When last we left this little number in Pine Hollow — the longtime home of Preston Bolton, the Houston architect who did tall ceilings before tall ceilings were cool — it was 2008, and the place was listed for just south of $2 million. But it didn’t sell at that price, or a few other ones tried later. Last week it went back on the market at a new low: $1,450,000. Anything in this 1970 structure been, well, updated in the 3 intervening years? Well, the photos at least:
Whatever your ethnicity, it’s probably not too far off from that of Julie, the Sitepal avatar some fun folks at Rebuild Houston have been using to narrate a series of videos demonstrating how to look up and recalculate the new drainage fee on your property using the city’s Drainage Utility Charge Viewer. Julie’s kinda like you — only maybe she moves and talks a little more stiltingly, and she probably wears more makeup. She’s probably also a little less concerned about the resulting monthly costs, or the imperviousness of the whole thing. Still, Julie’s a trooper: She appears to be standing in the middle of Buffalo Bayou, getting her own feet wet as she processes the script into remarkably natural-sounding speech, blinks occasionally, and convincingly wiggles her lips to the words.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BAYOU OVERLOOK “Everyone I know thinks I’m crazy, but I canoed Buffalo Bayou from Highway 6 to downtown a few years ago, and it was surprisingly clean and natural. The best part was the stretch through Eleanor Tinsley Park, at the end of the trip, where the downtown skyline suddenly pops into view. In April of this year, a friend and I took a ride on the little-known public pontoon boat ride offered occasionally on Buffalo Bayou near the Sabine Street Bridge. It was a really, really neat experience, and there were only 4 people including us that were there for the ride. The city is so different from the water. They even show you the ruins of a family tomb that was used as a foundation a bridge that still exists, and there is a point where a heavy stream of clean water pours into the bayou from an uncapped artesian well under a street a few blocks away. The weather was perfect that day, and I was shocked at seeing only a few dozen people utilizing the landscaped trails and green spaces along the bayou. I’m sure on the same day, Memorial Park and Hermann Park were packed – why not this place? I wish the Bayou had a more prevalent place in Houston’s image and culture.” [Superdave, commenting on Banks Report: Tex Hex Graduates from Buffalo Bayou Movie Scene, Gets Ready for Official White Oak Bayou Premiere]
On Tuesday night, Houston’s first and only bayou movie barge docked at Guadalupe Park off Navigation for the first of 2 “sneak peek” video performances on the banks of Buffalo Bayou. On the opposite shoreline, a few cargo trains and a motorcade of dirt bikes rumbled past, but the night was clear and mosquito-free, show and boat organizer Bree Edwards claims. Plus, she says: The solar-powered cinema setup on the Tex Hex worked flawlessly. Her pix of the scene:
LOOKING FOR HOUSTON ZERO “In Chicago, there is a ‘zero-point’ at State and Madison, where all addresses move from zero away from that intersection. It seems that Houston has some semblance of this system, as addresses go lower the closer to Buffalo Bayou (on N/S streets at least) and as they cross the bayou, even-numbers go from the west side to the east side. My question is, where is Houston’s null address point? Allen’s Landing? Is it a single point that then radiates due East/West and North/South, or does it follow the bayou? Maybe someone could write a Google map script that plots all the addresses in Houston under the number 100. . . . ” [Swamplot inbox]
The Houston Arts Alliance had a tough time tolerating the intersection of Montrose and Allen Parkway, but at last they’ve gotten the job done. The organization’s commission more than 2 years ago for a pedestrian bridge across Buffalo Bayou connected to that corner, dubbed the Tolerance Bridge, was abandoned after a sea of complaints about both the name and design. The new bridge that opens today at that same spot is much simpler than the earlier proposal — and it’s simply called the Rosemont Bridge. But standing — or really, kneeling — guard by the bridge’s southern entrance today are 7 new sculptures by Barcelona artist Jaume Plensa that were given to the city by a small group of donors who aren’t going out of their way to advertise their identity. The name for the artwork: Tolerance.
The see-through figures face mostly toward the south, away from the bridge and across Allen Parkway, to a vacant site where the oft-flooded Robinson Warehouse once stood. Five years ago, the Aga Khan Foundation bought the land there and announced plans to build a new Ismaili Center on it, including lecture, conference, and recital facilities, a prayer hall and a social hall, offices, and gardens:
A number of readers have been asking what’s up with the new construction office set up on the former site of the Robinson’s Warehouse at the southeast corner of Montrose and Allen Parkway. The Aga Khan Foundation bought the low-lying property in 2006 with plans to build another of its Ismaili Centers on it — featuring lecture, conference, and recital facilities, a prayer hall and a social hall, and offices and gardens. Is that building ready to go up?
