Notices
06/08/11 5:22pm

A Shout-Out to Swamplot Advertisers

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Thank you thank you thank you to:

And please welcome Swamplot’s newest direct advertiser:

  • New Living in the Rice Village, featuring no-VOC paints and coatings and organic mattresses.

New Living is currently offering Swamplot readers a 10 percent discount on home water and filtration systems.

If you enjoy Swamplot, please let these folks know you appreciate what they’re doing here. And If you’d like to add your local business to this list and connect with this site’s large and growing audience of Houston real estate fans, drop us a line!

Home Decor
06/08/11 1:53pm

Just Reduced: Katy House of New Tile Throughout

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What’s missing from the set of images that goes with this Memorial Parkway brick 2-story? Only photos of the tile recently installed on the garage floor. Other than that, the listing does a pretty good job of illustrating the agent’s contention that this 1989 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath, 2,365-sq.-ft. home does, in fact, have “new tile throughout.”

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Buildings for Lease
06/08/11 11:36am

King Biscuit Comeback Efforts Grind to a Halt, Building Up for Sale

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4 Comments

Noting the new handcrafted plywood “for sale or lease” signs now hanging on White Oak in front of King Biscuit Patio Cafe, a few Swamplot readers have written in to tell us that it looks like the Woodland Heights restaurant’s promised comeback has been called off before it even started. Restaurant guide b4-u-eat announced last month that building owner Pat Quinn would be teaming up with former Fitzgerald’s owner Sara Fitzgerald to reopen the restaurant. One reader tells Swamplot that remodeling work came to a halt 2 weeks ago, and that Fitzgerald spent all of last Thursday moving out of the building. The signs — one of them advertising the availability of owner financing — were posted over the weekend.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

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Drainage
06/08/11 9:30am

Parker: Houston Lots Much Bigger Than We Thought

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27 Comments

PARKER: HOUSTON LOTS MUCH BIGGER THAN WE THOUGHT Acknowledging that the city underestimated the cost of the average homeowner’s drainage fee by $3.25 per month, Mayor Parker blames faulty estimates of the size of the typical Houston residential lot. The city had presumed that the average Houston home had a 1,875-sq.-ft. impervious footprint and sat on 5,000 sq. ft. of land. But appraisal district data and satellite images now show that the typical Houston home sits on a 7,500-sq.-ft. lot and has 2,850 sq. ft. of impervious surface. [Houston Chronicle]

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Buying and Selling
06/07/11 5:02pm

Comment of the Day: The Trendsetting Less Fortunate

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23 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE TRENDSETTING LESS FORTUNATE “I have a few friends moving to Houston who are going to live in the ’burbs – not because they’re into racial purity and strip malls but because that’s where they can actually afford to buy a home. The less fashionable an area becomes, the more affordable it is to people of modest means, which typically means the sneerers look a bit snobbish. Which suddenly turns the formerly unfashionable area fashionable (I believe the vogue term right now is “authentic”), and the sneering and budgeting just reverses itself. Laughing at the people who have tight budgets but aren’t poor enough to actually be considered poor is an old means to paint a veneer onto one’s classism, and it’s often couched in the argument over whether surbubanites or midtowners are morally and culturally superior. It’s utterly ridiculous, but it’ll never stop.” [Sihaya, commenting on ExxonMobil Fesses Up to Its Employees About That New North Houston Campus It’s Been Building]

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Attractions
06/07/11 4:12pm

Bayou Movie Boat: Maiden Voyage of the Tex Hex Reaches the Small Screen

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Ah, the life of a roadie/curator on a little Houston showboat. . . . Squeezed into this short video: the weeklong White Oak and Buffalo Bayou popup cinema debuts of the good barge Tex Hex from late last month, documenting the rides and drifts of Houston’s first and only solar-powered waterborne movie projection system.

Video: Be Johnny

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Landscape
06/07/11 2:03pm

Welcome to the Land of ExxonMobil: A Tour of the Company’s New North Houston Campus

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40 Comments

That floating central portion of the new gateway “Energy Center” planned for the entrance to ExxonMobil’s just-acknowledged new office campus in Spring only looks like it’s touching down after an outer-space tour of possible new energy sources. Or is the structure’s “Look, Ma, no feet” stance meant to communicate the company’s attitude toward whatever stuff might be lurking on the ground — or below it? The welcome center, which will include a reception area, training and conference facilities, and a formal restaurant, “has been designed to represent the ExxonMobil brand for the long term,” an internal company memo declares. Well, hello up there!

The campus was planned and designed by New Haven architects Pickard Chilton, with local firms PDR and the Houston office of Gensler. Hargreaves Associates created the landscape plan. More images of buildings now under construction by Gilbane and Harvey on the company’s 385-acre campus near the intersection of I-45, the Hardy Toll Rd., and the likely path of the future Grand Parkway loop road:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Conroe
06/07/11 11:14am

Your Internet Guide To Buying Property and Sailing with Cats — in Conroe!

