05/10/12 11:06am

Picture windows street-side align with sliding glass doors across the back of this 1961 home, so there’s a front-to-back fishbowl view through the living room and into the covered patio beyond. Other windows in the 3-bedroom, 2-bath home are smaller and higher.

This 2,064-sq.-ft. home is a new listing, asking $264,990. It’s located on a 7,800-sq.-ft. lot north of Willowbend Blvd. near Mullins Dr. in the Mayerling Meadows neighborhood of Maplewood. Having hit the half-century mark, it appears to have had a little work done:

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08/17/11 1:58pm

HIGH SECURITY IN BELLAIRE Yvonne Stern’s home on S. 3rd St. in Bellaire is now equipped with iron gates, floodlights, surveillance cameras, and bulletproof glass; there’s also an armored SUV currently being prepared for her use. Earlier, she had hired off-duty Houston police officers to live in the house around the clock. Still, earlier this week Stern told the jury deciding the fate of a man hired to kill her that she and her 2 children do not feel safe in the home; she would like to move but can’t. Nhut Nguyen was sentenced this morning to 45 years in prison for shooting at Stern and her son through the home’s front door on April 15th. No one was injured in that incident, but a different assailant shot Stern in the stomach a month later as she sat in her car in the parking garage of the Meritage Apartments at the corner of North Braeswood and Meyer Park Dr. — where Stern and her family were staying while their home was being retrofitted with all those security measures. Now back living with her in that home, which she described to the court as “Fort Knox”: her husband, attorney Jeffrey Stern — who along with his former employee and mistress, Michelle Gaiser, is facing trial for soliciting several would-be hit men to kill his wife. Despite prosecutors’ claims, Yvonne Stern says she believes her husband had nothing to do with the murder plots. [Houston Chronicle; more details]

08/15/11 11:28am

MORE RIDES TO GYM The Westbury Christian School is buying the Westland Family YMCA at 10402 Fondren, south of South Braeswood, with plans to turn the building, its pool, and large playing field into a remote athletic campus. The 31-year-old Y is a little more than a mile west of the K-12 school’s main campus at 10402 Hillcroft. The property wasn’t up for sale, but “declining membership and increasing operating costs” convinced the organization to shut the facility. Members will be transferred automatically to the Y at 5801 W. Orem Dr. when the Westland location closes at the end of the month. [Hair Balls; previously on Swamplot] Photo: YMCA of Greater Houston

05/19/11 11:27pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GANG THAT COULDN’T EAT CHAMETZ “Biker gangs in Meyerland? Girl what part of Meyerland did you live in? We lived there for 12 years on Indigo St., the part between Endicott and Rice, and never once experienced biker gangs or ANY undesirable folks at all. Even with our close proximity to Meyerland Plaza, we never saw such people. The only gangs we saw were families walking to temple, especially during Passover. That is one of the most homogenized neighborhoods in Houston, next to Bellaire. Biker gangs? Yeah, right.” [MarketingWiz, commenting on Wichita St. Mystery House Goes on the Market Today: Your First Peek Inside]

08/11/10 2:55pm

Yeah, that’s an outdoor kitchen wrapped around a tree in the back yard of this home that’s just gone up for sale in Maplewood. ’Neath the leaves: 2 grills, a wine chiller, a refrigerator, and a stainless steel sink. And inside? A whole lot more . . . plus carpet:

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07/20/10 3:49pm

Modern architecture fans in Houston have been whispering about this 1964 Meyerland home ever since it went on the market late last month. Houston Mod featured it as its “Mod of the Month” open house a couple of weeks ago. Commenters on a Swamplot post about another modern-era home have also been discussing the 3,172-sq.-ft. home, which sits just a couple blocks north of Brays Bayou. As one of them noted, it’s the former home of Houston architect John R. Dossey, who bought it with his wife more than a decade ago and renovated it extensively.

If that name sounds familiar, it might be because Dossey pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to possession of child pornography. The charges stemmed from the stakeout by an FBI unit in March of a feeder-road pay-by-the-hour Scottish Inn & Suites hotel in southwest Houston, where Dossey was arrested in the company of a 16-year-old prostitute. Dossey admitted to taking photos of the girl, and a later search of his home on Manhattan Dr. (yes, pictured here) netted his computers, the inevitable forensic hard-drive search, and the child pornography charge.

Dossey, who’s been in custody without bond ever since, transferred ownership of the home — and the 12,755-sq.-ft. lot next door — in May. And yes . . . both are now for sale! Which means you can conduct a little surveillance of the scene on your own:

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04/09/10 6:25pm

Just a couple rungs down from the top of the market in Meyerland is this 17-year-old fantasy on Braesheather, designed in 1993 by architect Mark Mucasey. The richly painted stucco home just a block south of Brays Bayou and two blocks southwest of the 610 Loop features a 3-car attached garage, 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, and several interior hues you may not have encountered recently:

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02/19/10 3:53pm

THE BEST BUY IN MEYERLAND No, that isn’t another gun store with shooting range moving into the empty Circuit City space at the Meyerland Plaza shopping center. Reports a reader: “There has been some activity in the empty space lately, and today I asked a worker who was out in the parking lot what store was going in, and he said Best Buy.” [Swamplot inbox]

08/13/09 3:26pm

Self-taught Houston designer, cabinet-maker, boat-builder, and entrepreneur Robert Cohen passed away last weekend at the age of 91, a couple of months after the death of his wife, Jean, and a little less than 2 years after his singular creation, Meyerland’s ultra-fab Carousel House, was demolished.

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05/18/09 1:20pm

Spotting the first bloom of the season on the crape myrtle she and her husband planted way back when at their Meyerland home brings up fond memories for homeowner Annie Sitton:

When we planted this tree, it was about ten feet tall with a large root ball. We’ve all seen bad guys in movies digging graves. They make it look so easy. Well, let me tell you…digging even a small hole in the earth is difficult work. When it was my turn at the shovel, I couldn’t believe the energy it took. After about ten minutes into my digging career, my shovel hit something hard…clunk. I screamed, “Buried treasure!” I had always said there was something special about this piece of land.

Oh . . . there was!

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03/16/09 5:23pm

Hey, what happened to Monday? Swamplot spent most of it fighting off a few tech demons. But hey, here’s some news!

  • Opened: The new and expanded Children’s Museum had its grand opening this weekend. Now twice its original size, the 90,000 sq. ft. museum features exhibits of children in various states of play. Also inside: an expanded branch of the Houston Public Library.
  • Opening: Backe’s Bullpen, a fine drinking establishment in Dickinson, will open with the backing of Astros pitcher Brandon Backe, reports the Galveston Daily News‘s Laura Elder. Last October, Backe was arrested after a run-in with police at a Galveston bar.
  • Closed: Mike McGuff notices that the Meyer Park Chili’s, once “the big teen hangout in southwest Houston,” shut down in February.

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10/01/08 5:52pm

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: KINDA LIKE FLOODING IN MEYERLAND A rising tide sinks all prices! “When Dr. Mahmoud Amin El-Gamal, chairman of the Rice economics department, is asked — as he has often been in recent days — ‘What’s is going on with our financial institutions?’ he likes to begin his answer with an analogy of local origin. ‘It’s a lot like in the 1980s when the flooding in Meyerland caused the price of all the houses in the area to go down,’ he said, ‘even those houses that did not flood.’ El-Gamal said the same can be said of mortgage securities, many of which were ‘perfectly fine,’ but had been grouped with debts that would likely continue to go unpaid.” [West University Examiner]