Swamplot Archives by Tag: 77004

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Home Sweet Funeral Home: Washington Terrace Mortuary Seeks Residents

A househunter sends in a Washington Terrace find:

I’d hate for anyone to miss out on this former funeral home that could be used for “private living.” It comes complete with your very own chapel and it looks like it has plenty of garage space. Plus, it’s “near everything that’s good in Houston.” I bet there’s plenty of stainless steel in the kitchen and a giant walk in refrigerator!

It’s the former Jackson Mortuary building, at the corner of Wheeler and Live Oak. And there’s still plenty of light inside:

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Living Little in Midtown: Isabella Court in the Court of Public Opinion

Vernon Caldera, proprietor of video-a-day website Keep Houston Rich, writes in to show off his friend Adam Gibson’s pad at Isabella Court in Midtown — and to round up votes for it in a “smallest, coolest home” contest hosted by design blog Apartment Therapy.

Gibson’s apartment, pictured above, has already advanced to the second round of competition in the “little” category (at 710 sq. ft., the apartment apparently doesn’t qualify as tiny, teeny-tiny, “international,” or small — each of which has its own separate contest). Today, it’s pitted against a “compact but . . . spacious and cozy” (and slightly smaller) apartment in Brooklyn.

What’s so special about this little home? Gibson tells the judges:

I love [the] wrought-iron window between the bedroom and the living room. I love the original sink in the kitchen from when the building was built in 1929. I love the beautiful non-working fireplace. But I would have to say my favorite element is the beautiful wrought iron staircase in the living room with the butterflies sculpted to match the lines of the stairs.

Caldera writes:

There is a short registration, if you are not already a member, but other than that voting is fairly easy. I believe Adam’s apartment is the only one selected from Houston. . . . The winner after each 24-hour elimination round moves onto the next round with the division elimination on Wednesday. Night-owls like myself start voting as soon as the contest opens at 2AM our time and continue to vote until the last hour.

You can find more pics of Gibson’s definitively little apartment — and vote for the winner in the current round — on the Apartment Therapy website.

Photos: Adam Gibson

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Dorm Room!!!

Wedding DJ, videographer, and UH student Sammy Butts loves his dorm room at Moody Towers:

3 years down, still a few to go… reserved the room again for next year. Just love the view of Downtown/Campus/Med. Center.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

Seen on the Street: Need To Get Out More Often

Here’s the latest installment of Swamplot’s fun-pix-from-around-town feature!

Above: While visiting last weekend’s Gulf Coast Green symposium and expo at the Reliant Center, Sean Morrissey Carroll catches the Astrodome peeking in on the action.

A few more images loom:

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Metro Coming Attractions: Previewing Houston’s New Light Rail Lines

Here’s a whizzy reel showing what the new Metro trains and stations on 4 upcoming light-rail lines are supposed to look like. Dowling St. in the Third Ward, the Edloe Station in Greenway Plaza, the Moody Park Station on the North Line, MacGregor Park Station on the Southeast Line, and Lockwood Station on the East End Line each get about 30 seconds of CGI treatment, from a low-flying camera buzzing some extremely lifelike — though torpid — pedestrians.

Christof Spieler finds a few flaws:

The Third Ward footage seems to be out-of-date; it shows the old alignment crossing Dowling on Wheeler, not the new route that switches to Alabama. But other details are correct: the stations shown are the new prototype station design (by Rey de la Reza Architects), minus artwork.

It’s nice to be able to visualize what these lines might look like. But it’s also a reminder that it’s important to get the details right. At Edloe, for example, the trees integrated into the canopy are nice, but there’s no crosswalk at the west end of the station platform, which means a 500-foot detour for some riders. The Moody Park and MacGregor stations do show that crosswalk, and the sidewalks look pretty good, too. But in all the images, the overhead wires are suspended from their own poles in the middle of the street, not from the streetlight poles on either side, as on Main Street. That makes for more poles and a more cluttered streetscape.

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Friday, April 3, 2009

Comment of the Day: Living the Wildlife at Mosaic

   

“It’s a Damn shame about those nesting rare birds but look on the bright side, if these condos keep selling like they have there will only be rare birds living there and trees growing up through the lobby anyway!” [james cianci, commenting on Mosaic Avoids Foreclosure, Files for Bankruptcy]

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Openings and Closings: Bars and Barbecue

An update on recent comings and goings:

  • Now Open: “A small group of cocktail freaks,” including former Beavers bartender Bobby Heugel, have at last opened the doors of Anvil Bar & Refuge on the Westheimer Curve. The location was originally a Bridgestone-Firestone tire shop, but was known more recently as the home of the Daiquiri Factory and Sliders.
  • Closed: In advance of that new 25,000-sq.-ft. Spec’s opening up in the former Linens ’N Things in Weslayan Plaza, owner Christopher Massie decided to shut down Cepage Noir, his considerably smaller wine shop on Times Blvd. in the Rice Village.