It doesn’t look like it. In the meantime, the construction office was parked on the property for a different project entirely, across the street: The new Rosemont Bridge, meant to connect the north and south sides of Buffalo Bayou Park. When Mayor White first announced the bridge project in late 2008, it had a different name and a different design. Called Tolerance Bridge, it a featured Moebius-strip-like superstructure that was meant to appear impassable from a distance:
Did that more-than-half-off sale on the Piney Point Village bayou-front estate of Doug and Melanie Johnson work any magic? The cozy 8-bedroom, 10 full- and 3 half-bath playhouse recently disappeared from the MLS, but a Swamplot reader suspects something’s up:
I don’t think it sold because I watch it and I never saw it go into sale pending. I think they gave up trying to sell.
The 21,640-sq.-ft. home at 11682 Arrowwood Circle debuted on the market as a $19 million divorce listing back in 2007. According to a Chronicle blog post last year written by Shelby Hodge, that price was set by now-bankrupt broadcast executive Doug Johnson (his company, Johnson Broadcasting, is the “debtor in possession” of local TV station KNWS). After a couple of uneventful years at the top of the listings, the home’s price was eventually cut to $9.5 million — and the commission doubled to 12 percent — after Melanie wrested the right to control the sale herself.
What does it matter that it’s out of the listings? Really, don’t you think a quirky little property like this would do better in a . . . uh, private offering?
And now, a rare look at the Second Ward’s indigenous Ship Channel dance ceremony, performed along the gentle banks of Buffalo Bayou and celebrating the bountiful fall harvest of crushed concrete.
Video: Freneticore
Robert Boyd’s original remarks on the scraping of the Wilshire Village Apartments briefly mentioned another older apartment complex that Matt Dilick redeveloped and now runs: the Bayou on the Bend Apartments, at 5201 Memorial, just west of Shepherd. Boyd’s link to discussions of that complex at ratings website Apartment Ratings sparked a quick note from a reader:
It looks like Apartment Ratings attracts tenants who want to complain, but it seems like most of the gripes about other apartments focus on managers who are hard to deal with, thin walls, neighborhood crime, that sort of stuff. Have you read the reviews of Bayou on the Bend?
Bayou on the Bend gets a 35 percent positive rating from readers who have written in to comment — certainly not the lowest number for a large Houston complex. Here are a few choice excerpts:
Reader Jeromy Murphy sends in this photo he took this morning along the banks of Buffalo Bayou, from the jogging path in Buffalo Bayou Park under I-45. What’s going on over there across the water?
While walking back to my office from a downtown meeting, I noticed workers installing new sod along the Bayou. I wonder how long this will last considering the weather report? Anyone along the ship channel need some new sod? It’s probably headed their way.
What’s wrong with a little sod freshening?
Here’s the latest installment of Swamplot’s fun-pix-from-around-town feature!
Above: While visiting last weekend’s Gulf Coast Green symposium and expo at the Reliant Center, Sean Morrissey Carroll catches the Astrodome peeking in on the action.
A few more images loom:
From Downtown yesterday: Buffalo Bayou garbage flotilla!
The new Belle Sherman Kendall Library in West Houston will have a little something extra inside: a half-court basketball gym. The ceremonial groundbreaking took place Monday on the site near Buffalo Bayou:
Besides housing a library and a community center, the building will be the first three-story building in the Houston system, and the first to have a drive-up window.
The site at 609 N. Eldridge will also serve as a city park and a trailhead to Terry Hershey Park. . . . At Kendall’s drive-up window, users will be able to return books, pick-up books they’ve reserved, and pay fines.
Happy New year! Swamplot is off for the remainder of the week, to rest up for an exciting year full of new features, plus plenty more Houston real estate, design, and neighborhood goodies.
Comments and the Swamplot tip line, of course, remain open. If you’re hunting for the results of the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, browse on over to this page. We’ll see you back here on Monday!
In the meantime, enjoy these excerpts from a recent watery tour of Downtown, shot by Daryl D’Angelo from an inflatable canoe on Buffalo Bayou:
