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April 16, 2008 – 10:08 am
Here’s the kind of project that ought to excite every truly patriotic Houstonian: County Commissioner Steve Radack wants to build a 500-acre lake — for fishing — on the Katy Prairie! How will it get filled? With rain, of course . . . and those regular floods from Cypress Creek! Apparently, they’ll have to excavate five Astrodomes worth of dirt. Where will they put the other four?
Best yet: Radack’s gonna name it after the Pope!
Them Katy birds want their wetlands? We’ll give them wetlands!
Of course, there are some naysayers:
Because the lake will not have a constant source of flowing water, biologists remain worried that there will not be enough oxygen in the lake to support a viable fish population, said [Donna] Anderson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Texas Parks & Wildlife has also questioned whether nitrates and fertilizer from farm runoff might pollute the lake, said Jamie Schubert, coastal biologist with the department.
Yeah, we’ve heard that line before. Isn’t that what they said about the Gulf of Mexico? Hey, maybe we’ll find oil here, too!
Photo of snow geese on Katy Prairie: Houston-Galveston Area Council
Read more about: 77433, 77493, Katy, Lakes, Land Development, Landscape
March 28, 2008 – 10:04 am
Uh-oh. That trailer — behind the pole barn — on a former scrap yard — next to the Houston Biodiesel plant — on Buffalo Bayou — may look innocuous. But it’s the new temporary Houston outpost of Los Angeles’s Center for Land Use Interpretation. The CLUI is taking up a year-long residency at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at UH — but this is where our L.A. visitors will be camping out.
What does the CLUI do? Some sample CLUI projects:
- “On the Farm: Live Stock Footage by Livestock:”
In this exhibit, farm animals show us their point of view through wireless video cameras installed temporarily on their head and necks by virtuoso animal and plant videographer Sam Easterson. Easterson’s technology enables a cow, a pig, a goat, a chicken, a sheep, and a horse to guide us around their world; what they look at, what catches their attention, how they move through space, and how they relate to one another, on the farm.
- “A View Into the Pipe,” an exhibition devoted to Los Angeles’s main sewer line.
- “The Best Dead Mall in America,” a photographic exhibit of the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, “a decaying shopping mall shuttered since 1979.” The exhibit is on display permanently . . . inside the mall itself, and is not open to the public.
You get the idea. CLUI’s front man is artist Matthew Coolidge, whose act often incorporates academic-sounding narrations of landscape slide shows.
Here’s video of part of a Coolidge performance at the Aurora Picture Show late last year:
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Read more about: Art, Buffalo Bayou, Houston Ship Channel, Landscape, UH
This landscape plan from the Boymelgreen website is our first glimpse of the two condo towers the company is planning for 5.5 acres on the southwest corner of the intersection of San Felipe and a short segment of Woodway — just west of Voss, on the Right Bank of Buffalo Bayou. And this morning the Houston Business Journal has more to report:
New York City-based Boymelgreen Developers is developing the project for landowner Azorim, a publicly traded company in Israel of which Boymelgreen owns 64 percent. . . . The unnamed project will consist of two buildings with 28 residential floors each and an 18,000-square-foot fitness center and spa. The project will have a total of 237 condos starting at $1 million each. Units will be an average size of 2,500 square feet.
The architect is Ziegler Cooper. Boymelgreen’s website refers to the project as the San Felipe Condominiums. (And it reports a building that’s 14 condos smaller.)
Jennifer Dawson’s report in the HBJ says that sales won’t start until the fall, after a sales center — which will later “be converted into a spa, restaurant or office building” — is built on the site of the former Dolce & Freddo next door.
Below the fold: That 1960s office-and-shopping center on the site won’t go quietly!
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Read more about: 77063, Condos, Construction Materials, Demolitions, Green Development, Highrises, Houston Architects, Landscape, Luxury Highrises, Memorial, Piney-Point-Village, Proposed Developments, Recycling, Shopping Centers
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Read more about Condos, Construction Materials, Demolitions, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Houston Architects, Landscape, Neighborhoods: Memorial, Proposed Developments, Real Estate Marketing, Shopping Centers
February 20, 2008 – 10:54 am
This 1.35-acre lot at the end of the cul-de-sac on Glencove St. has been on the market for almost 16 months, so you can imagine during that time owner-broker Richard Maier has been trying just about every marketing angle possible. There’s some evidence of it too: The records are a little screwy, but it appears the asking price has been raised three times and lowered four. As of last week, we’re on an upswing! At $2.65 million, it’s back up $51K from its all-time low, but still down from the $3 million of early ’07.
So what do we got?
ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SETTINGS NEAR DOWNTOWN JUST BEFORE MEMROIAL PARK. GORGEOUS VISTAS OF ROLLING HILLS, RAVINES, GARDEN TRAILS, CREEKS AND TURTLE POND! ALL LANDSCAPED WITH THOUSANDS OF EXOTIC PLANTS AND TREES! IRRIGATED BY PRIVATE WELL AND LIGHTED BY NIGHT! THE GROUNDS ARE CONTIGIOUS WITH ACRES OF NATURE PRESERVE & BIRD SANCTUARY!
