08/18/16 12:00pm

3302 Audley St., Audley Place, Upper Kirby, Houston

3302 Audley St., Audley Place, Upper Kirby, Houston

Today’s sponsor is the townhome at 3302 Audley St. Unit 110. Thanks for supporting Swamplot!

Tucked deep into the neighborhood bounded by West Alabama, Buffalo Speedway, Kirby Dr. and Richmond Ave., this 2-bedroom, 2-1/2-bath home is close to much of what Upper Kirby has to offer. Greenway Plaza is a short walk away; the new complex going in around a revamped Levy Park is a 10-minute stroll in the opposite direction. On Saturday mornings if you’re living here you’ll want to step out to enjoy the Eastside Farmers Marketjust down the street.

Audley Place is a small, gated community. The main living space (pictured at top) is on the second floor, and features a Bose surround-sound system and custom shades in the living-dining space and a kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and quartz countertops. Both bedrooms — each with its own bath — are on the third floor.

This home just appeared on the market this week. If you’d like to see a bit more of it, do check out the property website. It’s listed for sale by New Leaf Real Estate, which offers unique savings programs for both sellers and buyers.

Got the right home in the right place — but still looking for the right buyer? Get the right person’s attention by becoming a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day.

 

Sponsor of the Day
08/18/16 10:30am

Kay's Lounge, 2324 Bissonnet St., Rice Village, Houston, 77005

The city’s permitting records show that the land beneath soon-to-close Kay’s Lounge (and that recently freed-up cute lot next door) have been sliced into a total of 6 new pieces (not counting the shared driveway running down the middle). The application for the property line redraw, noted by a reader, was submitted last October and approved a few weeks later. The same records say the 2-turned-6 lots at 2332 and 2324 Bissonnet St. are intended for single family residences; the properties were bought last May by an entity connected to Frasier Homes. Kay’s last night in action will be Saturday the 3rd, providing final visitors with a Labor Day recovery buffer. 

Photo: Thomas C.

Last Calls on Bissonnet
08/18/16 8:30am

allen-parkway2

Photo of construction work between W. Dallas St. and Allen Pkwy.: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
08/17/16 5:15pm

3303 Shadowncrest Ln., Spring, TX 77380

3303 Shadowncrest Ln., Spring, TX 77380 Now for sale just across the Spring-Creek-hugging southern edge of Harris County: this 1970s ranch, carefully dressed by the seller in slate panels. The 3-bedroom 2-bathroom property was given a new outer skin (as seen in the top photo) to tie into features of the extensive interior redo, carried out by the seller’s own stone-and-tile-centric remodeling business. New features in the home include stone paneling, a few reshaped windows, and some throwback color schemes (including a black-and-white checkered garage floor), as well as a new pump system for the drought-tolerant backyard landscape (complete with koi pond.)  Asking price is $400,000 — check out more before-and-after shots below:

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Slated for a Redo
08/17/16 1:15pm

12740 Memorial Dr., Memorial, Houston, 77024A few readers have written in regarding the fate of the Baskin Robbins and its retail strip neighbors at 12740 Memorial Dr., just south of Town and Country Mall. The building which housed the now-closed scoop shop along with Katy defector Anne’s Salon on Memorial and the local branch of More Hands Maid Service appears slated for a full tear-down and do-over (along with freestanding A-1 Cleaners next door), if plans from Streetwise Retail Advisor’s leasing flier are still on the mark:

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Memorial Bends
08/17/16 12:00pm

826 Le Green St., Ridgewood, Houston Heights

826 Le Green St., Ridgewood, Houston Heights

Swamplot’s sponsor today is the 4-bedroom, 5-1/2-bath home at 826 Le Green St. Thank you for supporting this site!

The original single-story brick bungalow at 826 Le Green St. was built in 1929, in a section of the Heights called Ridgewood. An extensive renovation and addition by Pipe Dream Builders begun last year has turned it into the 2-story, 3,252-sq.-ft. home with a 2-car garage you see pictured above. The home retains its original brick siding, fireplace, and many other features. But much of the home is brand new — including structural framing, piers, electrical systems, and plumbing.

