Swamplot Archives by Tag: Memorial Villages

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Looking for the Metal Studs in Houston

April 10, 2013 – 4:35 pm
   

“I got nothing against wood,” writes a reader who says he worked in his uncle’s construction business for 12 summers while he was in school. “I really like the smell of fresh cut wood.” Still, he’s hoping Swamplot readers will be able to refer him to both architects and residential builders who are familiar with metal-frame construction — to help him build a new home for himself in the Memorial Villages area. He says he’s convinced metal-frame construction will last longer in Houston because of its inhospitality to termite dining and perhaps a lower risk of going up in flames. [Swamplot inbox] Photo: Super Stud

4:35 pm | 26 Comments | Read more about Construction Materials, Quicklink
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Monday, February 4, 2013

There’s No Crying in Real Estate: Jeff Bagwell Selling His Memorial Villages Mansion

February 4, 2013 – 4:30 pm

Don’t ever say sluggers don’t need their creature comforts: This 16,000-sq.-ft., 5-bedroom, 9-bathroom mansion at 405 Timberwilde was home to former Houston Astro and 1994 NL MVP Jeff Bagwell, who retired with 449 homers after 15 seasons. Oh, and his mansion? It’s for sale for $15 million.

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4:30 pm | 13 Comments | Read more about Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages
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Thursday, November 8, 2012

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: The Upshot

November 8, 2012 – 12:12 pm

12:12 pm | Add a Comment | Read more about Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhoods: Huntleigh, New Construction
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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

A Spring Valley Spread Ready for Your RV

July 3, 2012 – 2:52 pm

Beneath all the pine trees of this Spring Oaks property there’s a redwood-sided garage big enough for a RV, or so says the listing. Although the single-story 1955 home has been updated a few times, most of the remodeling appears to be a decade — or two — old. Still, the $790,000 metal-roofed home comes with nearly a half-acre of land, a pool, some patios, plus that extra-large, multi-purpose car barn.

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2:52 pm | 12 Comments | Read more about Homes for Sale, Interiors, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Neighborhoods: Spring Oaks
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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Neighborhood Guessing Game Over: It Took a Village

September 11, 2008 – 9:36 pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game 24: Bathroom

Yeah, we know what’s been on your mind this afternoon and evening: Just where is that house from this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game?

You guessed: Friendswood, Meyerland, and Old Braeswood. We had 2 for Tealwood, 2 votes for Memorial close to Voss, 2 for the Memorial Villages closer to Beltway 8 than Voss, 2 for River Oaks, 2 for Hunter’s Creek Village, and 3 for Tanglewood. Also: Gessner and Memorial, south of Memorial between Beltway 8 and Kirkwood, Bunker Hill, close-in Memorial, the Westcott area between Memorial and Washington, Memorial between Chimney Rock and Blalock, one of the Memorial Villages, Piney Point Village, and Indian Creek.

That’s a lot of Memorial! Thank you, Jeff, for simply framing the question:

This HAS to be Memorial Villages. But which one?

The win goes to K, who knows her Villages . . . and maybe a little somethin’ about Houston in the seventies:

Definitely Memorial Villages. You can tell by the heavily wooded lot and the size of the home for the year it was built (1970s). This was someone’s swank, possibly key-party-ish pad back in the booming 70s when all the richies were building their huge new homes in the Villages. I say Piney Point. It’s too modern for Bunker Hill, and has too many trees for Hilshire Village or Spring Valley, but this looks exactly like something you’d run across in Piney Point.

Three more of you who got the geography right — but missed the neighborhood name — get honorable mentions: sarahc, tcpIV, and Joni Webb.

Special honors go to David W, for leading off the guessing confidently in exactly the wrong direction:

Go 70’s – love all the angles. This house looks like it was expensively built but hasn’t been updated to much except maybe the glass block in the master bath – vintage Sub-Zero, big rooms, and nice courtyard out back. Clearly mature vegetation outside – I’m thinking Friendswood.

Yes, David W knew this house — and wrote to us about it. Did he throw you off?

After the jump: the big reveal!

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9:36 pm | 1 Comment | Read more about Interiors, Neighborhood Guessing Game, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Neighborhoods: Piney Point Village
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Friday, August 15, 2008

Weekend Open House Tour: Hunters Creek Village

August 15, 2008 – 11:51 pm

This weekend: Hunters Creek Village, up and down Voss. Big lots! Big prices! And the new construction is bigger too! Here’s a tour of what you’ll find open if you visit this Sunday:

7623 River Point Dr., Riverbend, Hunters Creek Village

Location: 7623 River Point Dr.
Details: 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; 2,035 sq. ft.
Price: $999,000
The Scoop: Multi-bay Midcentury Modern classic in Riverbend, designed in 1955 by Preston Bolton and Howard Barnstone, altered in the late ’90s. Courtyard entry, vaulted ceilings. Extensive enclosed back porch overlooks Buffalo Bayou. Houston Mod’s “Mod of the Month” (along with the Tanglewood home on Huckleberry Ln. by Arne Engberg described here). On the market for 3 weeks.
Open House: Sunday, 2-5 pm

Wanna see more?

