END OF YEAR MONTROSE HOME CLEARANCE 
Looking for that last-minute, low-cost, blockbuster Christmas gift for a certain someone who has . . . a place to put anything? Over on Craigslist, someone is offering this well-worn, 2-bedroom, 2-bath 1925 bungalow in Hyde Park for the gotta-grab-it-now price of free. What’s the catch? Just explain it to the gift recipient as a New Year’s resolution: The home must be removed from its lot at 1225 Welch St. by January 15th. (Which will certainly end up costing a fair bit more than free.) Meanwhile, the same home is still listed for sale on MLSÂ — with its 5,000-sq.-ft. lot — for a somewhat higher price: $525,000. [Craigslist; HAR]
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Tag: 77006
Behold Friday’s sodden wreckage of the northernmost 33 percent of the Richmont Square apartment complex at 1400 Richmond, which is currently being erased to make way for the Menil’s upcoming drawing institute.
Menil On The Move
These mighty fallen timbers are just “one of the costs of development,” writes a reader with a commanding, bird’s-eye-view of Tema Development’s just-commenced addition to the Parklane amid its planned four-phase Hermann Park-side portfolio. “I’d love to know when these trees were planted and what was originally on the lot. Purely based on size, most appear to be 30 to 60 years old and many are larger than the trees in Hermann Park.”
Tim-berrr!
A Montrose hang for lovers of live punk, metal and experimental sounds, Mango’s nightclub has sprouted a “for lease” sign.
The building at 403 Westheimer Rd. next door to Avant Garden has a history as colorful as its newly-painted exterior walls and patio:
The Ever-Changing Face Of Montrose
- 209 Drew St. [HAR]
TILDA GOES FULL MENIL 
From the looks of this W magazine fashion shoot with photographer Tim Walker, glacial space oddity Tilda Swinton managed to gaze upon and or fondle every objet d’art John and Dominique de Menil brought to Houston, be those treasures stashed away in their River Oaks home or on display in the Montrose museum. At the latter, while wafting through the South Seas galleries in a full-length Del Pozo coat, Swinton was in the mood to coo, ah and ooh. “They presumed art to be good for human dignity,†Swinton says of the de Menils to William Middleton, W correspondent and author of an upcoming biography on the arts patrons. “There is a practical magic that shows itself in the exquisite simplicity of each installation; there is nothing to get in the way of a direct relationship between the viewer and a work of art.†(With unfortunate results, in one high-profile recent case.) Swinton also donned “a painted metal corset by the London designer Johanna O’Hagan, a pair of black boots by Versace, and little else” in order to recreate Retour de la Belle Jardinière, Max Ernst’s 1967 reincarnation of his own La Belle Jardinière, a 1923 Surrealist near-nude that was later condemned as “degenerate art” by the Nazis and presumably destroyed. (The first Jardinière was itself Ernst’s reworking of a Raphael Madonna-and-Child painting by the same name.) The de Menils purchased Retour, thus affording Swinton and Walker the chance to shoot a retour of a retour of a retour of la Belle Jardinière. “This is the special magic of these collaborations,†Swinton tells Middleton, still clad in her skimpy Jardinière regalia. “There is not just a vague referencing of de Menil but also an immersion into her world. We’re crossing into a no-man’s-land between history and imagination, in an attempt to evoke her spirit, and the spirit of the world she inhabited.†[W ] Photo: Tim Walker / W magazine.
More a reconstruction than a renovation, extensive work on a 1938 Mandell Place property is believed to have kept only the original slab, exterior walls and roofline. The rest has been reimagined by Fisher Homes, which looks to have reduced the number of interior walls but boosted the white trim package big time. Like a line of creamy frosting, wainscoting panels finish much of the home, which is located west of Mulberry St. and north of W. Alabama St. For the rebuilt results, the seller is now asking $1.35 million. The previously updated property last sold in 2011 for $485K. Do the modifications add up to the “90 percent new” touted in the listing, which went up earlier this month?
All Trimmed Out
Update: 3:45 p.m. Eater Houston reports that the name of the sushi bar will be Akamaru.
According to the permit in the window at 315 Fairview, the next occupant of the mixed-use building’s downstairs will be a restaurant named Sushi Bar.Â
Most recently that area had been home to a lounge called The Fairview.
