FLUSHING AWAY ALLEN STANFORD’S LEGACY AT 5050 WESTHEIMER 
Noting the extensive changes to the office building at 5050 Westheimer across the street from the Galleria that once served as headquarters for the Stanford Financial Group but has since been taken over completely by real estate firm Keller Williams, Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon zeroes in on the big news: “Stanford’s gigantic personal bathroom is gone.” Reuters reporter Chris Baltimore described the rarely seen first-floor spectacle back in 2009, after an exclusive crime-scene tour, as “a chamber of black granite and mahogany, with a gigantic mirror and granite countertop, flanked with shelves of fluffy white towels and toiletries, including a bottle of ‘Brilliant Brunette’ shampoo.” Notable features: the separate black-toilet room, the huge walk-in shower, and the blank door next to it which served as Sir Allen’s private escape route to the parking deck. Stanford’s entire personal magnet-key-access-only first-floor domain has now been replaced by the offices of KW-affiliated lender and title companies; the Gensler redo of the building has kept some of the green marble but added some red walls, replacing stone-carved messages like Stanford’s HARD WORK, CLEAR VISION, VALUE for the CLIENT with “inspirational and wacky sayings like ‘Complaining=garbage magnet.'” [Real Estate Bisnow; Reuters; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Flushed
“To this day, people still refer to 1400 Smith as ‘the old Enron building,’ even though the company collapsed more than a decade ago and Chevron now owns the property. Will 5050 Westheimer face a similar fate? That’s the building that housed Stanford Financial Group, whose founder, R. Allen Stanford, is awaiting a jury verdict on federal charges that he ran a $7 billion investment fraud. . . . Bruce Kink of Keller Williams said the company chose the space for its prime location directly across from the Galleria mall. He doesn’t focus on who used to occupy it. ‘
“The place was always odd. There was always more elegance, more shine . . . and yet there weren’t always people to fill the desks. 