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YOUR INTERNET GUIDE TO BUYING PROPERTY AND SAILING WITH CATS — IN CONROE! An auto-translated splog spotted by the Houston Press‘s John Nova Lomax — and paid for, it appears, by the internet-savvy folks behind a Magnolia master-planned community called Magnolia Ridge — makes the international case for investing in Conroe real estate. A sample of the pitch: “If you’re a nature-loving backyard human being, Conroe happens when to suit your needs. Nestling within the pine hardwoods of Japanese Texas, Conroe has got the appropriate mixture of characteristics, background disciplines to help regale your sensory faculties. Solely 45 min’s via Houston, the lake town provides quite a few Conroe texas homes to select from. Devote your current breaks backpacking by the lake, as well as go for a walking. Unwind in the high end of your respective magnolia property with the family. Trekking, riding a bike, reef fishing, sailing along with cats will be the ways you can spend your holiday seasons with Conroe. Ask your broker . . . A Conroe real estate is definitely coveted by quite a few, possessed by simply several.” [Stock Markets Review, via Hair Balls]

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Development Strategies
06/07/11 9:24am

ExxonMobil Fesses Up to Its Employees About That New North Houston Campus It’s Been Building

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An email sent out early this morning to all U.S.-based ExxonMobil employees provides the first acknowledgment by the company’s management of what’s been a remarkably open secret: that the oil giant is building a giant new office campus south of The Woodlands. Actually, the email simply announces that the company is “proceeding with construction” of the project — a fact that should have been apparent to anyone who’s explored a Google map of the area recently, or driven past the small army of construction cranes visible from behind a mask of trees on the western edge of I-45 near the start of the Hardy Toll Rd. and the likely path of the Grand Parkway. (The reader photo shown above dates from several weeks ago.)

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Comments
06/06/11 11:42pm

Comment of the Day: Keepin’ It French

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3 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: KEEPIN’ IT FRENCH “If a buyer does not appreciate authentic French construction or understand the architecture and passion involved to complete a showplace like this, keep moving. The basic bones are French and a crime to strip the beauty from it. . . . French rooms are meant to be ornate, lots of specialized woodwork, and rooms always separated from others. I know I just sold my parents authentic French home that took 4 years to build and 4 years on the drawing board. Every detail was studied and nothing too small to compromise the integrity of the house. They enjoyed the home for 15 years. I was privileged to live there and watch the delight on people’s faces as they toured the home. My point, a true French home only shines when it is in it’s original state. renovation of course. My parents loved Jerry Moore’s petite chateau. Keep it french.” [Meredith, commenting on On Second Thought, Nevermind: The $5 Million Gut-and-Flip of Jerry J. Moore’s Little French Castle in Houston]

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Landscape
06/06/11 10:18pm

The Campaign for Houston’s Vacant Real Estate: Who Will Win the Empty Lot Primary?

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Ever wonder what’s behind all the political endorsements made by so many vacant lots in Houston? Why is it that the weedy site shown above at the corner of Heights Blvd. and Center St., near the future West End Walmart, for example, appears to be supporting Jenifer Rene Pool in her bid for an at-large city council seat? Among the empty lots of Washington Ave, there seems to be a lot of support for another candidate for the same position, Eric Dick. What’s up with that? Political consultant Greg Wythe, who’s long studied the demographics and political opinions of Harris County’s human population, has begun a new website devoted to exploring the campaign preferences of Houston’s vacant properties — as expressed by the various signs and banners they’re regularly festooned with.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Downtown
06/06/11 12:46pm

The Slipcover Is Coming Off: Strip Show Begins on Main St. Corner Downtown

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The streetclothes are already being shed from the recently vacated office building at the corner of Main St. and Rusk downtown where a Fort Worth development and hospitality company is planning its next hotel project. Pearl Real Estate announced plans to gut and renovate the 22-story building at 806 Main St. early last year. And now, a reader reports, permits are posted in the window and the paneling and windows in a single column have been removed.

Underneath the white-marble and brown-glass slipcover — installed about 30 years ago — is a stone, terra cotta, and brick building built about 100 years ago and expanded 10 stories skyward in the 1920s. The building is directly across the street from the brand-new BG Group Place.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

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Art
06/06/11 11:42am

A Short Houston History of President Obama, in 3 Photos

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Okay, well at least it’s a history of the mural version of the Shepard Fairey poster based on Mannie Garcia’s photo, painted back in February 2008 onto the West Alabama side of the former Obama campaign headquarters at 3710 Travis St. Candace Garcia’s photos show the mural as it appeared a few days after the 2008 election (top) and shortly after the President’s midterm shellacking — and the mural’s Midtown spattering — late last year (middle). The bottom photo shows the result of a little rehabilitation work completed late last week, clearly meant to cover up and gloss over all the wear and tear Obama’s image has suffered over the last several years, and put it in brighter shape for the 2012 election season.

Photos: Candace Garcia

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