Y’all ready for another go at this?
When last we left the Neighborhood Guessing Game, we had 3 prizes from Houston. It’s Worth It. But nobody won them. How about this time?
Here’s what you’ll win from Houston. It’s Worth It. . . . if you win: A copy of the new HIWI: Ike book; a copy of the original Houston. It’s Worth It. book; plus a brand-new, ready-for-the-next-’cane, HIWI-brand “Hunkered Down” stencil kit.
Yes, all this can be yours . . . if you can guess what neighborhood the pictured home is in. If more than one of you guesses correctly, the prizes will go to the player who provided the best explanation for the guess.
If you aren’t guessing — that is, if you already know this property or if you find the property by corralling a herd of Googling monkeys to search for you (or employ any other method that isn’t actually guessing) — please don’t spit out the answer and ruin the fun for everyone else. Instead, send Swamplot an email with a link to the listing (so we know the monkeys are working for you). Then make an incorrect guess, but explain it in a way that’s convincing enough to throw the other players off. If you do this well, you’ll get special recognition when the winner is announced. And if no one guesses the actual neighborhood, that winner could be you!
How about a quick look through those photos, then?
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Hmmm . . . starting to get the idea about this place? Okay, well how about just any old idea?
Enough photos! Now’s the time to guess, in the comments below. The answer comes . . . on Thursday!
Update, 9/11: Finally, the answer!
- This week’s prize sponsor: Houston. It’s Worth It.
Photos: HAR
54 Comments
Ceiling fans, ceiling fans!!!
I’m surprised there isn’t one in the bathroom!
I say early late 70s early 80s. Champion Forest (isn’t that the same place I always guess?)
I like that guess, so I’ll try Northgate Country Club area. Those pictures make me want to duck like I’m getting in a helicopter.
Wow, tough one. Thinking 2 story. Living area on top, office on the bottom. Someplace where that would be centrally located but not on a feeder… early 80s with the excessive amount of dark wood… Old town Humble perhaps?
I’m going to guess the Minnetex area just because I like the sound of it. Plus, warehouses, weird buildings, why not this place being there too?
I pitty the movers, Jersey Village
That deep, really really WIDE camera lens makes me feel like speeeaking in sloowww mmmoootion
I can’t put my finger on the importance of the mirrored bdrm closet doors & built-in desks. ..
and I find it weird that the converted-porch-to-office has the same 6-over-6 windows as the rest of the house. So, I suspect the home and its garage office-conversion were conceived together in 1990.
The furnishings appear to be from Overstock.com within the more recent decade, like the business has been there longer than the current, three-bedroom family…
who broker used cars off south Gessner near Bellaire. (It’s a no-mans-land, though families do live there.)
Is that a Double Wide!! At least a portion of it appears to be. I’m going to say it’s on the East side of town south of HWY 90 just outside of the Beltway. With a lot full of pine trees and a dirt driveway.
Needs more borders.
Must…turn off…lights…ceiling fans…overpowering…OK, Mom & Dad run the family distributorship (see huge regional Key map tacked up on the wall over the desk) out of the converted garage, complete with kitchenette and regulation first aid kit. Movocelot, you’re on the money about the Overstock furnishings — the only thing keeping those beds from rising up and flying away are the low ceilings and the magical magnetic powers of the mirrored closet doors. Hunter green Corian in the kitchen, stock cabinetry, parallel living room-den, plenty of work space as well as plenty of living area — let’s say this compound is in a barely-incorporated area of Humble, convenient to IAH.
Bizarro! From the land that decorative accessories forgot. Even the kitchens are barren. At least we know a cat lives here.
My first instinct was the FM1960 corridor
but we covered that basic vicinity plus all that cabinetry looks too cheesy for Champions. So let’s go south aways and land in Stafford.
This isn’t a home — its a ceiling fan showroom. Don’t laugh — there’s one in almost every picture. Either that, or all these pictures were shot by a munchkin. And what is going on with that BLUE sink? Aside from a few personal items in the bathroom, the whole place is too spartan and generic. Its definitely all about the business here. The room with the patchwork bedspread looks like a hotel room, and two of the bedrooms have those built-in desk sets. My best guess for location is zip code 77024. That’s as specific as I want to get.
I am thrilled to see that someone finally listened to their real estate agent and de-cluttered for the photo op.
Or it could just be someone with OCD.
Who loves the color brown.
I think I will guess…Atlanta?
