COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ELUSIVE ESSENCE OF RIVER OAKS “What the hell is ‘A River Oaks style Tuscan beauty’? Can you just add a couple million to the sales price of a house by adding the words ‘River Oaks’ to the description? . . .” [Bernard, commenting on Swamplot Price Adjuster: Blue Bonnet Spread]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: 77027
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THAT’S MY HOUSE YOU’RE GUESSING ABOUT 
“What a hoot! CiCi and I have really enjoyed reading all of the comments. Especially about the “fuddy duddy†furniture and balding grandpa. We chose this house because it was so original. It’s our style and had not been monkeyed with too much over the years. Right now, we’re upgrading to a tankless hot water heater and have pulled the rear cover down. Like most good projects, there is always something to do. Jessica1 did well. CiCi is with Greenwood King and I do marketing/branding for Green Bank. We’ve got two daughters (5 and 3) and probably outgrew the house . . . three years ago. Even with the size/rr/bath/power lines/garage issues, we’ve hung in there as the house is comfortable, the neighborhood is the best and location is perfect. Stop by and check it out Saturday between 2 to 4 if you like. I’ll be puttering about and would love to meet some great storytellers.” [Mike Barone, commenting on Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: The Other Side of the Tracks]
Ready for the answer?
First: Your guesses in this week’s game: Garden Oaks (2 of you), Afton Oaks (3), Boulevard Oaks, Oak Forest (2), “one of those ’Oaks neighborhoods,” “the neighborhood north of I-10 and east of Antoine, across from Woodlawn Cemetery,” West University, Southside Place, Meyerland, Briar Forest, Bunker Hill, Briargrove, Tanglewood, Highland Village, “Stella Link around 610,” Montrose south of Westheimer, Bellaire (2), Spring Branch, Lazybrook, Timbergrove Manor, Lynn Park (2), Southampton, Knollwood Village, Westbury, Braes Heights, “Galleria area, behind Bechtel, between Sage and Yorktown,” “that area north of Westheimer between Tanglewilde and Briargrove,” “anywhere in the swath ranging clockwise from I-10 and Wirt up to between 290 and 45,” “off the northern parts of Bingle,” Idylwood, “near the ‘pasture land’ in SW Houston,” and Linkwood Park.
Two of you were right! First up was this week’s runner-up, JT, who called the place a
1950’s ranchette in Lynn Park two or three blocks from the epicenter of Drexel and Alabama. Nice blend of the old and new.
First prize, though, goes to this better explained entry from Mike V:
Originally I thought Afton Oaks, but the dining area view with the work shed in the backyard and no obvious view of any other homes in the background makes me think it is down the road on the other side of the train tracks in Lynn Park.
Congratulations! And really, smart and entertaining guesses all around. A little more detail about this week’s showcase:
NOW HAWKIN’ WHAT’S LEFT: SMITH & HAWKEN ARE OUTTA HERE Scotts Miracle-Gro, which bought the Smith & Hawken chain 5 years ago, is uprooting all 56 of the high-end brand’s stores, including one at the edge of River Oaks and another on Six Pines Drive in The Woodlands. “Apparently the expensive garden and really expensive garden store is shutting down. The website is already closed to orders and store liquidations start today. Should be interesting to see what happens to the store next to Ouisie’s Table on San Felipe.” [Swamplot inbox; more from the Houston Business Journal]
Who’s the winner of that steak dinner at the new Fleming’s in Town & Country Village?
This week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game sparked quite a few guesses. We had “on the south side of Memorial Drive, west of Westcott… whatever that subdivision is named,” Memorial Park, West University (2 guesses), Southside Place, Crestwood, Glencove, Afton Oaks between Banbury Place and Vossdale, the northern half of Afton Oaks, “the denser part of River Oaks around Shepherd and San Felipe,” Southampton (3), Memorial, Camp Logan (2), River Oaks, River Oaks just north of Westheimer near River Oaks Park, “the 77019 zip around Dunlavy, Waugh and West Gray area,” North Braeswood, “this weird little dense pocket west of north of the Museum of Fine Arts, south of 59 and west of Montrose,” Warwick Square, West River Oaks near San Felipe, “the area just south of the River Oaks Shopping Center — something like Haddon or Welch or Vermont Street,” “on Tiel/Troon on the east edge of River Oaks,” “between 610, N. Post Oak, Memorial, & I-10,” Braes Heights, Ayrshire, Bellaire, “Memorial / Eldridge / Highway 6 area,” Bryker Woods, Meyerland, “West U/Rice Village area,” Hudson Oaks, “somewhere near the Houston Country Club, say around the San Felipe-Potomac-Bering area,” “Briargrove or an adjacent ‘hood, maybe around Nantucket or Potomac,” “Briargrove in between Briargrove and Potomac south of San Felipe and north of Westheimer,” Tanglewood, Tanglewilde, north of Rice, “that strange little pocket east of 610 & above Post Oak,” “Briar Hollow Lane-ish,” Southgate, Westhaven Estates, West Lane Place, around Sage near Buffalo Bayou, “River Oaks – south of Ella and north of Westheimer – perhaps near Rebecca Meyer Park,” “inside Beltway 8, west of downtown, north of Hwy. 90 and not in any of Houston’s original wards,” “north of Stude Park, east of Studemont,” Mid Lane, Hunters Creek Village, Tealwood, Sandalwood, The Woodlands, near Voss and Beinhorn.
The prize goes to the commenter who submitted this entry:
I agree with the river oaks guesses.
This house is huge, and everything in there says they have money to burn.
BUT, Big but though, it does appear to be on a small lot, so probably south of San Felipe and far away from ostentatious Kirby.
And its obvious they have several young kids, so I’m gonna say the area of River Oaks just north of westheimer, near River Oaks Park.
And later added:
The kitchen bay window appears to mirror the master bedroom bay window…which appear to be on either side of the living room window with the huge columns. So i no longer think this is a small lot… i think its a wide lot and this house uses up every available bit of it. And eventhough it looks from the exposed aggregate walk in the back that they might have swimming pool, the back yard doesnt appear very deep at all.
That’s close enough. Congratulations, Mike M! You just won dinner for 4 at Fleming’s Prime Steak House and Wine Bar in Town & Country Village! You’ll be receiving a gift certificate worth $200, sponsored by the restaurant.
Mike M just barely beat out mstark, who gets our (entirely steak-free) runner-up award for this guess:
Wow, the staging of this home is amazing! I especially love the screeching sculpture next to the toilet… I’d throw my hands up at that decor too. Vessel sinks seem like an early attempt at the trend. Lot’s of tacky art, huge slightly dated house, I’m going to WAG West River Oaks, near San Felipe.
What about all those other River Oaks guesses? They were close, but not quite close enough . . .
Who won that $345 Made-to-Measure dress shirt from Hamilton Shirts?
This week’s game featured a whole big bunch of Memorial-ish guesses: 3 for Piney Point Village, 2 for Spring Valley, 2 for Bunker Hill Village, 2 for Hunter’s Creek Village, 2 for Memorial and Voss, and 2 for “Memorial just outside the Loop”; plus Hilshire Village, “near the Houston Country Club south of Woodway,” “the Memorial Villages west of Voss in the neighborhoods along Memorial before it joins with San Felipe,” “Memorialish, just inside the beltway,” and off Chimney Rock near Winsome. Then: 4 for Tanglewood, 2 for Briargrove, and 2 for Royden Oaks; and on with Meyerland, Timbergrove Manor, Spring Branch, Oak Estates, Afton Oaks, Riedel Estates, River Oaks just west of River Oaks Boulevard, River Oaks north of San Felipe, Clear Lake, “the area straddling Sage north of Woodway (Pine Shadows?),” “West of Tanglewood, bordered by Yorktown, Sage, San Felipe, and Westheimer,” “San Felipe corridor just inside the Loop,” Braes Heights, Old Braeswood, Walnut Bend, Yorkshire, “near the HCC, north of Woodway, between Shadywood and Brown Saddle,” and West University.
What size are you, David W? You might want to be locating 5700 Richmond on a map, because you’ll be heading to the Hamilton Shirts flagship store there soon to spend your gift certificate for a Made-to-Measure shirt!
Here’s David W’s winning entry:
Wow – this poor house has been remodeled to death. The blue bathroom looks original and places this as 50’s construction. Love the chrome gadget over the sink for toothbrushes and such. The bedroom just above is an addition, the other bathroom with the double sinks is either an addition or has been redone. The blue bedroom may be original but that master bath must be new, too. The office with the brown walls is clearly an add-on as well. Hard to tell how this place is laid out – that one huge family room/dining room/kitchen is so long and the house goes on beyond it. The lot must be pretty big. I would guess Tanglewood but it seems like it was originally a fairly small house. Based on the money they must have spent I think it must be inside the loop – Royden Oaks or Oak Estates. Yep, that’s it.
Congratulations! Next, BenC gets an honorable mention for this guess:
Originally built in the 50’s (blue bath), it has been extensively remodeled, and walls removed. Those wrapped collar ties indicate that the ceiling was lifted, so it is probably a 1 story. Lots of money spent on the remodel means the neighborhood can support it. Maybe too old for Tanglewood, I’m guessing memorial corridor just outside the loop, or san felipe corridor just inside inside the loop
Also in the neighborhood, at the last minute: Aaa, with that “wannabe River Oaks” guess!
We had no fewer than 3 secret agents this week! Special commendations go to ABP, Dana, and Jen, for emailing Swamplot the actual listings, then helping to throw other players off the track with fake guesses — like this one from Dana:
With the secluded feeling and mature landscaping that can be seen through the windows, this certainly has the feel of the Piney Point area as someone has already suggested, but I also feel a Bunker Hill vibe with the extensive (and expensive) remodel. The leather sofa and desk combination area suggests that this room is being used as a home office…… attorney or realtor? Looking at the furnishings and colors used, this is certainly a household with an active interest in the local arts in Houston.
. . . and this from Jen:
Let’s see, big rooms, tons of mature trees, somebody spent some cash to “update.†I’m saying Tanglewood. Plenty of ranch houses left there that have been updated.
What’s the real story?
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.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: AFTON OAKS AFTERTHOUGHT “Maybe a light rail stop would help to staunch the bleeding.” [Nord, commenting on Plenty of Expensive Homes for Sale in Afton Oaks]
PLENTY OF EXPENSIVE HOMES FOR SALE IN AFTON OAKS Judy Thompson updates the neighborhood stats: “The Zip Code Feeling the Most Pain is . . . . definitely 77027, the Afton Oaks area. Today’s market condition update shows six of its eight price ranges to be . . . a buyer’s market. This is happening at the high end, a result of so much redevelopment during the past decade. This zip code also experienced the highest appreciation in recent years in price per square foot paid so you might say they experienced a slight ‘bubble’ that is now bursting.” [Strictly a Buyer’s Agent]
This home, with a dramatic roofline that only hints at the remarkable ceiling swoops that await inside, was the 1952 creation of Houston architect Allen R. Williams. It’s at the corner of Ivanhoe and Kettering in Afton Oaks, and as of this week, it’s on the market — “as is.”
So what’s new?
- Opening: There’s a big new Gallery Furniture taking over the old Pier One space in the Post Oak Shopping Center, across from the Galleria. Isiah Carey notes that there’s a (much smaller) “coming soon” sign out front. Also coming to the strip from Mattress Mack: a new and more upscale Kreiss Furniture store, where Pier One Kids used to be.
- Closed: Paulie’s restaurant reports receiving an undisclosed “offer we couldn’t refuse” to close its Holcombe at Kirby location, and dutifully complied on Monday. The original Paulie’s, on Westheimer at Driscoll, will remain open.
- Hoping to Spread: And Katharine Shilcutt reports that Otilia’s Mexican restaurant, the longtime Long Point standout, now “a bastion of the upper class yuppies who reside quietly in the nearby Memorial Villages and wash down their rice and beans with bottles of Merlot,” isn’t closing, despite rumors she had heard. But:
it turns out instead that Otilia’s is actively seeking to franchise their restaurant. A bright sign by the register blinked this advertisement every five seconds as we ate, while the waitresses sullenly confirmed this fact.
Then there’s that Main St. mulch . . .
WESTCREEK APARTMENTS: REFINANCED, WAITING The Austin-based owners of Westheimer’s Westcreek at River Oaks Apartments — just inside the Loop, just west of the giant new steel sculpture known as High Street — have refinanced the 574-unit complex with a $27.5 million, 7-year, floating-rate loan that allows prepayment with a penalty: “A flexible prepayment also means when market conditions warrant, the owner can redevelop the asset, which sits on 14.5 acres. ‘This is a well-maintained, but older property that sits on dirt, and the dirt is actually worth more than the apartments,’ [Matt] Greer [of Capmark Finance] explains. He says the asset’s owning partnership, which consists of local management company Kaplan Management Co. Inc. and an equity partner, will redevelop the property when market conditions come back.” [Globe St.]
Late yesterday a reader wrote in expressing concern about the “very cool, worth saving, worth redoing in an intelligent way” 4-plex at 4311 Bettis Dr., just northeast of the stalled-out High Street project on Westheimer. The Bettis Apartments were designed by Robert Wilson in 1955, and are listed as “Most Endangered Moderns” on the Houston Mod website.
A few hours later, 3 properties with the address of 4211 Bettis showed up as demos in the city permit report. You can see them in this morning’s Daily Demolition Report below. The properties are described as the San Felipe Court Apartments . . . didn’t those go down some time ago?
4211 Bettis and 4311 Bettis must be different properties, right? Except HCAD has no entry for a 4211 Bettis. And 4311 Bettis is listed in the rolls as part of the “Trilogy on Bettis Street.”
Swamplot’s tipster provides this tip sheet about the apartments:
Problems getting credit have stalled or dashed hopes for many Houston developments, leaving vacant sites, ratty construction fences, and more than a few misleading “coming soon” signs touting unachievable goals. Off Westheimer just west of Mid Lane, though, we’ll have a much bigger and longer-lasting reminder of changed fortunes to look at, for a good long while: The steel frame of the first building in Trademark Property’s High Street project.
Work has stopped.
What happened?
A 3-story section of The Collection, the Morgan Group’s 528-unit apartment complex under construction behind the new Costco on Weslayan and Richmond apparently collapsed early Sunday. A Swamplot reader sends in these photos of the scene following the accident, along with a few sharp comments:
The 4 story “stick built” apartment facility known as “The Collection” (www.collectionliving.com) became a “collection of sticks” early Sunday morning. It seems as if the contractors and the Morgan Group were in a Thanksgiving hurry to get home for turkey and giblets and forgot to “tie in” to the adjoining 3 and 4 story section of the main building.
Good thing it was a Sunday as Monday morning will bring back a tribe of contractors to push to get this facility on the Harris County Tax Roll by Summer 2009….Someone could have been seriously hurt if not killed. The Morgan Group should be “thankful” this Thanksgiving that it was not the case – and that they can “rush” to completion.
