Looks like this week’s game was a bust. Did we even get any real guesses?
Oh, a few. Your comments mentioned Beaumont, River Oaks, the Westside Tennis Club, Hooks Airport, Waller County, Riverside (Terrace?), the Third Ward, Sharpstown, Fondren, Harwin, and Downtown.
No bluffers showed up.
So no winner this time. But a bunch of you sure had some fun with it! An honorable mention goes to Brad, for this first-rate snark:
The drop ceilings, the steel beam kickouts on the walls, the plastic chandeliers, the ‘media’ room with microwave stand and cafe-style seating, the fantasy executive boardroom with ‘conference’ table, and the executive exercise pool…
This is the Corporate Crimes wing of the Federal Prison near Beaumont where they sent Andy Fastow. The drapes and mini-blinds are covering the bars.
Bravo. And thanks again to the tipster who provided this ripe subject. What are its actual coordinates?
***
Location: 2552 County Road 59, Manvel
Details: 13 bedrooms, 13 full and 6 half baths, 31,696 sq. ft. on a 16-acre lot
Price: $3,000,000
The Scoop: Enormous 2-story brick shed-like home with mansion front built in 2003, just west of SouthFork and down the street from the new Pearland Town Center. Available for residential, commercial, or institutional use. Enclosed Olympic-size pool; commercial Kitchen; conference room. Attached 7-car garage; porte-cochere in rear. Back on the market since February, after sale initiated last fall fell through. Listed previously for $700K higher.
Yowza. How’s about we try something a little cozier next week? See you on Tuesday!
- 2 Huge Mansions, off of 288 & Southfork [HAIF, via Swamplot Inbox]
- Neighborhood Guessing Game: Draped [Swamplot]
- Pearland Town Center Ready To Open: Pull on Up! [Swamplot]
So wait!
All those drop ceilings weren’t in the main house? I don’t think anybody would have got this one, but it is an interesting find.
Could this be the next polygamist ranch site?
I made the honorable mention list! Woo-woo…. Damn, that place is hideous. Drop ceilings and flourescent lights throughout. The ex-racer in me would get all jiggy with that garage, though.
Wait – I thought we weren’t playing this week!????? I missed this – not that I woudl have won though – what in the HELL is this???? I still don’t get it!!!
Joni
No, I’m pretty sure the drop ceilings are in the main house. You wanna know what’s even stranger? Next door to this bad boy is one almost identical that is about 1/3 again bigger, also with a 7-car garage. According to the HAIF thread I stole this from (last summer) it belongs to a Ulysses Watkins, MD. I’m guessing it was planned as a rehab facility, judging from the tee-tiny bedroom windows. Check out the address on Live Search and you can see both of these beauties!
Ok, I get ya marmer. So basically this place was supposed to be some kind of medical retreat or rehab place like you mentioned.
It essentially an office building….
Who knows. The rehab thing is just my guess, though why they would have a big swimming pool, a 7 car garage, and tacky residential decor for a rehab facility is _anyone’s_ guess. There is very little that I or any of the other HAIFers have been able to find about these houses or their owner(s). They look vacant and are at the corner of Kirby and CR 59 just south of Pearland Town Center.
I just…the ceilings!!! Seriously! What the hell?
I would kill to know what the original intended purpose was for this place. It looks like an asylum designed to drive people even crazier.
Dr. Watkins also owns an entertainment center way down off S Post Oak. Maybe the concert posters were for shows there.
good stuff
The garage itself is 5000 sq. ft. – twice the size of my own house. Wow, what a waste.
I believe this property belongs to, or once belonged to Dr. Ulysses Watkins, Jr. of Houston, who has a show on KCOH. He doesn’t know me but I have seen him at one of the Huntsville High School reunions. No, I did not attend Huntsville High, but I was born in Walker County back in the early thirties and relocated from TX to CA in 1947.
I think he is from the old African American family of Walker County Texas. I think one of his older relatives married my great-aunt back in the 1800’s. There are lots of distant relatives who reside in Houston and a few in Huntsville. I reside in the Los Angeles area. I remember the older Watkins’.
Another family member took me to see that mansion a few years ago.
Brooke Smith, you’re right, he does own an entertainment center on Post Oak and that’s where I saw him at one of the Huntsville High School reunions. He makes great chili.
I met him but had no chance to talk to him about common relatives.
Another relative told me today about the HHS Reunion held in Huntsville yesterday, 7/31, and Ulysses was there. He is the coordinator or whatever.
But, as of January of this year, Mr. Watkins no longer owns the property.
Per the Brazoria County AD, the 16.4227 acres now belong to the Aramco Investment Group with an address of 580 El Dorado Blvd in Webster.
There is an ‘over 65 Homestead exemption’ on the property with over 31,000 sq.ft of living space. Big Digs.
i live right around the corner..so who is dr watkins? and the houses are in bad shape now…i wonder could anybody take a tour inside?
I just stumbled upon this. Pretty crazy. So did someone go in and stage this place?