COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE KEY TO THE CITY “Just what the heck is regionally appropriate in style for Houston? That is the most idiotic comment that I have heard. Everything about Houston is imported from someplace else in order replace or augment what is natural to Houston. This include the folks who have moved here over [the] last 150 years. Going back to the Allen brothers, the whole idea has been to cover up what Houston “Is†and make it into what is is not.” [Bubba, commenting on Comment of the Day: Importing the Right Look for Houston]
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Dusted off and back on the market with a new . . . uh, MLS number for the new year: This Rancho Escondido number from 1986 out there in Willis, putting in at the far side of Lake Conroe. We’ve tracked it back as far as last May and a $975,000 asking price; the 4,535-sq.-ft. home on a half acre is now down to $845,000. From the street the 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath home plays it quiet and Ranch-like, but once you’re inside the animal-skin prints and views open up:
A few months after Harold Farb passed away in 2006, the unfinished home at 3482 Inwood Dr. the legendary singer and Houston developer had been building with his wife, Diane Lokey Farb, went on the market for $14.75 million. The listing didn’t include any photos, but described a 17,404-sq.-ft. “Neoclassical gated estate” on an almost-2-acre lot, with 8 fireplaces, 9 bathrooms, an elevator, a 4-car garage, and a master suite overlooking the 15th tee of the golf course at the River Oaks Country Club. The home was “to be completed by new owner.” Only portions of the exterior were finished. By July of last year the price had been chopped to $9.995 million, after a few years of steady price reductions and listing-number changes. (It appears Farb bought the property from its previous owner, Roy Cullen, for about half that amount.) Not too long after the listing expired, the home showed up on Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report. But the demo action didn’t begin until recently. A Swamplot reader sends us this view of some heavy equipment still on the scene, behind a fence that just went up last weekend.
- Previously on Swamplot: Last of the Harold Farb Signs: It’s a Wrap, Farb Gone: Will the Signs Go Down on Broadway?
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Tired of all that house chopping? You can cross these off your list:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: IMPORTING THE RIGHT LOOK FOR HOUSTON “Let me get this straight: we’re upset that an Austin-based store looks like it’s from Austin? Has anyone explained to Houstonians that a city 2.5 hours away is a helluva a lot closer to “regionally appropriate†than Tuscany or Greece will ever be?” [cooperella, commenting on Austin Powers the New North Montrose Whole Foods]
One advantage of those double-height entries and oversized arched door-topping windows that come free with the purchase of your new home in Fairfield, as reporter Jennifer Bauer demonstrates: As you’re coming down the stairs, it’s easy to scan your front yard for mummies. KPRC photographer Jon Hill is lighting up the internets with the harrowing tale of his encounter last Wednesday night with a man who had an actual Ace bandage wrapped around his head. After spotting the sorta-masked sorta intruder lurking in his yard in the Fairfield neighborhood of Inwood Park, Hill ran out the front door with hopes of launching a surprise tackle. The wrapped visitor made an un-mummy-like exit, but Hill wasn’t able to chase him down. Thanks to a teevee report documenting the episode and other sightings of the unidentified interloper, all of Fairfield is now officially on mummy alert. Money quote: “Harris County sheriff’s deputies recommended that homeowners who see the man dressed as a mummy in their yard call 911 immediately.”
There’s a whole lot more drama to the Highland Village Tootsies shutdown battle than just that little overnight lockout, jackhammered walkway, and side-door goodbye sale customers got to enjoy late last week: The Chron‘s Purva Patel reports Tootsies sought a restraining order against the Highland Village Shopping Center, claiming the center was “interfering with its business.” Oh, but that was only after the landlord began eviction proceedings against the women’s clothing boutique on January 4th, a full 5 days after the long-term lease on its only Houston store expired.
The store paid rent of $159,834 at December’s end, but Highland Village plans to return the money, according to court records. The store plans to send it again.
Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia has pics of the scene in front the store at 4045 Westheimer from Saturday morning, just as workers were beginning to scrape off what sure looks like a fresh coat of black paint from the store’s windows. Oh, but that’s not all the trouble Highland Village CEO Haidar Barbouti‘s merry band of graffiti artists caused for its extended tenant. Painted over, and possibly beyond recovery: those “Tootsies Parking” signs on the curb in front!