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11:51 pm | 2 Comments | Read more about Homes for Sale, Neighborhoods: Hunters Creek Village, Neighborhoods: Inwood Oaks, Neighborhoods: Memorial Timbers, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Neighborhoods: Riverbend, Neighborhoods: Tara Oaks, Open Houses
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

A Brief Tour of Slightly Odd Spaces in Spring Valley

March 12, 2008 – 3:41 pm

House with Stockade Fence, Campbell Place, Spring Valley, Houston

Robert Boyd ends his series of bicycle tours through the Memorial Villages with a ride through the west end of Spring Valley, and concludes:

Perhaps this is a good way to characterize the Memorial Villages. They will tolerate eccentricity, but only a very small amount of it.

These are wealthy folks, and I bet many of them consider themselves to be individualists. Let your freak flags fly! You live in the Villages–you’ve made it. So do something wild and unique with your house and yard that proclaims your uniqueness.

After the jump, a few more photo gems from Boyd’s Spring Valley travelogue.

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3:41 pm | Add a Comment | Read more about Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Neighborhoods: Spring Valley
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Spring Valley on Two Wheels

January 29, 2008 – 4:00 pm

House on Cedarspur Dr. in Spring Valley, Houston

Robert Boyd rides north of I-10 and snoops around more Spring Valley homes in his latest bike tour. Highlights: The Voss mess, a cool carport, and the recent retail-Modern pad pictured above.

Photo of house on Cedarspur Dr.: Robert W. Boyd

4:00 pm | Read more about Home Design, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Neighborhoods: Spring Valley, Streets
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Friday, January 18, 2008

Memorial North: Hilshire Village and Spring Valley Bike Tour

January 18, 2008 – 9:05 am

House on Winningham Ln., Spring Valley, Houston

What makes Hilshire Village and Spring Valley different from the rest of the Memorial Villages?

Both these Villages are north of I-10, which for Memorialites is sort of the wrong side of the tracks. Indeed, if you look at the household income of 77055 in the year 2000, the zip code that encompasses Hilshire Village and Spring Valley, it is $36.7 thousand. The average household income in 77024, which consists mainly of the southern Villages, is $82.6 thousand. The two northern Villages, however, are probably far closer to the Southern Villages in terms of wealth. It’s simply that as you go north and east from Spring Valley and Hilshire Village, you enter more working class neighborhoods, with lots of Hispanic and Korean immigrants. They may not be rich, but they are strivers, and the area North of I-10 on the Westside is, I think, getting wealthier and more middle class.

Robert Boyd returns from his latest bicycle tour — through Memorial’s northern outposts — with photos of his finds: wobbly Metro bike racks, shed-roof seventies Modern Memorial classics, ivy art, creekside barbecue, Tae Kwon Do parking-lot attendants, low-calorie McMansions, plus a couple of misplaced Victorians and a faux Adobe.

Photo of house on Winningham Ln.: Robert W. Boyd

9:05 am | Read more about Home Design, Neighborhoods: Hilshire Village, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Neighborhoods: Spring Valley, Streets
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Monday, January 7, 2008

Sculptures and Vultures: East Hunters Creek Village Bike Tour

January 7, 2008 – 8:51 am

Shasta Dr. Near Buffalo Bayou

Biz-school student, blogger, and former comic-book publisher Robert W. Boyd takes web visitors on a bicyclist’s-eye-view tour through the rolling meadows of east Hunters Creek Village, reporting on real-estate values and encounters with wildlife — and peppering his travelogue with advice to neighborhood homeowners on naked sunbathing and monumental sculpture.

. . . the instant you leave Hunter’s Creek going east, there are apartments. I suspect Hunter’s Creek is zoned to exclude them, but they are bunched right along the boundary of the Village (despite the fact that the area along Memorial between Hunter’s Creek and the Loop is some of the richest real estate in the city–I guess it still makes sense to have apartments there).

Photo of home on Shasta Dr. near Buffalo Bayou: Robert W. Boyd

8:51 am | Read more about Neighborhoods: Hunters Creek Village, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages
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Friday, December 28, 2007

Sterling Senior Condo Sales Staff Retires

December 28, 2007 – 10:19 am

Sales Sign for Sterling at Memorial VillagesRemember that fancy 27-story condo tower planned for Voss between San Felipe and Woodway? The one that was “for seniors only” and featured three floors of assisted living? Where you could buy a spacious 950-square-foot unit for just a tad under $500K?

Well, neither did we.

But if you were too busy pursuing an active lifestyle to notice that the sales center had shut down and the website disappeared, today’s Houston Business Journal makes the official announcement: The Sterling at Memorial Villages is dead, for lack of interest.

The project site holds a shuttered retail facility where a Chipotle formerly operated. The western-most part of the site, which is not owned by [Sterling developer] Sunrise Senior Living, is being marketed for sale by McDade Smith Gould Johnston Mason + Co. The eastern portion of the property — where the condo was to be built — is now being marketed by Wheless Properties.

The public company will see what offers it gets for the land, but [Sunrise Senior Living rep Jamison] Gosselin says it also is considering developing a rental property at the site.

Not mentioned in the article: Links to The Sterling of The Woodlands on the company website no longer work either.

Photo: HAIF user BuilderGeek

10:19 am | Read more about Condos, Highrises, Neighborhoods: Memorial Villages, Proposed Developments, Senior Living
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