Some $156 million is being spent by Southwest Airlines to do up the previously domesticated Hobby Airport into this shapely international hub. In February, city council approved a kind of build-to-suit agreement that would allow Southwest to add 5 gates to its terminal on the west side of the airport for international flights — Mayor Parker said at the time that she was even considering adding that adjective to ol’ Hobby’s name — as well as introduce a customs inspection hub, redo the roadways to and from, and add a 2,500-space parking garage.
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Read more about: 77061, Airports, Hobby Airport, Renovations, Transportation
March 12, 2013 – 10:00 am
Last week, owners Cheryl and David Bowman of 7919 Glenview Dr. were given a Good Brick Award from Preservation Houston for their renovation of this 1954 mod — one of the original 6, says Cheryl Bowman, built in Glenbrook Valley. Purchased in March 2011, the 2-bedroom, 1,834-sq.-ft. home, shown here from the backyard, wasn’t always such a pretty picture . . .
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Read more about: 77061, Awards, Glenbrook Valley, Historic Districts, Historic Preservation, Interiors, Mid-Century Modern, Renovations
February 14, 2013 – 2:00 pm
Yesterday, city council approved an agreement that will allow Southwest Airlines to go ahead with plans to expand Hobby Airport for international flights. The short-pants airline will foot the $150 million bill to add up to 280,000 sq. ft. to the terminal, including a new concourse and ticket counter, six security lanes, five gates, and a customs inspection hub. The plan, pictured above, also includes restructured roadways and a new parking garage with 2,500 spaces, mutating one of the wings of an airport designed as though it might be itself ready for takeoff:
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Read more about: 77061, Airports, Hobby Airport, Parking-Garages, Proposed Development, Transportation
January 23, 2013 – 4:45 pm
In Southeast Houston, Glenbrook Valley sits between Telephone and Broadway near Hobby Airport. Developed during that same spate of post-war optimism that gave us the Jetsons, the neighborhood is home to many smaller mid-century mods, including this 1,375-sq.-ft. one at 7722 Glenalta. Designed by P. Herbert Caldwell, the home should be listed this Thursday or Friday at $110,000. Have a look around:
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Read more about: 77061, Glenbrook Valley, Home for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, Listings
Listed yesterday: This 1957 Mod in Glenbrook Valley long nicknamed the “Sputnik” house — after the custom-built light fixture its original owner hung on the front porch when he moved in. The light’s still there, but all the furniture’s been cleared out for sparkly photo shoot, so you can even imagine the place filled with Hummel-bedecked Ethan Allen if you like. The 11,694-sq.-ft. lot sits across the street from Sims Bayou, half a mile west of the Gulf Fwy., a couple miles north of Hobby Airport, so it’s got real southeast Houston street cred. The neighborhood, which includes a lot of homes of similar vintage, was designated a historic district not too long ago. Your guess on the home’s asking price?
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Read more about: 77061, Glenbrook Valley, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Modern Design
Murder charges have been dismissed against 48-year-old twins Edwin and Edward Berndt, who let their mother lie on the foyer floor of their Meadowbrook Freeway home for 3 days after she slipped and fell— and then left her body to rot in place for 3 months after she died there. The Berndt’s attorney, Robert Scardino, has claimed the twins were born mentally disabled and had depended on their mother for their care. He described the scene investigators found at 8402 Glenscott St. to 11 News reporter Courtney Zubowski back in May: “It doesn’t appear that there was any hygiene [or] baths or showers taken. There was water, but it was trickling water. There was no air conditioning. There were a lot of empty popcorn bags in the house. There were a lot of broken egg shells in the house and a lot of empty tin cans where they were eating food out of a tin can which indicated to me there wasn’t any grocery shopping. . . . It was in a state that I’m not sure even the most warped director in Hollywood could have made up the scene in that house.” [KHOU 11 News; previously on Swamplot] Photo: ABC News
Read more about: 77061, Crime, Meadowbrook Freeway, Odors
The color-coded maps, the front-yard tombstones, the shivering naked women, the Ranches and MCMs, the prayer nooks, the free tacos, the threatening drive-by waves . . . it all comes out (well, some of it anyway) in Steve Jansen’s Glenbrook Valley exposé. [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: 77061, Glenbrook Valley, Historic Districts, Historic Preservation, Neighborhood Disputes
“I guess I am behind the times on marketing strategies,” admits real estate agent Robert Searcy after snapping these pics of the latest offer posted on Bellfort St. near Broadway, just a mile north of Hobby Airport.
Photos: Robert Searcy
Read more about: 77061, Glenbrook Valley, Homes for Sale, Real Estate Marketing, Signs, Streetscapes
A bit more on those twin brothers over in Meadowbrook Freeway who spent the last 3 months living in their home at 8402 Glenscott St. with the rotting dead body of their 89-year-old mother. Turns out Sybil Berndt was not found decomposing on the floor of the living room for all that time, as was first reported — her corpse was lying face down in the foyer, right behind the front door pictured here. Which might explain why Edwin Berndt thought it would be wiser to let in the police officer who came to investigate reports of concern about his mother (she wasn’t responding to her voicemail messages, a neighbor had reported) through the side door. Oh — and one more thing: Edwin and his brother Edward left their mother on the floor right where she fell for 3 whole days — alive — before she started in with that dying and decomposing bit.
The story of the 48-year-old couldn’t-be-bothered twins and the stench of their mother’s corpse has now been reported in newspapers, on teevee news, and on websites all over the world. But no retelling of the events we’ve come across so far has managed to surpass the deadpan drama of the Probable Cause affidavit prepared by HPD sergeant R. Torres, who was called to the scene shortly after Berndt’s body was found. Torres’s writeup brings together brilliantly the many themes of multigenerational family life the story so shockingly cartoons: fears of falling among the elderly, the selflessness of mothers, unacknowledged (or at least uncelebrated) birthdays, incapacitating miserliness, the difficulty of meal preparation, a parent’s financial support, bluffing, and of course, the ungratefulness of children:
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Read more about: 77061, Crime, Critters, Meadowbrook Freeway, Odors
Found in the living room of a 53-year-old home still occupied by 40-something twins on the corner of Glenscott and Hinman, just northwest of the Gulf Freeway’s Monroe exit: the decomposing corpse of their 88-year-old mother. A neighbor had called Adult Protective Services after the woman, who had been active in the Meadowbrook Freeway Civic Club, stopped returning messages. A police source described the smell as “unimaginable,” a police source tells 11 News reporter Courtney Zubowski: “’Everything was closed up for so long,’ said the neighbor. ‘She would go to the country for a week or she would go to the country for maybe two weeks tops and this is like three months, maybe two-and-a-half months.’ What detectives are trying to figure out now is why the brothers didn’t call for help.” [KHOU 11 News; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: 77061, Meadowbrook Freeway, Odors
The reader who sent in a few photos of a Glenbrook Valley house from over the years titles the album the “Evolution of an architectural Frankenstein.” Of course, properly, that should be Frankenstein’s monster, but what’s the difference? Around here what mad scientist doesn’t dabble in a little weekend home improvement?
Unfortunately, photos of the home in its original condition are missing from the sequence. But the illustration in the early-fifties ad above should give you a decent idea of how it looked. Next up, a photo of the same house at 7911 Glenview Dr. — as it looked in 2004:
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Read more about: 77061, Glenbrook Valley, Homes for Sale, Modern Design, Remodeling, Renovations