Clearly, though, Maier’s latest sales tactic has just got to work — now he’s even gonna throw in a genuine Midcentury Modern home with the property. Absolutely free!!!
ALSO INCLUDED IS A CLASSIC MID CENTURY MODERN HOME BY NOTED ARCHICTECT TALBOT WILSON WITH 14 FT.WALLS OF GLASS!
Yeah, it’s a risky strategy: This is Memorial. So better end the listing on a more direct note:
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!
After the jump, exotic plants!!! Plus an actual interior shot of the 5,000-sq.-ft. 1950 home Maier snuck in.
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Read more about: 77007, Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Land Sales, Landscape, Memorial, Modern Design, Price Reductions, Real Estate Marketing, Talbott Wilson
February 6, 2008 – 3:27 pm
Yes, that’s a hedge of dense kudzu wrapping around this long skinny house . . . and threatening to do the same to its Fifth Ward neighbors. The kudzu, a court of crushed oyster shells, a house-length porch, a cistern, Murphy beds, and a butterfly roof are the major features of House 99, one of five finalists in a local competition to design a “green” house for $99,000 or less.
House 99 was designed by L.A. architect and USC professor Gail Borden. The Rice Design Alliance and Houston’s chapter of the American Institute of Architects want to build the winning design of their $99K house competition at 4015 Jewel St., or on other properties swept up by the city’s Land Assemblage Redevelopment Authority.
Below the fold: More drawings! More kudzu! More cost-saving measures! More greenness!
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Read more about: 77026, Fifth Ward, Green Design, Green Development, Hedges, Home Design, Landscape
December 27, 2007 – 11:31 am
The charms of gated acreage near Lake Conroe: large, wooded lakefront homesites, plus only a 25 minute commute . . . to The Woodlands! Oh, and if we’re talking about 1400-acre Crown Oaks in Montgomery County, lots of lawsuits, too!
Last year, the Crown Oaks Property Owners Association, along with individual homeowners, sued Affiliated Crown Development LTD, citing poor structure of the two manmade lakes in the development, located outside Montgomery.
But so much has happened since then: After new board members decided the developer would finally work with them to solve the lakes’ problems, the property owners association dropped its suit this fall. But now two groups of 10 individual homeowners have hired separate legal teams to continue their lawsuit against the developer. And in turn, the developer is now suing the engineering and construction firms it hired to build the dams on both lakes.
But there’s even more lawsuit fun:
“The POA tried to get out of the suit as a plaintiff, so my group has also sued them,” [homeowner attorney Kevin] Forsberg said. “The individuals were not satisfied. … Even though the POA started working with the developer in the hopes that the lakes would be fixed, nothing has actually been done.”
What’s it like to build your home on a lake that doesn’t bother to show up? Thanks to the amazing power of the internets, you can experience all the highs and lows of manmade-lakefront real-estate investing yourself — from the comfort of your own computer! Watch videos and read details of the whole dam story . . . after the jump!
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Read more about: 77316, Crown-Oaks, Environmental, Flooding, Hazards, Homeowners' Associations, Lakefront Property, Lakes, Land Development, Landscape, Lawsuits, Montgomery County, Water Features
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Read more about Environmental, Flooding, Hazards, Homeowners' Associations, Lakes, Land Development, Landscape, Master-Planned Communities, Montgomery County, Neighborhoods: Crown Oaks, Real Estate Marketing
December 18, 2007 – 12:16 pm
Here’s another fine item sure to light up the interior of any sophisticated home, but also certain to warm the hearts of patriotic Houstonians as well. It’s the Firevase, a beautiful ceramic container for flowers or flames from Plodes Studio.
The Firevase is another original decorative piece from the mind of John Paul Plauché, a local designer with a remarkable ability to work images of the Houston landscape into his creations.
Plauché calls the Firevase an “indoor or dense-city version of a firepit.” So much nicer than that mock or simply unused fireplace, no? According to Plauché, the firevase runs on a nontoxic clean-burning alcohol gel-fuel can called Sunjel:
The Firevase attempts to bring everything you enjoy about an outdoor firepit to your tabletop or somewhere where you can’t have a firepit. It’s another thing I enjoyed growing up in a small town just east of Houston. It’s about scale [and] my past experiences of living in dense apartment buildings [where you] simply cannot have such amenities . . .
The vase’s tripod shape is inspired by two kinds of plants: the kind that grow in the ground, and the kind that sprout near Pasadena and on Houston’s scenic eastern reaches:
It can be a seasonal affair if you’d like. Fire in the winter and flowers in the summer. Its shape is inspired by root branching systems, and the stark nature of chemical plant structures that can found off hwy 225.
