- 946-948 Pecore St. [HAR]
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Tag: Duplexes
It’s been 20 years since artist Rick Lowe and friends bought up that row of shotgun shacks on the 2500 block of Holman St. and transformed them — and much of the neighboring Third Ward blocks — into a lively community of art installations and performances, duplexes for low- to moderate-income residents, and architectural experimentation. The latest round of installations kicks off this Saturday.
This rendering shows one of 4 charitable duplexes planned to go up in Meyerland that will be set aside for single-mother families. Construction began late last week on property that’s owned St. John’s Presbyterian Church at 5020 W. Bellfort Ave., between Willowbend and S. Post Oak Blvd., just outside the Loop. One of the 8 units will also be home to an on-site caseworker.
Pick a path. Each leads to this duplex-turned-single-family residence in Southmore, but only the left fork heads to its front entry. The 1930 home is on a street of octogenarian 2-unit houses and newer 3-story townhomes just north of Southmore Blvd. in the Museum District’s transforming hinterlands. This newly listed two-for-one is asking $395,000.
Since the reworked interior retains much of the original floor plan and features, the home’s next owner might want to undo the conversion. Or not:
 in Southmore... "Pin It")
Those are some pretty hefty tree branches cutting across the front of the duplex listed for sale at 720 Bomar St. in East Montrose. And they’re from a pretty hefty tree — a giant oak that sits on the next lot over, a 3,500-sq.-ft. plot now known as Peggy Shiffick Park. A “for sale” sign appeared in the duplex’s front yard a few weeks ago, a reader tells Swamplot. “Rumors then started flying that the property had been bought, before it went in to the MLS system, by a builder (it is now pending in MLS) and that the existing grand old home on the property, which had been converted to a duplex and has been empty for years, will be torn down and townhomes built.”
Part of its roof already lopped off and broken free from its brick-fireplace anchor, about half of the 1910 duplex at the corner of W. Drew and Crockett in East Montrose made a break for it last night. A Swamplot reader on the escape route sends in these photos of the scene:
Not all recipients of the 2008 GHPA Good Brick Awards will be able to attend this Friday’s historic-preservation awards banquet at the River Oaks Country Club, but some will have better excuses than others. Ken Rice, who along with Sarah Goodpastor will receive an award for the renovation of a 1930 brick duplex at the corner of Kipling and Dunlavy, won’t be able to make it because he’s currently serving a 27-month sentence in federal prison for securities fraud.
Yes, that’s former Enron Broadband CEO and architecture patron Kenneth Rice, who already helped lessen his sentence by testifying against other Enron executives in two separate trials after his 2003 guilty plea. Rice agreed to forfeit more than $13.7 million worth of cash investments, real estate, cars, and jewelry as part of his plea agreement. His sentence included a $50,000 fine.
Rice, 48, could end up serving less than half of his prison term, though.
His lawyers say he hopes to enter a drug and alcohol treatment program available to nonviolent federal inmates that, if completed, could shave up to a year from his term. In addition, federal inmates can reduce their prison time by 15 percent with good behavior. With those two combined, Rice could get out of prison in 11 months.
After the jump, details and photos of a project Rice is likely hoping will count towards that good-behavior credit.
Renovate or demolish? It’s a false choice, really. Now you can do both!
If ever one listing encapsulated the essential paradox at the heart of the Third Ward’s uh . . . “resurgence,” it’s the one just posted for 2103 Berry St.
Contractors are hard at work completely renovating this Third Ward duplex . . . so that you can buy it and tear it down. Then you can start over and build brand-new townhouses! The brand-new listing features the construction-site photo above and the following description:
GREAT DUPLEX UNDER RENOVATIONS LOCATED MINUTES AWAY FROM DOWNTOWN,MIDTOWN, TOYOTA CENTER AND MINUTE MAID PARK. CORNER LOT SURROUNDED BY NEW CONSTRUCTION. PHENOMENAL OPPORTUNITY FOR A DEVELOPER’S OR INVESTOR’S TO BUILD TOWNHOMES.
Who says you can’t have it all?
After the jump: Can’t we just slather the stucco over the exterior brickwork and call it even?
