01/22/09 11:41am



Itinerant Interior
Designer Ginger Barber is moving yet again: Her latest redo is on the market, reports Cote de Texas’s Joni Webb. This time it’s a 3-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath 2-story near the corner of Greenbriar and Holcombe in Southgate — but Webb spots furniture in the photos she’s seen in earlier Barber homes:

Her wonderful assortment of pine and dark wood furniture, down-filled upholstered pieces covered in linen slips, and all her textural wicker, seagrass, and stone moves from house to house almost seamlessly. . . . With no wallpaper, colored walls or patterned fabrics to contend it, the nomadic Barber can reuse her possessions, over and over again – which is a wonderful lesson to take from her.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

01/21/09 9:21am

The time-travel vehicle known as the Buon Appetito Restaurant — housed in an old duplex on Holcombe just west of the Medical Center — has been put up for sale.

What could you do with this place?

“Move out the tables and chairs,” reads the mock-Sicilian listing, “and is ready for your signle fam. residence.”

Or . . . take over the restaurant and run it yourself:

This is also an excellent opportunity for someone to step in and start running this already successful business. The owner has been there for 32 years and is retiring. Everything is included in the sale.

01/08/09 2:46pm

THE BAPTIST CHURCH, THE HOOTERS WAITRESSES, AND THE HURRICANE VICTIMS A 9-year-long relationship between congregants of the Rice Temple Baptist Church in Southgate and a group of Hooters waitresses led to a bit of help for residents of Ike-devastated Oak Island over the holiday. “Over the years, the church has found additional ways to develop the relationship. The church has been a sponsor of an annual Hooters golf tournament, giving away Bibles. They have also worked with the restaurant’s employees on Habitat for Humanity building projects. . . . The waitresses have even joined with the congregation in walking through the neighborhood singing Christmas carols. ‘You could tell they hadn’t gone Christmas caroling before, because they all showed up in high heels,’ [Pastor Clint Reiff] recalled.” [Associated Baptist Press]

01/08/09 1:16pm

As a prelude to the extended narrative of his and John Nova Lomax’s latest grand pedestrian effort — a 14-hour walk from IAH to Downtown — Marfa city councilmember and Houston bingo scofflaw David Beebe describes his first encounter with the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Park at the southwest corner of Holcombe and Main. It’s the walkway and fountain assembly that replaced the Shamrock Hotel:

On this day, as on many days, the fountain is actively spouting water columns to nobody, as the fountain downtown on the light rail line is supposed to do (but is always messed up). This bizarre guilt trip tribute to the concept of public space mixes elements of a grand promenade with Vegas style accents contrasting with the feel of a confined and secluded corridor. Its out of the way entrance and low visibility from Holcombe is probably why I had never seen it before. This is a very good park to go to if you don’t want anyone to find you. I couldn’t help but picture Nixon and Kissinger walking side by side alongside the fountain and columns planning the next offensive maneuver in Vietnam.

Photo: David W. Beebe

11/19/08 2:54pm

“Houston’s first Smashburger is going into an unnamed strip center at the intersection of Main Street and Kirby Drive, right beside Reliant Center,” reports Globe St.‘s Connie Gore:

[Ryan McMonagle, Smashburger’s CFO] tells GlobeSt.com that Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston each will start with two “grade A-plus locations” this year and reach eight to 10 before 2009 ends, putting the new chain on “a clear path to 30 over the next three-year period” in each city.

What’s a Smashburger?

Jason Sheehan of the Houston Press‘s sister publication Denver Westword says it’s a burger joint where

the burgers are truly smashed — thrown and mashed onto the flat-top grill with a press that I at first thought was for show, then realized played an important role. When a half-pound of ground, nicely fatty Angus beef is whacked onto the hot steel, it produces a flood of meat juice that caramelizes instantly into a crispy halo of blood and fat around the edge of the burger. It’s like meat candy, the delicacy you lose when a burger is cooked on a slotted grill — the traditional cooking surface for burgers smashed by hand.

Photo of Denver Smashburger interior: Flickr user johnny_nissan [license]

11/14/08 9:10am

Den, 7309 Greenbriar St., Old Braeswood, Houston

In exile now from artist Gloria Becker’s home now for almost 9 months, her sock monkeys are likely getting a tad restless. But still: no sale!

In October, Becker dropped the price on her scrubbed and staged Old Braeswood stuffed-animal planet another $45.5K.

11/05/08 2:51pm

Interior of Edwin Hornberger Conference Center, Former Shamrock Hotel, Houston

The last remaining building associated with Houston’s 1950s-era glam-magnet Shamrock Hotel is slated to be torn down, reports Cynthia Lescalleet in the West U. Examiner. The Shamrock’s former ballroom facility at 2151 W. Holcombe became the Edwin Hornberger Conference Center in 1996, nine years after the Shamrock itself was famously axed.

The Texas Medical Center has more building plans for the site:

TMC will build 250,000 square feet of office space in three floors to be added atop the Bell building, which also houses the existing parking garage, said TMC’s John Kajander. The added space is to support TMC institutions, he said.

The building housing the Hornberger’s foyer and ballroom “is nearing the end of its useful life,” he said, and will be taken down.

A little Hornberger history:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

10/16/08 6:15pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game 28: Dining Room

We have a winner!

But first, your guesses for this week’s contest: River Oaks and Southampton each attracted 3 of you. There were 2 votes each for Tanglewood, Memorial and the Museum District. The rest: Spring Branch, West University, “along Kirby and west,” near the Ashby Highrise, Southgate, Castle Court, Boulevard Oaks, Montrose “between Richmond and Alabama, maybe between Hazard and Dunlavy,” Garden Oaks, Riverside Terrace, the First Ward, Old Braeswood, Bellaire, Rivercrest, Lynn Park, . . . and Heaven.

John (the first one, not the second) knew what to look for, and nailed it:

The built-in bookcases and day-bed thingy look exactly like those in my Ayrshire ranch house, and since this one fairly old and two stories, I’m going with Old Braeswood.

Congratulations!

A very strong honorable mention goes to movocelot, who figured out the house’s age and came extremely close to deducing the precise geometry of its recent expansion:

This house is old enough & well-situated enough to have been remodeled – seriously – twice. I see various windows, elec outlets and cabinetry.

Guess the newish family room pushed out from the kitchen has the newish master bath on top, for a new ridge at a 90 to the main house. (The original roof has the lavender office under it. Circa 1930.)

(Actually, it’s the Kitchen that has the Master Bath on top of it — saves on plumbing costs!)

Commenter karen, who was already familiar with the house, gets a special mention for trying to stir things up . . . with this wonderfully misleading entry:

Oh, this is totally southhampton! 1940’s construction, and beautifully updated. No professor in southgate could afford to do that. and it can’t be river oaks or old braeswood because the lot’s just not big enough. there are neighbors all but peeking in the windows!

Ready for the real tell-all?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

08/04/08 12:14pm

2202 Addison Rd., Southgate, Houston

Calling it “perhaps the most elegant and beloved in the entire neighborhood,” some saddened neighbors send in a deathbed photo shoot featuring the former Southgate home of retired Rice University architecture professor Elinor Evans. Evans sold the home at 2202 Addison in January.

Lovett Homes plans to build a new house on the property. (HCAD lists the new owner as “5177 Builders Ltd.”) In June, the Planning Commission granted a variance allowing the new garage to maintain the existing 10-ft. setback along Montclair Dr. — in order to preserve a large live oak tree in the back yard. In applying for the variance, Lovett promised to maintain the existing home’s footprint.

After the jump: highlights from the photo shoot, plus a link to the riveting, tree-saving Planning Commission hearing video!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

07/07/08 10:24am

NEW SHORT-TERM HOUSING FOR 40 VETERANS, SOUTH OF THE MED CENTER There are an estimated 3,600 homeless veterans in the Houston area, and only 250 available beds.Eight veterans already have moved into their new quarters in the previously vacant apartment complex in the 7300 block of Fannin. Applications to fill up the 14 units still are being accepted.” [Houston Chronicle]

05/08/08 8:01am

Dining Room of 7309 Greenbriar St., Houston

Round about the end of April, artist Gloria Becker lopped $53,000 off the asking price of her art-and-animal-filled home at 7309 Greenbriar (near Main) featured here a month ago. It’s now listed for $795K.

Have any of you seen this place?

04/09/08 3:54pm

7309 Greenbriar St., Houston

A reader reports that artist Gloria Becker is selling her home at 7309 Greenbriar, just south of the Med Center. That’s the big brick house with the the 8-foot-tall topiary bears out front. Plus . . .

She has a wildcat in her dining room, deer on her sofa, fish in her bathroom, squirrels in her entryway, a caribou at the top of her stairwell and a prairie dog in her den.

From the foyer, where a stuffed bear in a sundress and rhinestone-studded sunglasses stands at the foot of the stairs covered in imitation tiger fur, to the farthest corner of the second-floor spare room, which is adorned with a giant cloth cow in a sun hat, a wreath of monkeys and a Virgin Mary hubcap, the house is a cacophony of contented clutter.

“Empty spaces make me nervous,” [Becker] Rasmussen says.

Becker, who makes a living selling her incredibly detailed Santa Claus sculptures and handcrafted sock monkeys, calls herself an “an upscale, sophisticated recycler.”

Her Braeswood home has 3 or 4 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half baths, and sits on a 12,563-sq.-ft. lot near the corner of S. Main. Asking price: $848,000.

After the jump: Some interior pics from the listing, plus: Where did all the sock monkeys go?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/14/08 10:10am

Screen Shot from Planning Commission Meeting Showing Proposed Houstonian Hotel in Texas Medical Center from Main St.

Nope, no condos in the planned Houstonian Medical Center hotel — but there will be 100 apartments. Medistar consultant Doug Williams gave a few more details about the planned 40-story Main St. tower at the edge of Southgate in yesterday’s Planning Commission hearing:

The commission approved a revised version of the variance request but attached several conditions having to do with landscaping and parking spaces.

After the jump, the view from Southgate!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/13/08 10:23am

View from Main St. of New Houstonian Hotel and Condominiums, Texas Medical Center, Houston

From fuzzy video stills to washed-out photocopies: In the agenda handout for today’s Planning Commission hearing are hazy images that provide even more details about the new 40-story hotel and condo tower Medistar wants to build on Main St. in the Medical Center, at the eastern boundary of Southgate.

The drawing labels identify the hotel as the Houstonian Texas Medical Center, or Houstonian TMC for short. The architect is the Hill Glazier Studio of HKS, out of California. And a section drawing gives an actual height for the tower.

After the jump: It’s very tall!

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/10/08 9:28am

New Hermann Park Train

The Hermann Park kiddie trains are running again! But blogger Lou Minatti considers the replacement C.P. Huntington too “plasticy”:

A news photographer was there and we chatted for a bit. According to his sources, the old train was replaced due to three reasons: The old 50’s-era train had no dead man’s switch, it wasn’t wheelchair-accessible, and our collective asses are bigger than they were in the 1950s. Hence the need for the much wider train.

Photo: Lou Minatti