Now there’s a whole new upstairs, which includes a gameroom with built-in shelving and its own half-bath; all 4 bedrooms have en suite baths. (There’s also a full bath downstairs, in case you want to use the study, off the main living space, as a fifth bedroom.) The air-conditioning system, controlled by Nest thermostats, has 4 zones. The oak floors have a natural finish. The kitchen (pictured above), which features Carrara marble countertops and a Bertazzoni gas range (with a pot filler mounted on a matching marble backsplash above), looks onto the back porch. The adjacent mud room connects to both the garage and back yard.

If you’re interested in the Heights, you probably don’t need to be sold on the location. But this home is central: Both the 19th St. shopping district and the smaller commercial hub surrounding 11th St. and Studewood are within walking distance — not to mention, to the east, the recently redone Heights Place shopping center on Main St. at the lower end of Airline Dr., home to Foreign Correspondents and Morningstar Coffee and Donuts. Both I-10 and I-45 are straight shots by car.

Be sure to check out the extensive photo album of the home’s new look included in the property website, where you’ll also find more details about the renovation.

Ready to debut the new you? Step out in a Swamplot Sponsor of the Day
.

Sponsor of the Day
08/17/16 10:45am

Heights Mercantile treesHeights Mercantile treesThe shot above, facing south along the eastern edge of the 7th-St.-straddling site of the Heights Mercantile development, shows a few of the new meant-to-catch-eyes green sashes now adorning a series of trees along the Heights Blvd. sidewalk. But just what kind of message are those low-slung stripes sending to workers at the site, a reader wonders? Does green mean made the cut, or cut ’em down?

Renderings of plans for the project include a double-wide strip of trees framing a walking path parallel to 7th St. (labeled an outdoor art gallery), with additional greenery arranged in front of the Heights Blvd. bungalows being recruited into the retail center:

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Marked at 7th St.
08/17/16 8:30am

spindletop

Photo of Spindletop: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool

Headlines
08/16/16 5:00pm

KAY’S LOUNGE CLOSING IN LESS THAN 3 WEEKS Kay's Lounge, 2324 Bissonnet St., Rice Village, Houston, 77005Perennial oldest-bar-in-Houston contender Kay’s Lounge, at 2324 Bissonnet St., is closing forever on September 3rd, per a reader’s telling (and a corroborating Facebook post from the bar itself) . The land the bar sits on was bought more than a year ago by a corporate entity using the same address as townhome-slash-mansion builder Frasier Homes in sales docs filed with the county. The bar has been leasing its space back from the new owners since then; a few of the bar’s 1940s companion structures, bought up by the same entity, met their end earlier this summer. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of Kay’s Lounge at 2324 Bissonnet St.: Thomas C.

08/16/16 4:15pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO CAPTURE HALF A DOZEN HOUSTON BIRDS WITH 1 STONE Pokedome“Turn that freaking albatross of an Astrodome into Pokémon-freaking-Central. Invite Walking-Dead-like zombies from around the world to scour the concourse for Peek-a-freakin-Chew and his/her nonsensical character friends, and charge them ten freaking dollars to get in.  . . . Instead of them being a giant pain in the ass as they meander up and down Heights Blvd. around Hamilton Elementary, they’re stuck inside the Eighth Wonder of the World helping Houston solve it’s looming pension problem.” [C.L., commenting on Discovery Green Says No to Pokemon Go; Artist Pads for Acres Homes]

08/16/16 1:45pm

SOMETHING HOT MOVING IN ON 59 DINER’S FORMER FARNHAM SPOT Former 59 Diner, 3801 Farnham St,, Upper Kirby, Houston, 77098With the ghostly reflection of the restaurant’s milkshake-shaped beacon hovering to the far left, a reader sends a shot of the TABC notice now replacing the hand-scrawled closed-indefinitely signage on the door of the former S. Shepherd 59 Diner location. The sign lists Alcaliente Houston as the applicant; 2 restaurants currently operate in Katy and the Woodlands respectively under the name Alcaliente, serving halal-and-also-very-non-halal Mexican food. The diner spot cleared out beneath a cloud of worker payment disputes in early March, shortly after The Halal Guys moved in to the west. [Previously on Swamplot] Photo of TABC notice at 3801 Farnham St.: Swamplot inbox