Refineries, chemical plants, flares, and flowers: at last, interior designers discover Houston’s true local style! Below the fold: more photos of this hot item, plus how you can light up your own home with one for the holidays.
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Read more about: Chemical Plants, Gift Ideas, Home Decor, Landscape, Modern Design, Pasadena, Refineries
December 12, 2007 – 9:58 am
Looking for a holiday gift for that special someone who’s in love with the Houston landscape? Local designer John Paul Plauché of Plodes Studio comes to the rescue with Mon Petit Chandelle, a lovingly handcrafted wax casting of a Houston-area crawfish chimney.
What exactly is a crawfish chimney? It’s the pile of small mudballs that accumulates at the entrance to a crawfish burrow, as the critters excavate their homes from our native muddy soil, the artist explains:
In and around Houston you can find them in wet situations like in ditches, near bayous, and fields or lawns that may not drain as well and/or hold water after a rain. I’m sure you could go to memorial park and find them . . . I used to live in the heights off 26th st. and specifically remember seeing one or two around my mailbox /ditch area….
Plauché says he found the chimney he used for Mon Petit Chandelle in a ditch off Sheldon Rd. between I-10 and Beltway 8. It’s hard to imagine finding a gift with more uh . . . local flavor. Plus, there’s the artist’s statement:
The design was instigated from childhood memories of being more directly in tune with “outside”, the frequency of seeing these little towers and kicking them over . . . it became just a playful memory, and the shape of the mud chimney just seemed to mimic a candle to me in proportion, shape, and texture.
And as the candle burns it returns the associative favor by burning what would resemble the hole through the center of the chimney. Its definitely a local or regional thing. I’m sure a lot of people on other areas of the US wouldn’t have any idea what it is just because the type of crawfish that make these chimneys simply aren’t there.
Below the fold: More crayfish-candle craziness, plus where-to-buy information.
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Read more about: Gift Ideas, Home Decor, Landscape, Modern Design
What do you do when you’ve got one of those pesky neighbors who just won’t take care of her overgrown back yard?
“We’ve had nutria rats — the ones that look like beavers — caught in the trap in my backyard. . . . I have had run-ins with large snakes. My dog has been sprayed by a skunk. … My children are not allowed to walk the property unless I go out there first.
“Anytime you try to entertain with friends, you have to explain why there is a jungle next door creeping through the fence. … It’s just the craziest thing.”
Sounds bad. But here’s a suggestion: Do you have any sway with the neighborhood homeowners’ association? Are you, say, its president? Well, then, why don’t you just have the reluctant gardener next door put in jail until she agrees to take care of the problem?
The Kirkmont Association first sued Ballew and won a permanent injunction against her in 2004, requiring her to mow her entire lawn twice a month and trim her trees and shrubs once a year. Ballew failed to appear in court at that time to respond to the lawsuit, which resulted in a default judgment.
But little has changed since then, Carroll said. Only the front yard has been mowed.
During a follow-up hearing in April 2006, Ballew was found to be in contempt of court for failing to comply with the injunction. She was sentenced to three days in jail, but that sentence was suspended for four months to give her time to do the required yard work, homeowners association attorney Michael Treece said.
She was ordered to return to Davidson’s court for a compliance hearing in August but failed to appear.
Davidson issued an order for Ballew’s arrest last fall. She was taken into custody Friday. The judge told Ballew he sought her arrest “very reluctantly.”
After the jump, the advice mowing scofflaw Linda Ballew took too far: tips for a healthy but shaggy lawn from the Kirkwood South website. Plus, more Kirkwood South yards of the month.
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Read more about: 77089, Back Yards, Gardening, Homeowners' Associations, Kirkwood South, Landscape, Lawn Care
“You are the first line of defense against these deceptively beautiful, but deadly invaders in our midst,” warns the Bellaire Examiner.
Who is this evil interloper? The Chinese Tallow Tree. Don’t get caught harboring one of these nasties on your property.
Yeah, it’s a bad tree. Because it takes over and forces out other plants, right?
Chinese tallow alters light availability for other plant species. Fallen tallow leaves contain toxins that create unfavorable soil conditions for native plant species. Chinese tallow will outcompete native plant species, reducing habitat for wildlife as well as forage areas for livestock.
This alarming description is from a website on invasive species put together by the Houston Advanced Research Center and the TCEQ’s Galveston Bay Estuary Program. But read carefully between the lines and you’ll realize that to the authors, the Chinese Tallow isn’t just an alien invader—it’s proof that Houston needs land-use controls:
Chinese tallow will transform native habitats into monospecific (single species) tallow forests in the absence of land management practices.
Do these folks realize what they’re advocating? Let’s hope they stick to gardening and stay out of urban planning. No telling what they’d do if they got hold of Houston’s development regulations.
Photo: Flickr user ultraviolet_catastrophe
Read more about: Chinese Tallow, Gardening, Invasive Plants, Land Use Restrictions, Landscape, Trees, Zoning
