COMMENT OF THE DAY: WITHOUT THIS KIND OF JEWELRY, THE HOUSE WOULD BE NAKED 
“You have to look at Lick & Stick stone from the perspective of ‘given the low budget, what would have been an alternative?’ and most of the time it would be nothing, just bare stucco. So, on some level it’s better [to have] something than nothing.” [commonsense, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Ragged Left] Illustration: Lulu
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PAINTING HOUSES IN THE HEIGHTS 
Another Houston artist has turned to demolitions for inspiration. Though Ken Mazzu has spent the past decade driving all over the city and studying the twisted remains of iconic buildings like the Downtown Y and the Ben Milam Hotel, 15-year Heights resident and painter Cary Reeder seems to want to stay closer to home; Martin Hajovsky reports that Reeder’s paintings portray the last days of doomed bungalows she sees in her dramatically changing ‘hood: “Reeder’s [upcoming show at the Lawndale Art Center], in effect a different sort of home tour, will focus specifically on houses in the Heights that are endangered for demolition.” [Home in the Heights; previously on Swamplot] Image: Cary Reeder
Yep, it was a costly mistake: A $300,000 fine was paid to the city on Friday with a cashier’s check signed by Bill Workman, the first-time developer who says a miscommunication with a subcontractor led to the clearing of almost an acre of trees and stuff near Little White Oak Bayou in Woodland Park.
Though neighbors accused Workman of ordering the slashing to improve the view of the 8 townhouses he is building on Wrightwood St., he denied those accusations, telling Swamplot in June that one of the reasons he chose the site for development was its proximity to the park. Seeing what happened, he says, left him “devastated.”
Apparently, the fine isn’t quite enough to satisfy Andrea Greer, who originally reported what she called “egregious clear-cutting” on her blog:
On a patch of prairie in Katy with large lots that keep their distance from the ever-closer, ever-denser development nearby, a re-relisted 1984 property is making another run at the market. The “close-in country retreat,” as the listing pegs it, comes with a main house, pool house, and guest quarters, plus a pool, pond, barn — and a gazebo (top) out back for taking it all in. No garage, though. The asking price for the 1-acre compound, $565,000, is down from a previous listing’s $599,000 back in March and $580,000 in May. The home et al., located just west of the Grand Parkway amid all the Falcon-named subdivisions, first hit the market in January 2011, asking $625,000.
- Midway Acquires Adjacent Sheraton Hotel To Grow CityCentre Footprint [Prime Property]
- Houston Hits Housing Hurdle as Land Ready for Construction Limited [Wall Street Journal ($)]
- Aging Population Driving Growth for Some Houston Businesses [Houston Business Journal]
- Lessons in Traffic Planning from Houston’s Grid-Like Rail Expansion [Walkable DFW]
- Galveston Park Board Wants Free Parking, Reserved Spots for Lifeguards on Seawall [Houston Chronicle]
- Double Decker Tour Buses Have Arrived in Houston [Houstonia Magazine]
- The Unexpected Wildlife Calling Memorial Park Home [The Texican]
- Touring the Ship Channel on the M/V Sam Houston [Houstonia Magazine]
- 100 Ideas for Making Houston a More Livable, Sustainable Place [100 [D]Ways via Houston Chronicle ($)]
Photo of the Penguin Arms apartment building at 2902 Revere St.: Molly Block via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Maybe attracted by the gravitational pull of the hulking 185,000-sq.-ft. Idylwood Walmart going up on the other side of S. Wayside Dr., Shipley Do-Nuts is moving into this strip center. This location is about 2 miles closer in than the one near HCC Southeast, also on the northbound Gulf Fwy. feeder.
- Idylwood Walmart coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Allyn West
USING PICTURES TO PICTURE USES FOR BUFFALO BAYOU’S BASEMENT 
There’s still no real plan for that 1927 underground reservoir along Buffalo Bayou near Sabine St. But, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray — one devoted parishioner of this “accidental cathedral” — there’s now a new technology in place that might help would-be entrepreneurs visualize the possibilities: “SmartGeometrics, a company whose main business is creating super-precise 3-D digital models of real places . . . will show video-game-like digital models to the public . . . and will explain how, soon, the data will be available to anyone who wants to plug it into his design software. . . . ‘This is a starting point for us,’ [Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s Guy Hagstette] says. ‘We’re trying to decide on the big picture. What should the concept be? Is it environmental art? A giant nightclub? A parking garage?” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: SWA Group
COMMENT OF THE DAY: KEEP HOUSTON OBLIVIOUS 
“In a real way, Houston is way more weird than Austin. Austin has a younger, more counter-culture population but all that has become mainstream anyway. Houston, on the other hand, is weird as in strange or unique in its ability to freely and quickly remake itself based on economics, not by committee. But instead of Houstonians embracing this uniqueness, we groan how we should be like Boston, NY, etc. and moan about not preserving buildings (I am in this group), this one going up in an inappropriate spot etc., that one not being architecturally congruent. But it’s like we’re living in a huge sand painting with things we see getting constructed and others destroyed constantly, which is the beauty, reality and terror of existence, the wabi-sabi beauty of impermanence. Austin is a peace symbol, Houston is actual war.” [Dana-X, commenting on Comment of the Day: Why Montrose Ain’t the Worst Place for a Bar from Austin] Illustration: Lulu
The Art Guys are in there somewhere: On Friday the mischievous duo executed Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, the latest of their yearlong series of 12, umm, performances. Cocooning themselves in these 6-ft. sections of privacy fencing, Jack Massing and Michael Galbreth proceeded to spend 2 hours publicly scuttling about the reflecting pool and Hermann Square in front of the Joseph Finger-designed City Hall.
Across town from the molten-zinc-dipped pedestrian bridges and Bud Light Amphitheaters going up along Buffalo Bayou, site prep is underway to build a new section of hike and bike trail along Brays Bayou in Mason Park. Paid for by the same federal scratch that will fund a yet-to-be-designed pedestrian bridge spanning the bayou on the south side of 75th St. (or behind that bridge in the photo), this section will connect 75th to Forest Hill Blvd., where the trail picks up and splits, running west to Lawndale and east to Capitol near the Magnolia Transit Center.
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Ready to crunch. Then chew. Then spit.
- Recently Sold $14M River Oaks Estate Sets Price Record for Houston [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Improvements Underway To Make Main Street Near Hermann Park, Museum District More Walkable [Your Houston News]
- Due to Lack of Inventory, West University, Southside Place See Decline in Home Sales [Tom Plant’s Houston Real Estate Blog]
- Proposed Program Would Help Homeowners Contract Out Sidewalk Repairs [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Chef-Operated Food Trucks Like Green Seed, Fusion Taco Having Restaurant Success [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Houston’s Suburban Sprawl Leaving Animals Stranded [Voice of America]
- New App Provides Information on Buffalo Bayou Parks, Parking, Art, Facilities, Development [Culturemap]
- Houston’s Five Best Social Bike Rides [Art Attack]
Photo: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
A little subdividing might still be ahead for this biggest-in-the neighborhood property in Atascocita Shores. An older listing tried to sell off only the 2-lot portion containing the builder-owned 1990 home and fronting a secluded cul-de-sac near-but-not-on Lake Houston. The re-listing earlier this month, however, includes the entire acre-and-a-quarter, which also backs up to a stretch of the neighborhood’s namesake roadway. That 2-sided access might be handy since the 2 routes to the site from a fork in the road have similar names (Atascocita Point Dr. and Atascocita Place Dr.).