More twists and turns:

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Openings and Closings: Chili’s Chills, Movie Munchies, Green Performers

Hey, what happened to Monday? Swamplot spent most of it fighting off a few tech demons. But hey, here’s some news!

  • Opened: The new and expanded Children’s Museum had its grand opening this weekend. Now twice its original size, the 90,000 sq. ft. museum features exhibits of children in various states of play. Also inside: an expanded branch of the Houston Public Library.
  • Opening: Backe’s Bullpen, a fine drinking establishment in Dickinson, will open with the backing of Astros pitcher Brandon Backe, reports the Galveston Daily News’s Laura Elder. Last October, Backe was arrested after a run-in with police at a Galveston bar.
  • Closed: Mike McGuff notices that the Meyer Park Chili’s, once “the big teen hangout in southwest Houston,” shut down in February.

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Monday, March 9, 2009

The New New Metro Rail Map: University Line Takes the Uptown Express, TSU Takes a Hike

The advance rail intelligence unit known as Christof Spieler puts together another map showing Metro’s latest plans for the new 2012 lines. What’s changed since last time?

Texas Southern University now has no stop alongside campus. There is a station called “TSU,” but it’s three blocks from campus, on the opposite side of a public housing project. Rice, UH, St. Thomas, and UH Downtown all get excellent connections to the 2012 system, but TSU is getting left out because METRO couldn’t figure out how to work with a neighborhood to get a Wheeler/Ennis route figured out. That’s an unfortunate situation for a university that’s trying to raise its profile.

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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Openings and Closings: Super Happy Baking Brothers

As the retail churns . . .

  • Reopening Soon: The original Three Brothers Bakery next to Brays Bayou in Linkwood, closed since Hurricane Ike, has a permit in hand to rebuild. Cynthia Lescalleet reports in the River Oaks Examiner:

    While the exterior of the building, 4036 South Braeswood Blvd., will retain the colors, 60s-vintage architectural elements and windows of its past, the inside has been reconfigured a bit to be “cozy,” with a more efficient layout.

    Among the tweaking are the addition of a small room for wedding consultations and staff offices that look out over the interior so they can see and connect with the customers they’ve missed since Hurricane Ike damaged the business, [co-owner Janice] Jucker said.

    “We’re almost like therapists over the bakery counter,” she said.

    But: no plans to return to the River Oaks Shopping Center or Sugar Land.

    Any future expansion would likely be into properties the bakery would own and build itself, she said: “We want control over our destiny.”

    Near the end of the 10- to 12-week building project, the building’s crooked sign will be re-set. If you see a straight sign, that’ll mean the bagels are almost ready.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Freeway Townhouse: New Owner Is Much More Flexible



The last time
the peachy little townhouse-by-the-freeway at 2232 Riverside Dr. was available for sale — in the good ol’ boom-boom days of May 2007 — the owner refused to make any repairs on the property, which was listed for sale at just under $500K. What’s up with it now?

A good year after it was sold (for a much lower price, about half[!?] of what someone paid for the next-door unit just a few months later), the 2003 townhouse with the front-row view of 288 went back on the market! And it’s still there.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: Tip Top

Lots of very detailed Montrose guesses in this week’s game, which would have helped in parsing a winner — if that were the right neighborhood! We had “Montrose, north of West Gray, east of Montrose Blvd.,” “just behind Texas Art Supply off Montrose,” Montrose near W. Dallas and Taft, Montrose within walking distance of the Black Lab, “somewhere between Kirby and Montrose, south of Westheimer, north of 59,” “in the greater Montrose, more specifically west of Hyde Park and the diagonal grid, bounded to the north by West Gray, to the west by Shepherd, and south by Westheimer,” Avondale, the W. Dallas-Dunlavy-W. Gray-Woodhead quadrant, “lower Montrose, just around the corner from Baba Yega,” and Winlow Place.

There were also 3 Southampton guesses, 2 West Universities, and 2 Lindale Parks. The rest: Woodland Heights, “Near Almeda, north of Hermann Park,” “the southerly parts of Third Ward, in the area bounded by Wheeler, Scott, McGregor and 288,” Southgate, Garden Oaks, Riverside Terrace, Idylwood, Eastwood, North Norhill, the Museum District, “Somewhere in Riverside or MacGregor,” “in the odd trapezoid between Binz, Almeda, Montrose and 59,” “the TSU-ish part of Midtown,” “near the Riverside Terrace area,” Almeda Place, Southmore, Old Braeswood, and Sunset Heights. There’s not a bad guess in the bunch!

Bonuses this week: a couple of well-faked entries by players who wrote in first to let us know they knew the listing, then crafted very convincing red herrings. First Ben, who pushed Montrose with this duplexitous entry:

The record/CD collection and Obama sign in the window most definitely belong to a former hipster that still resides in Montrose. Also, this reminds me of the Reality Bites house, so I’m guessing this is in the W. Dallas & Taft area, possibly off W. Dallas displaying the Obama sign for all those heading to/from downtown.

