COMMENT OF THE DAY: TRYING TO CLEAN UP IN THOSE MONTROSE BUNGALOW BATHROOMS “I can’t tell you how many bungalows, Victorians, and other 1910-1940 houses I’ve looked at in Montrose in the past year where the remuddlers have totally destroyed the character of the bathroom with the ultra-trendy stone floor and walls with the disgustingly unsanitary jetted whirlpool tub.” [GoogleMaster, commenting on Swamplot Price Adjuster: The Heights of 2-2ness]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: 77006
Another year has passed, which means it’s time for yet another business to move into the little house across the street from Hugo’s Restaurant, at the northeast corner of Westheimer and Mandell, where the Westheimer Curve finally figures out how to go straight. So what comes after Juliet and Romeo, Remix, and the Pleasure Chateau? Thanks to an inquisitive Swamplot reader with a camera, we know that the next tenants at 1550 Westheimer will be a Mixxwell Audio Lab. According to a construction worker our reader spoke to, it’s a DJ school.
Sadly, it appears the Pleasure Chateau’s lovely chandeliers have been removed:
I asked if I could look inside, the contractor explained that he didn’t have any access inside, but that the instructors would be there sometime this week. I did get a chance to look through the window and I must say it looks completely redesigned . . .
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Well, whaddya know? Graphic designer Chris Nguyen’s tiny Marshall St. apartment (featured on Swamplot just last week) ended up as the grand U.S. prize winner in Apartment Therapy’s Small, Cool 2010 design contest. No fluke: Nguyen was, uh . . . thinking small from the get-go. Intrigued by the design website’s annual competition and the idea of living in a tiny space, Nguyen began his search for an apartment in Houston last July:
I really wanted this to be about a different way of living and not about compromises, so it was important that all my furniture remained real-sized. I carefully selected what I thought I needed and put away in storage extraneous collections and junk that we all end up hoarding over the years. . . .
I think the bedroom in the house I was living in last was the same size as this entire studio. It was a big room in a big house that was filled with an incredibly increasing amount of big things. That’s how we do it in Texas, right? All the while, I always held an admiration for smartly designed small spaces more commonly found in highly urban dense metropolises or cool under appreciated neighborhoods. Houston is not the first of those things, so I looked for something purposefully small in the latter.
And he found . . . ?
Unfazed by Swamplot’s now 0-and-2 record in promoting local Apartment Therapy design contest submissions (no, that Venue Museum District apartment we showed last week didn’t get too far either), reader Chris Nguyen writes in to ask for votes in the finals of that website’s Small, Cool 2010 design contest. That’s right — entries in 4 divisions have been whittled down to Nguyen’s 450-sq.-ft. Westmoreland district apartment shown here (originally entered in the “Tiny” division) and some other dude’s Brooklyn flat from the “Little” division that’s more than a third larger. The final voting takes place this weekend. Can this tiny Houston pad win it all?
Win or lose, we hope to reveal a bit more about Nguyen’s certifiably small living space later. For now, though, have a look at these pics and the floor plan:
Remember the swingin’ days of a couple of years ago, when InnerLoopCondos bought Bistro Vino and got ready to tear down the 24-year-old Montrose restaurant at the corner of West Alabama and Roseland? And then the company put out that goofy little internet survey asking us to vote on which type of condo-building cliche you’d like to see shoved onto the site? If you’re one of the lucky participants who somehow managed to write in “Give it up,” congratulations! Your choice has been selected!
Mexico City natives Jorge and Isaac Alvarez have since secured a lease-purchase of the former restaurant property from its would-be redevelopers. Jorge Alvarez, a custom-home developer himself, had a crew from his Alvgar Construction company renovate the 1930’s Tudor-style home and patio.
The brothers’ “modern Mexican” restaurant, Ocean’s Ceviche, isn’t expected to open officially until May 21st, but intrepid Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia brings you this little preview of the spiffed-up grounds:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE TOWER THEATRE, BACK TO THE FUTURE 
“But if we don’t get the sign from 1955 to 1985 before the lightning storm, Annise Parker will never be born!” [Evan7257, commenting on The Tower Theatre Puts No Name in Lights] Photo: Swampot inbox
The new wrapper on what used to be a For Lease sign in front of the former La Strada restaurant building at the corner of Westheimer and Taft mentions lunch and dinner, but not brunch. The name of the new tenant: Caffe Bello.
