Wide open spaces are inside as well as outside a 1994 contemporary home of steel and Galvalume siding on a heavily landscaped half-an-acre unrestricted lot tucked into the southern hinterlands of Rice Military. The green-screened property first appeared on the market back in January. Its price tag dropped by $100K last week — to $2.65 million.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A REAL ESTATE CHILDHOOD 
“When I was a kid in the 80s, I used to write letters to builders requesting floor plans & brochures. Every holiday and birthday, my favorite gifts were house plan books. I would pick out my favorite houses and design communities on giant posterboards, with lots drawn out and all. I was a weird kid . . . who grew into a weird adult who works in GIS and tinkers with home design software in my spare time. One of my favorite games is Try-To-Figure-Out-The-Builder. . . .” [Bridgeland Dude, commenting on Fulshear Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Zamboni Finish] Illustration: Lulu
The UH professor whose experiences living next door to the vacant-lot-turned-highrise-construction-site across the southern border of River Oaks made for a colorful teevee news report and an EPA complaint has called an end to his protests of the rumbling, diesel fumes, and building and patio cracks caused by the giant crane that showed up next door (pictured above). With an unspecified amount of financial assistance from Hines, the developers of the 17-story office tower going up at 2229 San Felipe, Richard Armstrong and his family will be moving from 2244 Welch St. to a new home in Pearland early next month.
His media appearances “got the attention of Hines and Gilbane Construction,” Armstrong reports in a letter posted to an online news group focusing on the tower’s construction. “Fundamentally, there isn’t much that can be done,” he writes, “given the pace and scale of this construction. . . . We have loved this house and the neighborhood — up until December. This is a wonderful pocket for people who want access to everything the inner loop has to offer. Unfortunately, other people are discovering our secret. So we’ll just have to roll with the changes.”
It appears that Armstrong’s “roll” will be bankrolled — at least in part — by Hines.
Opposite the pedestrian-friendly Winlow Westheimer shopping center at the corner of Westheimer and Hazard St. that includes the recently de-Firkinized Phoenix bar, a new Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers fast-food joint is about to go up — on a 35,000-sq.-ft. lot that’s been vacant since the 2-story pushed-to-the-street building once home to Martha Turner Properties was torn down on the site almost 6 years ago. The reader who sent in the photo above reports that a construction supervisor on site claimed the new chicken joint will be alive and kicking within 3 or 4 months.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
And now these stories are all told:
Photo of Southwest Fwy.: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
The speckled-yellow-brick 1935 bungalow at 1705 Dunlavy St. is dead. Missed seeing that address, one lot deep into the third block south of West Gray, on Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report? So did we. But a helpful neighbor was on hand this week to take notes — and pics — of the take-down. This counts as the first demolition of a non-corner Dunlavy house in “a while,” our local correspondent announces. “It was in disrepair for a few years, so [I’m] not surprised it’s gone.”
A map-making trio headquartered in San Francisco has turned out its 11th “neighborhood culture map” of a U.S. city. And here we are . . . Houston! Well, after a fashion. How’d the team from Urbane come up with this particular collection of graphic geographic platitudes? Directly from sources: “For this map, we had an army of Houstonian contributors who talked a lot about their local haunts.” Isn’t that enough? “We do very thorough research, interviewing of people from there, and fact-checking to present our best efforts,” the Urbane team explains on its website. “Instead of critiquing our viewpoints, it is helpful for everyone if you would like to help our next project. Nobody can truly be a local to an entire city, can they? Nobody knows everything about every city. Maybe you’re an expert on your block, but it’s rare to find a full city expert.” So there. With its latest venture in Las Vegas, the group is trying another tack: Going onsite and asking passers-by to tag the neighborhoods they know with scribbled-on Post-It notes.
Garage-style doors open on 2 levels (top) in a contemporary buy-or-lease live-work property located south of Westheimer near Chimney Rock. With its 11 parking spaces out front and double garage bay, the 2005 brick-and-Galvalume structure in Raponderosa Reserve kinda looks like a modern firehouse, though there’s no pole inside. It was dual-listed in January:Â $2.2 million to own, $10K per month to lease.
Photo of San Jacinto Monument: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
You may have seen some harrowing home listings in your day, but for sheer, ballsy “abandon hope, all ye who enter here” bravado, it would be hard to imagine outdoing the agent’s MLS presentation of the single-bedroom condo at 12748 Huntingwick Dr.
How fearsome is this place? Well, let’s just say the featured photo in the listing is the down-the-hole toilet-bowl shot shown at right. Yes, if while trawling through listings, you are attracted by a full-on view of dank toilet water, surrounded on the floor and porcelain by brown bits that bear more than a passing resemblance to dead cockroaches, this might be the place for you. If, that is, the agent’s sage discouragement, dispensed in contract-friendly all-caps, doesn’t drive you away:
