On the market again: the designed-it-himself 1959 home of Ralph Anderson (who worked on the Astrodome, as well as the retooled brutalist building now occupied by the Houston Chronicle). The home is iced on its Banks St. side in cream-colored patterned concrete and contains an airy courtyard center; the latest asking price is $839,000, down from $875,000 last spring. The property was a stop on houstonMod’s May Mod of the Month tour, which took place yesterday afternoon.
For sale along Buffalo Bayou, just above the junction with still-biohazardous Spring Branch: the Frame-Harper house, designed in the late 1950s by Harwood Taylor. The 3-time houstonMOD Mod of the Month was unwhitewashed by Stern & Bucek in 2007 to the tune of various accolades, but after an initial 2008 listing (at a smidge under $3 million) the home was pulled off and pushed back on the market 2 more times before a late 2011 sale for $1.78 million. The house came back onto the market in August of last year for $3.45 million, holding out until a November withdrawal; the current listing asks for $2.85 million instead.
Above is the family room, with original walnut paneling, and some of the coffered ceilings un-de-coffered by the 2007 redo. Here’s how the rest of the un-remodel is standing the test of time:
Positioned above a fork in Spring Branch Creek just north of I-10, this 1971 mod was designed by former occupant Roland Beach, who passed away last April after living in the home for more than 40 years with his family. Beach, an exporter of construction materials to Barbados, produced much of the 2,630-sq.-ft. home’s extensive wood paneling and detailing in his own shop in the property’s detached 2-car garage.
His 3-bedroom, 3-bath dreamhouse was remodeled in 2008, when Beach added a master suite containing a round sleeping area, a sauna, and a kitchenette with dining space — allowing occupants to get away from it all without actually leaving the home. The house was named one of Houston Mod’s “Mods of the Month” for November; the asking price dropped to $825k from just under $840k at the end of October, after a few weeks on the market.
To see the Mods of the Month this time, you’ll have to head out to Lake Jackson. One of the 3 featured homes has already gone Option Pending, but this one, a few miles off the Nolan Ryan Expressway at 530 Circle Way St., is still available at $179,900. Designed by Houston architect Allen R. Williams, who began his career working with John Staub, the 1954 3-bedroom, 2-bath mod sits on a creek-edged property near the Lake Jackson Intermediate School.
This 1966 Tanglewood mod has changed so much it might as well be a new listing: A redesign from Austin architect Tom Hurt has almost doubled the square footage, adding to the original flat roof some shapely contemporary juts that give the place an entire second story. Showcased by Houston Mod just this past Sunday as a Mod of the Month, the Riverview Dr. redo went on the market this week at $1,895,000.
House or lot? While the listing mentions this home’s architectural pedigree, most of the photos in the description feature the heavily wooded 2.8 acres on an oxbow of Buffalo Bayou in Memorial’s Village of Hunters Creek.
Built in 1967, the home looks very much as originally designed by architect Richard S. Colley a decade earlier. Houston Mod recently spotlighted the distinctive domain, dubbed the Greer House after its original and longtime owners. Beneath its rooftop pyramid, which has a span of about 30 ft., there’s an even larger interior courtyard with ancillary gardens and a 200-year-old fountain from Mexico. The plantings are a bit overgrown these days since the owner moved out 5 years ago. But here’s how things looked when the property was still occupied:
