Swamplot Archives by Tag: 77042

Monday, October 26, 2009

The Westchase Spec Office Building That Ate Tinseltown

Not a fan of the “ugly uninspired office parks” that line Beltway 8 on the west side of town, radio geek and computer answer guy Jay Lee finds he has a few nice things to say — and photograph — about the recently completed first phase of Westchase Park, a Simmons Vedder office development that’s replaced the Cinemark Tinseltown Westchase just north of Westpark:

There’s a water feature in the front of the building that sports a metallic sculpture which sort of reminds me of the contraption from the movie “Contact.” It’s by far the most interesting piece of architecture I have seen out here on the west beltway.

The building itself is glass and chrome and glints in the daylight. I was kind of hoping the sculpture was a corporate logo of some kind and that this was going to be to world headquarters of some up and coming conglomerate or something. Alas, it is simply a business park and will soon be selling office space to those looking to setup shop in the Westchase District.

On the plus side, it looks pretty cool at night:

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , ,
Thursday, October 8, 2009

You Love the Knight Life: Rivercrest White Castle Retreat

A reader calls this odd home “a lottery winner’s dream!” The listing agent calls it “the ultimate bachelor pad.” But does either pitch fully explain what’s going on in this $4 million, 6,753-sq.-ft. medieval chateau fantasy in Rivercrest Estates?

A few highlights:

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , ,
Tuesday, July 7, 2009

And July Is Meat Candy Month

   

Its first Houston store (at Main and Kirby) apparently a patty-smashing success, 3 new Smashburgers are now ready to open in a few other strip centers: “First up is a restaurant in the Westchase area at 10705 Westheimer, Suite C, opening on July 15. A second will open July 22 in the Energy Corridor at 1635 Eldridge (Eldridge and Briar Forest). And a third, located at 5520 Buffalo Speedway (Buffalo Speedway and Bissonnet) in the West University area, will open July 29.” [Eating Our Words; previously on Swamplot]

Read more about: , , , , , , , ,
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Comment of the Day: The Great West Houston Divorcée Belt

   

“It basically runs in between Beltway 8 and 610 and is crossed by the likes of Westheimer, Woodway, Richmond, Bissonnet et al. Basically these people met in drunken stupors along the Richmond strip in the early 80s at those cheesy night clubs; tried to make lasting marriages but eventually divorced; and then bought homes and patio homes close but not too close to their old stomping grounds. Incidentally, many of them work non-descript office jobs at middle market companies in the Westchase district and raaaaaave about the tres leches cake at the Churrasco’s out there on Westheimer. Yay Divorcee Belt!” [Bobby Hadley, commenting on Neighborhood Guessing Game: Blue Check]

Read more about: , , , , , ,
Thursday, March 5, 2009

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: Lakeside Bayou

Time’s up for this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game. And there’s a prize winner to announce!

We had 2 guesses each for Camp Logan, Crestwood, and “near the Houston Country Club.” The rest: Tanglewood, “overlooking Memorial Park,” Spring, Champions, Greenwood Forest, Nottingham, Hudson Bend, Hudson Forest, “somewhere off Gessner,” along Gessner between Briar Forest and Memorial, Tealwood, “near Memorial . . . around Gessner, Fondren or Wilcrest,” the Braeswood-Med Center area, east of 288 near MacGregor and the bayou, along Rice between San Felipe and Westheimer (?), between San Felipe and Woodway off Post Oak Lane, Clear Lake City, River Oaks, near Memorial between Kirkwood and Eldridge Parkway, Bellaire, Sugar Land, Greatwood Bend, “the Plantation-y area around Dulles and Highway 6,” Bayou Glen, Westhaven Estates, near Chimney Rock and Memorial, Lakeside Place, and Lakeside Forest.

The winner of a year-long membership in the Rice Design Alliance? MariaO, for this entry:

I wonder what this place looked like before the staging? What’s up with the pool cues without a pool table?
Obviously 70s construction, built-ins and bathroom cabinets are the giveaway. Brick floors and no carpet down, so most likely is near water, maybe backs to a bayou? I’d say Memorial but it can’t be or they would have done a Subzero fridge instead of that generic thing. Must be outside the Beltway and south of the bayou, Lakeside Forest or Lakeside Place.

Congratulations! The runner-up this week is CK, who was drawn to Wilcrest. And an honorable mention goes to the amazing through-the-web olfactory talents of JPSivco, who was able to sniff out both a bayou and golf course nearby. Only it was the wrong golf course:

Guys, I can’t believe you can not smell that Bayou in the backyard of this place!!

I like the second floor loft.

All of the windows argue a view of something.

Since Houston is flat…with views of nothing…I bet it is along Buffalo Bayou

it is a big place, with a pool and lots of renovations (floors, kitchen) so near HCC. it might even be on a golf course if it is not the Bayou. Maybe i just smell a retention pond.

Talk about a great nose for real estate!

A special shout-out goes to Lisa, who wrote in that she knew the listing, then submitted this great head-fake:

Painted paneling and flagstone fireplace place this as built around 1975. The poor little kitchen looks neglected. Not upscale enough for Memorial, Tanglewood, etc. The bathroom looks like the ones in the 1970’s homes in the great NW area. The yard is small so it’s a subdivision. I think that it’s a older home in the Champions area. Maybe Greenwood Forest or Nottingham.

And now . . . the reveal!

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , ,
Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Hall Says No Go to Vo Pad

abc13 reporter Miya Shay says likely Houston mayoral candidate Ben Hall has decided not to buy State Rep. Hubert Vo’s enormous Rivercrest mansion after all.

Hall maintains he’s got a condo in the city, and more than meets the residency requirements. I guess Rep. Vo will have to find another buyer with $3.9 million to spare.

Hall currently lives in Piney Point Village.

Read more about: , , , , ,
Friday, January 23, 2009

From Vo’s Folly to Hall’s Hall: The Outsize Rivercrest Mansion for a Man Who Would Be Mayor?

Remember that crowd-friendly but vacant and unfinished mansion on Rivercrest that State Rep. Hubert Vo has been trying to unload since mid-2006? It may soon have a buyer! Abc13 reporter Miya Shay says former city attorney Ben Hall — who would need to move inside Houston city limits from his current home in Piney Point Village if he decides to run for mayor — is interested in buying it!

The house is nice, very nice. It’s currently listed for $3.9 million on HAR. There are 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and 2 half baths, and an 8 car garage. So, if Hall buys the house, you can bet that his mayoral ambitions are pretty real. Imagine the fundraisers he can hold there!

The $800K price cut apparently went through last May. And though the revised listing still lists the home as “under construction,” the rooms now look . . . finished!

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , , ,
Thursday, October 9, 2008

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: Repurposed

Neighborhood Guessing Game 27: Closet

The guesses are in for this week’s mystery pad! We heard West University twice, the Augusta-Bering area twice, plus Bellaire, Southgate, South Post Oak Lane, Tanglewood, Missouri City, Mid Lane, Bay Glen or Bay Oaks in Clear Lake, West Bellfort/Fondren, Kingwood, “west of Weslayan between Bissonnet and 59,” Pearland, Woodlake, Memorial Club, Briar Hollow, off Memorial between Voss and 610, and North Post Oak.

The winner this week is David W, who was wrong at least about the neighborhood and housing type . . . but still came closer than any other contestant!

I agree with those who think it is a townhouse - but I think it might be farther out in the burbs. Maybe Woodlake or Memorial Club? It has to be pretty old - when is the last time you saw a sliding glass door in a bedroom? I think it must be near water, too with all the tile and no rugs (or the resident has allergies) so I am leaning more towards Woodlake or maybe it is closer in around Briar Hollow. It can’t be too expensive or they would have gone the granite/stainless steel kitchen route. Maybe just outside the loop around North Post Oak north of Memorial? Tough to tell.

An honorable mention goes to Starkeshia, who didn’t even bother to guess a neighborhood, but did pick the correct decade — and didn’t call it a townhouse. The kindest portion of Starkeshia’s comments:

More than likely this is just some house out in suburbia built in the late 70s or 80s that has had some remuddling done.

Okay, 1970s . . . not a townhouse . . . but where?

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , ,
Friday, June 27, 2008

Mattress Mack’s Half-Off Sale

Pool and Guest Apartment at 3002 Pine Lake Trail, the Former Home of Jim McIngvale

Mattress Mack’s home in Northgate Forest sold back in April for $815,000, reports Jennifer Dawson in the Houston Business Journal. That’s more than a 50 percent discount off the home’s original asking price.

The McIngvales’ 7-bedroom, 6,840-sq.-ft. home at 3002 Pine Lake Trail originally went on the market in May of 2007 for $1.75 million. Three months and a $250K price cut later, John Daugherty Realtors decided that marketing the pad as “The Home of Mattress Mack” might help. But it didn’t, apparently. The price cuts spiraled from there.

Jim and Linda McIngvale’s new home is a 2,000-sq.-ft. apartment on the grounds of their Westside Tennis Club on Wilcrest near Briar Forest, but that’s not necessarily a step down, says Dawson:

While the couple may have a lot less house, right outside the door is a resort-styled pool, family fitness center, lighted soccer field and one of the city’s largest yoga facilities.

Photo of 3002 Pine Lake Trail: HAR

Read more about: , , , , , ,
Friday, May 23, 2008

Weekend Open House Tour: Briargrove and Briargrove Park

Briargrove and Briargrove Park are 5 miles and (to judge from this weekend’s open houses), about $700,000 apart. But both feature homes so eager to be sold that they’re giving up a good portion of their Memorial Day weekend just so you can visit.

10335 Lynbrook Hollow St., Briargrove Park, Houston

Location: 10335 Lynbrook Hollow St.
Details: 4 bedrooms, 3 baths; 2,958 sq. ft.
Price: $410,000
The Scoop: 1976 brick home on cul-de-sac in Briargrove Park, built around brick courtyard. Two bedrooms, including Master, downstairs. Partial second story. Partially covered deck in back. On the market since mid-January. Price cut $25K last week.
Open House: Sunday, 3-5 pm

More Briargrovian homes below:

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , ,
Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Trading Houston Spaces: Mike James for Juwan Howard . . . Plus a Putting Green, Basketball Court, Gym, and Dance Studio

Mike James’s House at 2 E. Rivercrest Dr., Houston

Juwan Howard’s Home in Royal Oaks, Houston

A reader reports that the large and well-turreted home at the corner of Rivercrest and Westheimer — not far from State Rep. Hubert Vo’s curious mansion — is almost complete:

The home belongs to Mike James, formerly of the Houston Rockets, who was traded to the Timberwolves, only to be traded back in exchange for Juwan Howard. The irony is that the home is an exact replica of Juwan Howard’s home in Royal Oaks, just a few miles down the road (Mike and his wife were unaware of this as their “Manager” picked out the plan — they were not amused when they found this out after Mike and his manager parted ways). It was designed by Berrios Designs (exceptional building designer), as was the guest house and the full NBA regulation indoor basketball court at the back of the ~3.5 acre property. The property also features two putting greens complete with dual sand bunkers and a water hazard, a “sunken” pool between the guest and main house, and a gym and dance studio attached to the basketball court. Sadly, the project, which had so much potential, is being finished on the cheap because of cost over-runs caused by their former manager (trying to do things cheap generally ends up costing a lot more money). Regardless, it is turning out pretty decently, but could have been done so much better.

Mike James’s house under construction in Rivercrest is pictured at the top of this story; Juwan Howard’s home in Royal Oaks is the one below it.

We hope the house-plan trade works out better than the player trade: James was sent to the New Orleans Hornets in February. But he says he’ll be back!

After the jump, more glimpses of Mike James’s Howardian manor and sports compound, plus a look inside the Royal Oaks home it’s modeled after!

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , , , ,
Thursday, May 1, 2008

A Walk Down Cheezy Street: Richmond Avenue, Past Its Prime

Corner of Richmond and Fountainview, Houston

Pedestrian scribe John Lomax and Marfa City Council candidate David Beebe have, by this time, earned the right to make a few sweeping statements about various Houston neighborhoods. And Lomax exercises that right in his chronicle of the pair’s latest adventure on foot, along Richmond Avenue from Mission Bend to Midtown:

. . . the epicenter of H-Town cheese is the corner of Fountainview and Richmond. A four-story, day-glo, red, white, turquoise, and tan building looms over the southeastern corner there, and it houses a Sprint shop, a little downstairs bar with the godawful name Identity, a scalper’s office, a massage therapist, and a huge Darque Tan outlet.

Sure, Westheimer’s got some cheese, and is a little tattered around the edges in spots, but there’s a veneer of gentility as expressed by old-line businesses like Christie’s Seafood. Richmond, by contrast, used to have that sub-Landry’s fried seafood emporium King Fish Market, which despite the incessant awful commercials that polluted local airwaves circa 1999, is now out of business and practically in ruins. The whole lot of it is a great vat of rancid Velveeta.

As is much of the Richmond Strip. That giant sax outside of Billy Blues is looking more and more like the torch sticking out of the sand at the end of Planet of the Apes.

After the jump: how’s the nightlife?

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Tuesday, April 8, 2008

More Vo Real Estate for Sale: Memorial Mansion with Multiples

31 W. Rivercrest, Houston

As recently as last Friday, the home owned by State Rep. Hubert Vo and his wife in Memorial’s Rivercrest subdivision was listed on HAR as “Option Pending.” Then — by yesterday — it was back on the market. Did something happen to disrupt a potential sale?

The new, 23,000-sq.-ft. “awesome Mediterranean estate” at 31 W. Rivercrest has been listed at the same price for 21 months.

What’s the story? A comment posted to HAIF last November offers some clues:

That house is a disaster. I believe, it was, initially being built for Rep. Vo, but when the budget quickly ran out and then they realized it wasn’t worth what was spent on it, it has been a mess trying to get rid of the thing.

I met with an agent that was showing the house privately about a year and a half ago just before I started a project down the street and she eluded that it was initially being offered, still incomplete, for 7.5mm. So far as I know, it is STILL incomplete and has dropped a lot. Eventually, they will have to liquidate it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a tear down with as hideous as the house is.

The actual $4.7 million asking price has in fact held steady. For $200K less than Vo’s other real-estate offering, you get a 2.66-acre lot, an enormous brick home with 5 stairways, 2 attached garages holding a total of 8 cars, plus a separate guest house. And it’s all almost complete!

But this isn’t just your typical Memorial mansion for column-and-arch-crazed empty-nesters! Everything about this home — from its 8 bedrooms, 9 full baths, and 2 half baths, to its dual Master Bedroom suites — is tailor made for occupancy by large numbers of people!

See what we mean below the fold, in a few choice scenes from inside.

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , ,
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Dismembering and Remembering the Tinseltown Westchase Theater

A reader writes in with a question about the movie theater that appeared in Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report earlier this week:

Do we happen to know the reason for the demolition of the Tinseltown Westchase location? If I can remember right, this theater has only been here for not even 10 years yet.

Actually, the Cinemark Tinseltown USA Westchase movie theater had reached the ripe old age of 12. According to the Houston Business Journal, Simmons Vedder Partners is tearing it down to build twin 6-story spec office buildings with a parking garage between them and a “signature water feature” fronting the Beltway — all designed by Ambrose, McEnany and House Architects. It’ll be called Westchase Park.

After the jump, a few fond memories of the theater in its “Hey!” day.

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , , , , ,
Friday, September 7, 2007

Daily Demolition Report: Lupita’s Caput

Houston’s demolition pace picks up, with new destruction sites at Westheimer and the Beltway. Read all the addresses in our daily report, after the jump.

Continue Reading This Story >

Read more about: , , , , , , , , ,