Looks like a couple of places I’ve seen in Kingwood where a retiree turned a garage into an office.
Quick! Somebody stop that drapery thief! I’ve never seen so many empty drapery rods. They took down the curtains, but not the rods?
I’m guessing Spring Branch? Looks like it might be in the same area as the sleeping beauty house shown earlier today.
It makes me feel like Alice (but not in ‘Wonderland’) and I’ve just taken a pill that makes everything look HUGE, like the over-sized furniture from OverStock.com. Most of it appears less than a foot away from the ceiling. Spring Branch or Spring Shadows area. That blue sink is the most interesting architectural aspect of the whole house.
This place feels like the east side to me. The fireplace and living room woodwork say Eastwood, while the long skinny office says “almost Eastwood” — not historic, but an add-on over the years that was the best they could do without an architect.
The kitchen cabinets are nice, but the appliances say “it’s not in that great a neighborhood or we would have spent more”. The views through the windows are hard to ascertain aside from the mature trees. And obviously it’s got a business office on the property. This place is east of downtown and inside the loop.
What an odd house. Seems huge and all of the windows seem and the windows are not very residential so I’m guessing some old warehouse had been converted to a live work space. Hmm I’m going to guess midtown and that the owners have held onto this property through all of the gentrification waiting to cash in on a prime location. So yeah, midtown near Washington/45.
South Houston, Fuqua area. Love that horrid blue sink in a brown toned bathroom.
It’s so generic! And when I think generic, I think northwest Houston. So I’m going to put this place somewhere between 290 and 45, 610 and Little York. Kind of a big area, but I’m just not getting any more specific vibes from this place.
What is the narrow room with all the windows? Why does it not have a ceiling fan? My guess is down south. South to the older section of Friendswood.
Look at the slope of the ceiling. There is a manufactured home look to the living room/dining room area.
I think no one lives here, but they still office here. They moved out and took all the furniture, the drapes and even the appliances. Then they hired a budget home stager with more ambition than taste to rent stuff to fill it up. Mission Bend.
The lens is trying to make these rooms look larger than they truly are. I say one story ranch home. Needs new carpet. Timbergrove.
What a strange place! I agree it looks like a manufactured home, but it’s just too big and there are too many details in the bedrooms to really convince me. I agree it’s quasi-industrial, too. Has anyone guessed the sketchier part of the Heights/near North Side? Kind of around Airline?
After the oil boom bust in the 1980’s, one developer in town started replatting their now worthless 50′ wide lots into jumbo 90′ and 100′ wide lots just to burn through them, and General Homes developed a supersized wide / shallow home product specifically for these lots. These were big, wide, plain, ugly “big box” houses with few frills. With the black metal windows and minimal interior trim, this looks like one of them. I’m going to say Heritage Park in League City or the old parts of Southwyck in Pearland since those are the only two of those developments that come to mind……….
I’m gonna get real specific here since other participants have guessed this side of town. This house is in one of three neighborhoods - Ponderosa Forest, Olde Oaks, or Memorial Northwest. These ‘hoods are filled with homes that have front porches that accommodate plastic patio chairs, wood trim, boxy windows, boxy rooms, and converted garage spaces.
I’ll also throw in the living arrangement going down here. We have a set of grandparents who can’t stand each other’s snoring and decided it’s best for both of them to sleep in separate rooms (note the 2 bedside footstools in each bedroom). And the grandson needs his own space so he moves into the garage apartment and is running a struggling modeling agency (note the industrial gray catwalk).
It’s definitely waaaaaay out in the suburbs, judging by the size. Dickinson? League City? Santa Fe?
Hmm, well with so few guesses I might as well take a shot. This is obviously a bed&breakfast, that they run from the remodeled garage. That explains the hotel-room atmosphere, mirrors, and desk. And the B&B is a cover up for the real business. I can’t figure out what the map is showing - that’s not our area, is it?
They remodeled the kitchen but kept the old appliances - hmmm. I keep wanting to say “off Stella Link” - something about the trees.
Come on! It’s almost 6pm on Thursday. Answers! We want Answers!! :)
OK, I see an almost David Lynch-like unsavoriness lurking behind the meagerness of each room. For that vibe I go to the swath between 45 north and 59 north– and now I’m narrowing it down to someplace with Aldine in the name within train horn distance of the Hardy Toll Rd.—Aldine Bender? Aldine Mail Rd?
