The deeply set lot of a porchified plantation-ish spread in Ridgeley Place lends a Southern — or maybe just South Fork — feel to this 6-year-old home in Hilshire Village. The south-facing Acadian-style structure also features plenty of pull-up-a-chair gathering spots inside.
The rather restrained and carefully appointed front lawn of this 1980 brick-box home makes the barely tamed nature center installed on its back lot an unexpected twist. A series of wooden decks, patios, terraces, garden follies, and walkways meander through the half-acre ravine property like a theme park’s winding queue, peppered with distracting greenery. The outdoor ensemble overlooks Spring Branch Creek, beyond which a detention pond and the Katy Freeway feeder road lie:
Will the recent purchase, a reader wants to know, of a 105,000-sq.-ft. building out near Spring Branch by Admiral Linen & Uniform Services mean anything for the company’s much-smaller headquarters at 2030 Kipling St.? Well, Admiral Linen isn’t available for comment.
The company closed just after Christmas on the building at 8020 Blankenship Dr., near Hempstead and Bingle. Since 1998, according to city records, it’s owned the three-building, 24,000-sq.-ft. headquarters a block west east of South Shepherd and directly behind the Randalls on Westheimer.
Everything above the roof ridge of this 1959 ranch-style residence in Spring Branch Woods forms a massive, single room across the back of the home. Listed last weekend at $443,000, the biggest-on-its-block property is located in Spring Branch Woods, just west of Bunker Hill Rd. The tree-lined stretch of Westview Dr. street has mostly smaller, 1-story suburban homes from the mid-fifties, including one across the street with the proverbial white picket fence.
Since 1984, this home-with-pool has changed hands seven times, HCAD records show. And it’s been remodeled a time or two. A roof-raising addition in 2000 made way for the aptly named “Great Room,” a 26-ft.-by-19-ft window-display showcase:
Beneath all the pine trees of this Spring Oaks property there’s a redwood-sided garage big enough for a RV, or so says the listing. Although the single-story 1955 home has been updated a few times, most of the remodeling appears to be a decade — or two — old. Still, the $790,000 metal-roofed home comes with nearly a half-acre of land, a pool, some patios, plus that extra-large, multi-purpose car barn.
You might well expect a home on street named “Leafy Lane” to sport a woodsy setting. While this new Spring Oaks listing is on a 16,788-sq.-ft. lot more groomed than sylvan, it does back up to a ravine formed by a ribbon of Spring Branch Creek. The 3-2 window pattern beneath the low-slung gable in front is a tip-off that the front room is not one room at all. Rather, the street-facing space contains a family room and a bedroom. Both sides of that great divide at the roof ridge, however, have vaulted ceilings. Elsewhere inside, other unexpected treatments include a dual personality fireplace that features an ornately carved mantle tacked onto a plainer midcentury brick wall; a common room currently re-purposed as a dining room; and in the kitchen, wall paneling that matches the knob-free cabinets.
What large-scale construction project is that about to go up on the north side of the Katy Freeway opposite the 35-story spike-headed Memorial Hermann Tower, a reader wants to know. A sign for MetroNational contractor Anslow Bryant recently went up on the Gessner Rd. site, which was until last year the home of the Gessner Place Shopping Center and Korean grocery store Komart. “It appears that a portion of it (the immediate corner) has been fenced off & the construction signs have gone up,” asks the reader, who also sent in these photos. “My guess is whatever goes here will be vertical.”
A bit east of the tower, and on the opposite side of I-10, Anslow Bryant is currently constructing a 14-story tower for future MetroNational tenant Nexen Petroleum.
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Who said looking for a match online is easy? This remade 4,818-sq.-ft. home on a half-acre lot near Hilshire Village was on the market almost continuously from fall 2006 to fall 2008 . . . then again in the spring of 2010, and this year from April to the end of June. But you’ve gotta have hope: It’s back on the market again as of last week. How about: 61-year-old Bellewood belle has heart of gold, kitchen counter of granite, master bedroom floor of berber. Grew up in staid suburban Spring Branch Ranch; still inscrutable at first glance, very different on the inside. Dedicated to imagining romantic self, internal growth. Stuck on cul-de-sac, but willing to break down walls to get what I need. Given to recurring fantasies involving candles and wrought-iron balconies; ready to go for baroque if the right offer comes along.
Comment of the Day: Teardown Street Cred
I love the nothing but exterior shots – particularly the one down the street to indicate “See – there’s ONE other McMansion on this block already . . .” [mollusk, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: A Stitch in Tyne]