Then tcpIV, who demonstrated classic trash-guessing form — beginning in mock agreement with another player, throwing out “in the know” references, then going in for the kill:

Procrastination…I think Eric was reading my mind! This house reminds me of something like George Bunker’s house in the 2000 block of Quenby. He was head of UH’s art dept. and his house was filled…I digress. An older house - 30’s to 40’s wedged between the big ones on Rice and Sunset Blvds. near Kent or Ashby. Is it safe to say Ashby?

Well done!

But first place this week — and a free, 1-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance — goes to lildebbi, for this well-reasoned entry:

I have to agree with the guessers, especially EMME, who pegged the preponderance of books and music (vinyl or cd) for academics. To expand on her answer, this home is one of the grand old dames either in the museum district or perhaps on the other side of 288, with great access to Rice, TSU and UH. The wood paneling in the entry way and the tile around the fireplace remind me of so many places off Calumet or Southmore. But the unrenovated kitchen (that stove!) screams for east of the dividing line. Somewhere in Riverside or MacGregor–wish I knew the subdivision names there better.

You knew them well enough to win! Edged out only by a hair was Miz Brooke Smith, who provided the detail and coordinates to earn an honorable mention:

What a sweet place. Definitely 1930’s-1940’s for all the reasons posted by movocelot above. This could be a single-family home but has that duplex feel thanks to the narrow hall with dining area beyond, off the kitchen. Two bedrooms up with quaint bathroom (and purple fuzzy slippers), plenty of spacious hardwood living space down for those post-dorm couches and endless Ikea shelving for music and books. That bay window is indeed a quiz-buster. Somehow the neighborhood vibe is genteel pre-teardown, pre-townhouse. I’m guessing the southerly parts of Third Ward, in the ara bounded by Wheeler, SCott, McGregor and 288.

Oh . . . kudos also to Pat this week, for cracking the Neighborhood Guessing Game Code:

This might sound like sour grapes since I never win, but we actually have only about six kinds of houses in our myriad neighborhoods:
1)Before 1930 and updated or not
2)50s ranch
3)70s faux everything
4)Mini-mansion
5)Mega-mansion
6)The guy is an architect and this is his Personal Dream

So essentially we’re guessing which neighborhood it’s in by peeking out the windows. If we can’t see trees, we guess townhouse #1 through #6.

Y’all’ll still play, though, right?

So . . . how about that house?

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Life at Isabella Court: Point, Counterpoint

Houston art blogger Sean Morrissey Carroll remixes a glowing profile of the Isabella Court Apartments at Main and Isabella — penned recently by Corilyn Shropshire for the Chronicle — with resident Cathy Matusow’s terse response in Hair Balls. The result? Pure magic.

Here’s a taste, with source indicators removed for full effect (but really, it’s not too tough to figure out which lines come from which report):

When Vernon Caldera walked through Isabella Court’s ornate wrought-iron gates and spotted the courtyard that seemed magically transplanted from his grandmother’s hometown in Nicaragua, he gasped.

Then he fell in love.

The picturesque 80-year-old building in Midtown, a Spanish Colonial with original porcelain sinks and no-two-are-the-same apartments, “had me at hello,” he said.

When I first heard the Chronicle was doing a story on the building I live in, Isabella Court, I thought, “Oh great, is rent going up now?”

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Friday, January 16, 2009

CLUI in Houston: Attack of the Pod People

What is it with these Landscape folks and their capsules? Last spring, L.A.’s sly Center for Land Use Interpretation began its residency in Houston by hauling an old trailer, dubbed the organization’s “field station,” to an old junkyard on the banks of the Houston Ship Channel. And now, a year later — the oil-industry spying mission almost complete — CLUI guru Matthew Coolidge and his henchpeople are capping their Houston romp with another demonstration of the delights of enclosed living.

That’s a Brucker Survival Capsule, painted bright red and decorated with a typically deadpan CLUI inscription, being installed outside the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Gallery, where CLUI’s exhibit on the landscape practices of the Texas oil industry opens — tonight. If planting an offshore-oil-rig emergency escape vehicle on the front lawn of a university art gallery strikes you as slightly absurd, you’re only beginning to appreciate CLUI’s rare and dry sense of landscape humor.

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Friday, January 9, 2009

Mosaic Avoids Foreclosure, Files for Bankruptcy

The developer of the Mosaic highrise overlooking Hermann Park — a limited partnership between Phillips Development & Realty and publicity-shy Florida Capital Real Estate Group — declared bankruptcy earlier this week to avoid foreclosure on a $71 million loan from Chicago lender Corus Bankshares. Florida Capital, originally the equity partner, will be taking over as the general partner.

The bankruptcy covers just the first Mosaic tower. The second tower, rebranded the Montage, has not yet defaulted on its separate $71 million Corus loan.

So how have sales been going at the Mosaic? It depends, the Houston Business Journal’s Jennifer Dawson learns, who you ask:

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