Blue sinks? I think those are prevalent off Post Oak South east of the Meyerland area and south of 610.
The more I look at this, the more generic it gets. What throws me is the lay out–it screams 1954 but no one would update everything in 1984 unless this place was burned in a fire. Since we’ve practically ruled out wide swaths of the metro area, I’ll take the gerrymandered district encompassing all of the areas not chosen between Katy on the west, Hwy 90 on the south, Ft. Bend Tollway/Beltway 8 on the east and I-10 on the north. Is that close enough???????????
Gonna go way east. This looks like the kind of place you might see in the Crosby/Highlands area. Big lot, but where land is cheap. The mixed use nature of the dwelling also makes sense there. Grass farm adjacent!
Huh. Still super generic on second look. First guess was near NW but not past Little York - this time I’ll go a little further out to Jersey Village area. I have no idea why. I know a lot of the houses out there probably don’t look like this, but I imagine there are some pockets of slightly bigger and older homes out there.
My first thought was that this house was built in the 40s. But after looking around, it must be that those windows are vintage 1960s, and this home served a family well while the kids were growing up. Now it’s time to downsize (or maybe the folks are gone altogether). I’m guessing far west Houston, in the oil corridor, maybe Thornwood.
LaPorte/Seabrook, basically from 225 to the Kemah bridge on the bay side of 146, if this is too wide an area I’ll go with Shoreacres near the Houston Yacht club.
Gus, what is this…Pin the Tail on the Neighborhood?
OK, then, ranging far and wide: An unincorporated semi-rural subdivision in the wild woods of Metro Conroe.
Ok, back to try again. Moving north. The Atascocita area.
C’mon, Brazosport!
Hummmmm…….furniture from Rooms To Go, very late 1960’s layout. Turquoise (sic?) bathroom sink. The office space would indicate that there are few or no deed restrictions. It looks like there is a wide front porch because I see some chairs through the window. Maybe there was a wide back porch that was enclosed to make extra space in pic 5. So, there must be a sizeable back yard. Pearland area, maybe Friendswood?
Has nobody said Fondren SW yet?
Ok. And hopefully it’s close. My guess is Lakewood/Grant and Jones/Eldridge area. (fingers crossed– I want to stencil H-Town up like there’s no tomorrow!)
Santa Fe?
Back again, since Stella Link didn’t fly. The trees look like oak & ash, not pine, so I’m going west now…to the Bear Creek area. On a waterway?
And if that doesn’t work, I’m gonna say Baytown & be done with it.
My wildest guess would be Bellaire
West Columbia…
Ok, I’m re-guessing Spring. Not because I think it’s right, but because nobody’s said it yet and I really want one of those HIWI books!
Since that’s a body of water below the back windows, it can be the case that oaks have grown up along a waterway in an area that is mostly pine farther upland. Although it seems good and shaggy and coastal, a home that’s one’s primary residence is seldom built so close on the water in the coastal counties, so I’m going to follow my impressions inland to somewhere less floodprone. Places like West Columbia, Lake Jackson, Clear Lake villages, and Crosby/Dayton/Liberty are all floodable enough to fall afoul of what I’ve said, but Tomball & Magnolia seem to have escaped notice; I’ll go with them.
But, really, you don’t think Gus is enough of a turkey to not-be-above staying within a stone’s throw of Dickinson Bayou for a second straight week?
Somewhere far, far away….
moved from the wrong post - Galveston!
I’ll take another stab at this. Cypresswood/Enchanted Oaks. Gus, it’s already Friday afternoon. It would be some fun if you let this simmer for the weekend and reveal the location Monday…
I agree that the layout resembles a double-wide, as has been said. Also, certain build-on-your-lot homes (like Jim Walters’) follow an efficient, blocky style with the simplest roof plan possible.
So, I picture this is one of those, on a farm-to-market outside Alvin, an old family property. Some choice antique pieces are incorporated into this “new” (in 1989) Homestead shared by elderly sisters (with drapes in their bedrooms as well as bed-steps, previously noted) who receive Meals-on-Wheels. Paying the bills: nieces and nephews running the family business out of the garage.
A doublewide would definitely throw us all off.
I keep looking at the water outside the office and thinking about the old Chain O-Lakes resort. Can I change my guess to off North 59 near Lake Houston? Sorry to be so wishy-washy. Can’t wait to find out the answer (it’s 9:45, Gus)