Prior to its incarnation as the Fairview, the building had housed the short-lived Montrose outpost of downtown institution Dean’s Credit Clothing.
Sushi Bar will be situated about halfway between Uchi and the Bluefish.
Montrose Eats
Minus the crew of bearded lookalikes with whom he toured the Galleria earlier this year, Houston Rockets guard James Harden shows off a pizzeria-ized Siphon Coffee in this just-released ad spot for Foot Locker. The coffee shop at 701 W. Alabama St., which normally features no boxed items on its menu, was transformed into a pizza spot for a day-long shoot on November 9th.
Rocket Redo
Wendell Price has been a Food Network star and a partner with Olympic legend Carl Lewis at Houston’s Cafe Noir. He has catered Hollywood sets, cooked for the likes of Larry Flynt and O.J. Simpson, and served as executive chef in a restaurant co-owned by Denzel Washington. More recently, after his 2012 conviction on tax-related crimes, Price was an inmate in a Memphis jail. And now Price is back in his hometown, trying to get his career back on track via Rustic Oak, a restaurant slated to open at 511 Richmond Ave in January. Rustic Oak is taking root in a restored Montrose home near Spur 527; Price tells Culturemap’s Eric Sandler he “prayed for a unique spot instead of a strip center,” — and lo, there appeared this bungalow, right next door to the Brooklyn Athletic Club and directly across Richmond Ave. from the Post 510 apartments.
Comebacks
Hollywood Vietnamese and Chinese Cuisine will close down by the end of the month. Back in August plans came to light of a coming Farb Montrose full-block apartment complex at 2409 Montrose Blvd., a one-acre site once home to Cafe Noche but occupied since 2007 by Hollywood. A sign posted on the door last week informs the public of Hollywood’s demise by the end of the month; several staff members told Eater Houston’s Jakeisha Wilmore that Thanksgiving Eve will be its final day of service. How will Montrose late-night diners be able to cope without this vital pipeline to much-needed Lotus Delights, tofu spring rolls, and steaming bowls of ginger-laced Mama’s Hangover Chicken Soup? Turns out they won’t have to, at least not for long:
Phogeddabouddit
ONE MAN’S THRIVING GAYBORHOOD IS ANOTHER’S MONTROSE VALUE-ADD PORTFOLIO 
What is the Montrose Value-Add Portfolio? “48 apartment-units, 13 townhomes, 1 quadraplex and 5 rental homes with 8-units that include 2 garage apartments; for a total of 73 units, 67,960 rentable square feet, with a land tract of 2.09 acres.” Writes a reader who came across the listing: “This is where I live. I love the phrase ‘The Montrose Value Add Portfolio,’ it practically screams ‘knock it down!’ So much for my old gayborhood!” The properties are all within walking distance of the MVAP’s listed address: 409 Stratford St., a stone’s throw from the always-hopping cluster of bars and clubs on Pacific St. to the north and but a little farther from Numbers and Indika to the south. No asking price is indicated in the marketing materials. [Loopnet; brochure (PDF)] Photo: Transwestern.
- 1909 Dunlavy St. [HAR]
The hexagonal clock mounted above the front door of the former Cra-Bell Vacuum and Appliance Co. building at 216 Westheimer Rd. was stolen over the weekend. Derek Brotherton of Scott-Day Paint & Supply, the company that’s inhabited the building since 1963, tells Swamplot that he and coworkers noticed the disappearance this morning, and that they are “deeply upset over losing part of the character of the store.” Photos above show the clock in place (above, in an older image) and gone missing (at top, taken this morning). Brotherton says he believes the clock had been in its current position since the building was constructed in 1935Â — or shortly thereafter. Back then, the street was named Hathaway; it now sits on the north side of Westheimer between Helena and Mason.
Did You See Time Fly?
With a fresh $500,000 donation landing in its coffers late this summer and some city approvals in hand, the University of St. Thomas’s  long-planned Center for Science and Health Professions quadrangle could break ground next year. The school says it now has about half of the project’s $47 million budget and hopes on raising the rest by June of next year. UST has stated that it would then break ground in short order with an eye toward opening up some of the complex by 2017.
Bye-Bye Soccer Fields, Hello Chemistry Labs