- Previously on Swamplot: Arrivederci, La Strada
Photo: Swamplot inbox
A reader reports on the newest bright spot on Lower Westheimer:
My photo isn’t terribly good, but it will at least give you an idea of what they’re up to with the new marquee. Half of the upper neon is working and the marquee is completely operational. Even without everything functioning, it already puts the River Oaks to shame. It’s still not going to be as outrageous as the original setup with the taller spire and even more neon, but it’s a step in the right direction.
- Previously on Swamplot: Drive-By and Walk-By Reports on the Tower Theatre’s New Headliner, What’s Playing at the Tower Theatre?, and Going Attractions: Hollywood Video Gives Up on the Tower Theatre
Photo: Swamplot inbox
So what was the cause of all the hullabaloo over at Fire Station 16 at the corner of Richmond and Dunlavy that caused fire department officials to close it down for a few days earlier this month? A source told Swamplot on April 2nd that the building likely had foundation problems and was close to collapsing. Here’s what firefighters spotted:
A reader who’s had an eye on Montrose’s Tower Theatre ever since Hollywood Video moved out — and who became “rather upset” at the disappearance of the building’s original marquee — sends a few snapshots of the scene near the corner of Yoakum and Westheimer:
. . . I saw some workers putting up new wood a few weeks ago and painting the front of the building a few days ago.
And what do we see in these snaps?
A reader with a longstanding appreciation for the party house at the corner of Harold and Graustark in Montrose writes in to provide a little background on the property for Swamplot readers. After sitting on the market since at least last September — and working its way down $130K to an asking price of $514,900 — the mammoth early-eighties brick in-town home with 4 bedrooms, 4 full- and 3 half-baths, and 4 staircases is now nearing the end of an online foreclosure auction. Who will end up with this 9,111-sq.-ft. prize?
The house is large and an odd mixture of no expense spared features (marble floors throughout, wood floors cut on bias, acres of woodwork…) and typical early 80’s tract home construction techniques. Design features include the dance floor off the master bedroom (complete with freestanding bar and speakers in the wall!), brass banisters on the winding marble staircase, scads of quick exit staircases and mirrors on the ceiling of every shower.
Oooh! Can we see any of that in the pix?
The Hometta blog features construction pix of the pair of houses going up on Hyde Park 2 blocks west of Montrose — designed by Collaborative Designworks, Houston’s most notable practitioners of those folded-spiral stucco balcony-wall-soffit wraparounds. 1212 and 1216 Hyde Park won’t go on the market for another few months, architect James Evans tells us, but when they do they’ll likely be priced “in the low $1M range.”
But . . . haven’t we visited this little corner of Hyde Park before?
A reader checks in from the scene at 1201 Westheimer, where the shuttered Montrose Hollywood Video store formerly known as the Tower Theatre appears to be the subject of some primping, cherry-picking marquee action:
Is something happening or are they just making it look better? There has also been surveying done in the area this week. There’s a survey stake at the corner of Waugh and Westheimer.
- Previously on Swamplot: Going Attractions: Hollywood Video Gives Up on the Tower Theatre
Photo: Swamplot inbox
WHERE TO PICK UP A FREE BITE TO EAT IN MONTROSE 
Looking for a little pony’s foot for your salad? You won’t find any in Montrose grocery stores, but you should have no problem picking some up in any number of nearby vacant lots: “. . . in just a three-block radius, [petroleum chemist and urban foraging teacher Mark Vorderbruggen] identifies 34 different edibles. Things like mallows, which have rough leaves with toothed edges, and wild radishes which have long, symmetrical leaves, four yellow or white petals and tastes like horseradish. But urban foraging isn’t only about finding tasty things to munch on. ‘There’s a lot of things you can use for skin irritation. In fact I see some right over here. . . . This is plantain and it’s real good. You just crush it up and make a mash. It’s good against insect bites, mosquito bites, bee stings.” [Houston Public Radio News] Photo: KUHF
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MONTROSE AIN’T LIKE IT USED TO BE “What’s with the petitions and the rainbows and unicorns? Renderings? Real hippys would squat on the land, throw up some tents to sell their bead jewelry and homemade hippy stuff until the police and/or bulldozers come. 21st century Montrose is full of pussies. 20 bucks sez the guy with the hearts on his sign is in line on opening day ready to fill his hemp messenger bag with organic chicken breasts and a sustainably farmed pomengranate flavored something or other at the overpriced new neighborhood-centric HEB.” [meatsack, commenting on What the Montrose Land Defense Coalition Really Wants To See at Wilshire Village]