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
These four sure had a lot of gall, to be so useless and all…
HIGHLAND VILLAGE LOCKOUT DRAMA: STEP AWAY FROM THE TOOTSIES! What tenant lockout techniques at the Highland Village Shopping Center lack in effectiveness, they make up in chutzpah: Employees and shoppers arriving for the second day of the big sale at Tootsies this morning found the stores’ windows blacked out, the sign blocked, and the concrete path to the front entrance jackhammered and blocked off with cones and temporary fencing. But that’s no obstacle at all for the sale-obsessed: Black-booted employees of the upscale women’s boutique simply ushered shoppers in through a side entrance for deals on dresses, handbags and shoes! Shopping center CEO Haidar Barbouti announced plans last year to demolish the Tootsies building and replace it with 100,000 square feet of multi-level retail space and an underground parking garage. Tootsies’ long-term lease expired on December 31, but the company’s new store at West Ave hasn’t opened yet. Can’t they work something out? A Highland Village spokesperson tells Culturemap that landlord and tenant have not met “in several years.” Bring on the lawyers! [Culturemap]
Lookie what an investment group headlined by former NBA star Magic Johnson walked away with after Tuesday’s Harris County foreclosure auction: the Hotel Icon — and probably for less than $27 million, since that was the unanswered starting bid for the 135-room boutique hotel. The building at 220 Main St. Downtown is of course no stranger to foreclosure auctions: Randall Davis and some investment partners brought it home from one in 2002, then redressed it as the Icon. And the building began its life as the Union National Bank. LA’s Lowe Enterprises — also the owners of Austin’s Driskill Hotel — bought the hotel from Davis’s group in 2006, but since defaulted on $46 million of debt. That’s what the joint venture of 2 joint ventures — one of them Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds, part owner of the Marq*E Entertainment Center on I-10 — bought up on the rebound, and at a deep discount, this week. The new owners tell the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson they’re hoping to turn over operation of the hotel to “a luxury chain such as The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. or W Hotels & Resorts.”
- Hotel Icon deal a slam-dunk [Houston Business Journal]
Photo: Facilities Online
What’s the safety of your family worth, anyway? Is $2,052,218 really too high a price to pay for the security of knowing that when the revolution/apocalypse/nuclear winter/plague of locusts/hurricane/historic designation comes, your loved ones could be comfortably ensconced in their very own bomb shelter? And look! A trained school of security fish stand guard by the shelter’s entrance — in their very own BB-proof booth. Plus, right next door, there’s a $5 million home!
Nothing new to tear down in today’s report. Sorry. Don’t you have some unfinished finishing business you could keep working on?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MORE THAN YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW MONTROSE WHOLE FOODS 
“The following was from the North Montrose civic association meeting November:
1) The reason the back-end of the store is facing Dallas and the side is facing Waugh is because of the AIG building. They (AIG building owner) required that the store be placed as far away from the building as possible. This meant that the parking lot had to sit between the AIG building and the store pushing the back to Dallas (unfortunately).
2) The loading entrance will be on Dallas and will exit onto Waugh. This means the trucks will not have to cross any traffic to get to the loading docks.
3) The trucks will be loading sometime in the early morning and should be finished by 8:00 AM. There will be nice large wooden doors to conceal the entrance and exit to the loading dock during the day when there is no loading.
4) The corner of the store on Waugh closest to D’amico will contain an outdoor/indoor style cafe with garage-type doors that open in good weather. The renderings of the store show a patio with umbrellas. They expect to have bands, etc playing there.
5) The store will be very pedestrian friendly with all traffic entering from the BACK of the parking lot (close to D’amico). They say they learned from the Kirby store that allowing cars to enter by the store entrance is a nightmare for traffic.
6) There will be bike racks with some 50 or available slots. There will be a free tire filling station. The focus here is to really drive bike traffic (and pedestrians as noted in #5).
7) There will be many skylights on the roof allowing a bunch of natural lighting.
8) There will be many large trees that should grow to provide good shade in time (not just those short trees).
9) No comment on an apartment building going up next to it BUT.. look at the roundabout driveway. Obviously not built just for a grocery store.
10) They will recycle their own rainwater and use it in sprinkler system.
11) I think 250 parking spots. Kirby store has 150. Kirby store is 35,000 sq ft and this one slightly larger at 40,000.
12) No real details on the inside of the store. They expect it to fit in very well with the diversity of Montrose. They are reaching out to local artists to put local art in the store (and around it). I can’t remember exactly the email to submit. Maybe montrose.artist@wholefoods.com?? If you are and artist and want to submit your stuff give it a whirl.
13) They expect to open in the spring. Shooting for March if no big weather delays.
14) Store hours aren’t set. Expected to be 7:00AM to 10? (if i remember correctly).
15) They are very excited as were the people in the meeting. They say Houston is the #2 market for them (they have 300 stores i think). Every store is built for the specific location (sugarland way different of course than Montrose).
16) They think there will be a bank at the corner of D’amico and Waugh in that section of the parking lot (which is what we really need right????)
17) They are hoping to relieve some of the high traffic they get at kirby store as it is a nightmare.”
[shannosa, commenting on Austin Powers the New North Montrose Whole Foods] Rendering: Stone Soup 6 Architecture
That’s a mighty oh . . . Austinish-looking shell of a Whole Foods Market sprouting at the northeast corner of Waugh and West Dallas. The building — last pegged at 48,000 40,450 sq. ft. — faces north, to a big parking lot and AIG’s American General Center on Allen Parkway beyond. The design comes from the same architecture firm responsible for the flagship Whole Foods in downtown Austin, now named Stone Soup 6 Architecture. They’re from Austin too! The corners of the building are already stoned. And it looks like even more rocks from the Hill Country are headed for that little Hoo-Ray Tower entrance at the center:
FARKED Not seeing comments show up on this site as quickly as usual? It’s just temporary — Swamplot has been dealing with a small flood of visitors from Fark, all eager to gawk at Houston’s impromptu beef soup buffet. We’ll be back live once the traffic subsides.