COMMENT OF THE DAY: STAGING IS FOR WUSSES 
“yeah, we are fun people to know. this was my mom’s amazing project, so much fun to see it take shape. if you’d seen it BEFORE the makeover, THAT was tacky. what do you expect us to do, waste money redoing the whole house just to sell it? i’ve lived there my whole life, love it to death. cream colors? BORING!” [prudoodle, commenting on Magenta Is the New Fuschia: A River Oaks Home That Glows Inside]
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Tag: 77019
If you’d ever noticed that Google’s Street View feature is completely blacked out in the northern part of River Oaks and just presumed that your inability to see online images of all those fancy houses in Tall Timbers had something to do with their residents’ wealth, access to lawyers, or private security services, your presumption is wrong — or so says the Chronicle‘s Dwight Silverman, after a Google spokesperson sets him straight. Apparently the River Oaks gap in the Street View map is “just an oversight” on Google’s part:
I asked Google spokesperson Deanna Yick about this, and after checking in with the Street View team, she said this part of River Oaks simply hasn’t been imaged yet. She said Google eventually plans to fill in all the gaps in Street View “as soon as possible”.
She also said Google’s Street View cars will take pictures on any public street, and whole neighborhoods or communities can’t opt out of the process. However, individuals “can ask for images of their house, car or themselves to be removed from Street View,” she said.
Swamplot first noted the Street View black hole north of San Felipe and west of Kirby in 2008. Since then, Google has added a loop of coverage on Willowick and Inwood. But to see street-level images of the rest of that area, you’ll need to drive, pedal, or walk through the neighborhood on your own.
- River Oaks is a black hole on Google Street View [TechBlog]
- Google Maps coverage [Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE’S THE RED PIANO? “The whole time I was looking at the pictures I was trying to spot Elton John.” [Hugo Rodriguez, commenting on Magenta Is the New Fuschia: A River Oaks Home That Glows Inside]
It only went on the market yesterday, but Swamplot readers are already gawking at this house on Locke Ln., across Eastside St. from the Lamar-River Oaks shopping center. The 3-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath number is listed for $1,089,000, and sits on a 10,147-sq.-ft. corner lot. What’s to look at?
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]
“How much further will it fall?” Swamplot asked back in January, not long after the list price for Ken and Linda Lay’s 33rd-floor penthouse in the Huntingdon on Kirby Dr. was marked down the last time. And now we have a partial answer: All the way to $10.25 million — for now, at least. That’s almost a 14 percent cut from the last price, but just under 20 percent off the initial $12.8 million ya-gotta-try pricing Linda Lay started with.
And really, you want to be coming down in regular increments. What numbers come next?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU SEE A WORN-OUT FOURPLEX, I SEE A WEST GRAY BAR WAITING TO HAPPEN “Looks like a great place to relocate the long dead but sorely missed Aquarium [Lounge]. Connect two. Demolish two for for parking. Win. Take a look behind the front room addition at Kenneally’s and you’ll find a building nearly identical to these: obsolete for housing, but many other uses.” [Bernard, commenting on Lovebird Hideaways: 3 Out of 4 Fourplexes on West Gray]
Three fourplexes in a row, plus a vacant lot that used to hold one, are for sale on West Gray between Stanford and Taft, across the street from Barnaby’s and next to the West Gray Café. And Swamplot brings you this exclusive color commentary from a former tenant:
. . . they’re roach motels inside. Plus, the back parking has potholes deep enough for cars to get stuck in. The maintenance was horrible while I lived there, and then they jacked up the rent. But, for the price, the apartments were quite large with central AC. Just had to ignore the mice, roaches, ants and leaks.
No idea why, but there have been instances of lovebirds using the back parking lot to get some privacy in the past. Guess they drank too much at Cecil’s.
Why is the listing agent insisting all 4 properties “must be sold together”?
