04/11/14 12:15pm

Vacant Strip Center, 4122 Willowbend Blvd. at Craighead Dr., Westwood, Houston

Former Carolyn's Bar at Vacant Strip Center, 4122 Willowbend Blvd. at Craighead Dr., Westwood, HoustonCarolyn’s, the dive bar at the corner of Craighead and Willowbend Blvd. across the train tracks from the Willowbend subdivision closed sometime around the end of last month, a reader notes. Back in 2008, the bar at 10711 Craighead Dr. won the Houston Press award for Best Hidden Bar. For years, Carolyn’s (pictured at right, behind the “canopy”) was the sole remaining tenant in the dilapidated but once-stylin’ classic 1959 strip center with vintage details stretched along that corner. Now, reports the reader, it appears the 18,600-sq.-ft. center is entirely empty — despite the remaining sign facing Willowbend for the Fruit of the Spirit Community Church (“Developing Fruitful Lives,” above).

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Everybody Out of the Strip Center
04/02/14 12:30pm

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Windows don’t appear to be a priority for the street facades of this 1966 townhome in Townhouse Manor, tucked into the South Loop’s swoop west of Stella Link. The curve of the recessed entry porch hugs the corner curb line of the property, which is located on the neighborhood’s remaining entry street extending from the westbound 610 feeder road a block away (a freeway sound wall has walled off the others). This low-slung home has a contemporary exterior, but neighboring 1- and 2-story townhomes feature the architectural flourishes of various neo-styles.

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Side by Side by Side by Side
12/06/13 12:15pm

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Down came the curtains and up went the price of this sturdy 1955 home with stone and tile floors, among other original touches. It sits on an over-sized lot fronting the north bank of Brays Bayou just west of Edloe in Braes Heights. Back in May 2012, the midcentury property sold for $313,000. Its November 2013 listing has a $495,000 asking price. Will it flip? Although the current description touts the lingering livability of the existing home, it makes no mention of any specific updates in the interim, though judging from the latest pics the interior does appear to have lightened up with fresh paint and the jettisoning of old-school window treatments.

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Curtains Called
08/30/13 12:00pm

Tucked against the South Loop near Stella Link, a mishmash of townhomes mostly built in the mid-sixties and seventies has a somewhat newer neighbor in this 2003 home. It further expands that novelty status by including what could be the only open lot in the small neighborhood of lot-filling homes installed cheek-to-jowl and close to the meandering streets. The property (with property) landed on the market Thursday after refinishing its wooden floors and adding some new carpet and paint. It has a $499,000 asking price.

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08/28/13 3:15pm

A reader sends this photo of the work in progress at the former Blockbuster at 8001 S. Main St., which in September will open as Jollibee Chicken & Burgers, the first Texas location of the largest fast-food chain in the Philippines. It will be located right next door to the Jersey Mike’s there in the crotch of S. Main and O.S.T., just northwest of Reliant Park.

Photo: Swamplot inbox

07/23/13 3:00pm

Renovated a year after Tropical Storm Allison, this glowing midcentury home plays up its mini-mod origins. The 1952 property is in the Southern Oaks neighborhood of Braeswood Place, located just off Buffalo Speedway north of Brays Bayou. Behind the fortifications (top), a sleek interior lit by a south-facing clerestory (above) shows off furnishings aligned with a more European vision of mod — in black and pearl:

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05/13/13 3:30pm

Going out, coming in: It looks like the work to update this former Rice Epicurean Market at 2617 W. Holcombe into The Fresh Market is well underway. Set back in that shopping center on the southwest corner of W. Holcombe and Kirby Dr. in West University, this will be one of the 4 Rice Epicurean spots that the North Carolina chain said it would be freshening up this year; the others are on Weslayan, Tanglewood, and Memorial.

Photo: Allyn West

05/10/13 2:45pm

This map from what a reader says is a “recent” Cushman & Wakefield flyer shows a couple of interesting things that might be in store for Southside Place: Not only is the land underneath the smallest of the 3 buildings of the vacated Shell Bellaire Tech Center described as “under contract for future bank,” the 5.5 acres next to it, underneath the company’s original 1936 geoprocessing center at 3737 Bellaire Blvd., appears to be the subject of residential or retail development.

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05/06/13 11:30am

Does the green fence mean go? It looks like demolition is just a shot away for this westernmost building of the former Shell Technology Center. Lovett Homes has said it plans to build 39 3-story homes — scaling back after some Southside Place residents raised concerns at public hearings its original plan for 45 3.5-story ones — on the 3.2 acres here at the corner of Braes and Bellaire Blvd.

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03/01/13 4:00pm

BIG PLANS FOR NEW SOUTHSIDE PLACE HOMES A LITTLE SMALLER Those 45 3-and-a-half-story houses that Lovett Homes said it was planning for the western end of the old Bellaire Technology Center site (shown here) met a lot of resistance, reports the Examiner‘s Robin Foster: “In a packed public hearing Jan. 29, neighbors expressed concern over traffic, visitor parking and the taller buildings.” Since then, writes Foster, Lovett Homes met with some of those “neighbors” to share scaled-back plans, which were presented at a second Southside Place hearing on February 27: The revised plans are for 39 homes no taller than 3 stories, with an interior street for more parking, wider setbacks, more common space, and “larger-than-average trees.” [The Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia

02/07/13 10:00am

Most of the green in this Cambridge Green home is at the front of its off-a-commons lot, but the bricked-up front elevation doesn’t make the most of that greenbelt view. Compact, the house hugs the back corner of the 1979-built subdivision, located off Kirby Dr. south of W. Holcombe. Listed yesterday, the hidden home carries an initial asking price of $445,000. The last time the property was on the market was back in 2000, a year after its remodel, when it sold at $339,000.

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01/25/13 2:30pm

It was supposed to be a teardown, this almost-defiant home in Ayrshire. That’s what had happened to the original homes on either side of this still-single-story one, located on a cul-de-sac one house away from the railroad and utility easement that separates the neighborhood from Bellaire. Demolition is what a view-screening label dictated on just about every interior photo in the before-the-redo listing. The buyer and design team had other ideas, though, and renovated the 1957 ranch-style house into something more 2013-ish, outside and in.

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01/23/13 10:00am

Shell Oil moved out the last of its things from the 3-building Bellaire Technology Center in 2012, consolidating R&D operations about 15 miles west of Southside Place in a spruced-up campus near Texas 6 and Richmond. Now, it appears that these 3.2 acres (shown in the map) of the 9.7 that the Center vacated are being eyed for residential development.

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