going to have a dead animal under the coffee table, keep the head on. They look better on the floor attached to the remains than they do on the wall. And they make nice headrests when reading. And doing other things.
First off: TAAAAACKY! Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system…
I’m gonna say League City and parts thereabout. It’s the only place where a subdivision can be called “Tuscan Lakes” without so much of a hint as a wink or a smile.