A number of readers have been asking what’s up with the new construction office set up on the former site of the Robinson’s Warehouse at the southeast corner of Montrose and Allen Parkway. The Aga Khan Foundation bought the low-lying property in 2006 with plans to build another of its Ismaili Centers on it — featuring lecture, conference, and recital facilities, a prayer hall and a social hall, and offices and gardens. Is that building ready to go up?
It doesn’t look like it. In the meantime, the construction office was parked on the property for a different project entirely, across the street: The new Rosemont Bridge, meant to connect the north and south sides of Buffalo Bayou Park. When Mayor White first announced the bridge project in late 2008, it had a different name and a different design. Called Tolerance Bridge, it a featured Moebius-strip-like superstructure that was meant to appear impassable from a distance:
How cute! Just a few days after a restaurant publicist emails news about the new Sabetta Café & Wine Bar set to open in the former location of Café Zol at 2411 South Shepherd just south of Fairview, a Swamplot “reader” sends in a photo (which just happens to be named in the same very specific style as the ones sent by the publicist) of the new sign out front and asks us if we know anything about it.
Only what you tell us! Let’s see: that it’ll be the new digs of former Simposio’s executive chef Riccardo Palazzo-Giorgio and his wife, Donna; that they’ll be serving “classic, signature dishes from the twenty-two different culinary regions of Italy,” and that you expect it to open in May.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHIN UP, WEINGARTEN! “I don’t totally understand Weingarten’s defensiveness here. After all, they totally earned the wrath of people in the community who would like to see older, architecturally significant buildings preserved in some fashion when they tore down the north side of the shopping center at Shepherd and Gray. They made a calculation then that peoples’ upset feelings would not outweigh the financial benefit. Given this, why do they care what people think now? Did the negative publicity before actually hurt them in any material way? (I’ve made a point of not shopping at the new B&N even though I am a compulsive book-buyer, but I have no illusions that me and people like me have any impact on their bottom line.)” [RWB, commenting on Weingarten Exec Blames Those Alabama Theater Demolition Drawings on Staples]
There’s a new sign up across the street from the Jack in the Box at the corner of West Dallas and Waugh, announcing the new Whole Foods Market. And an employee of the building’s architect, Beckham Design Group of Austin, confirms that the project was recently put out to bid to general contractors.
How big will it be? Another source indicates the new store is now scheduled to be approximately 48,000 sq. ft. — including a mezzanine. That’s up a bit from what we’d last heard: that the market would be 40,000 sq. ft. and include “eco-conscious elements and tons of inviting space for neighbors to congregate.” Whole Foods Market signed a 25-year lease for the land with The Finger Companies back in 2008.
Here’s an aerial view of the site the Finger Companies sent out last year:
THE ALLEN PARKWAY SPEED TRAP 
“Traffic accidents increased 47 percent and injuries 154 percent on Allen Parkway last year even as the number of motorists ticketed for speeding continued a lengthy and significant decline on the near-downtown roadway, according to police and municipal court records. . . .
Houston police, who were unaware of the drop in speeding tickets until asked by the Houston Chronicle and were at a loss to explain them, said they will begin a weeklong study today of motorists’ speeds on Allen Parkway. If high rates of speeding are detected, an enforcement blitz with radar units will begin, said Capt. Carl Driskell, who heads HPD’s traffic enforcement division.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Flickr user Lee Ann L.
Determining the winner of this week’s game was tough! But the judges have awarded first prize to Sara — and a very close second place to KimmerTX. Congratulations to you both!
We also acknowledge the solid head-fake thrown by kimberlee ann, who knew exactly where this home was, wrote in to say so, then sent gullible readers a-wondering if it might be somewhere along . . . Navigation?
Nope!
So where might it be?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RIVER OAKS MIDDLE AGE SPREAD “What’s sad is that River Oaks is losing the land versus house battle . . . What made River Oaks so elegant, really, was the amount of land on each lot which was probably 1/3 house to 2/3 land in most cases. Now it’s more like 2/3 house to 1/3 land. Many are nothing more than enormous townhouses with front yards.” [Matt Mystery, commenting on Down and Out in River Oaks]