Houston, Texas real estate development, home buying, landscape, and design

Carol Isaak Barden, developer of the towering white now-a-lot-less-than- a-million-dollar townhouses near Allen Parkway, explains to Swamplot why she thinks the second unit hasn’t sold yet:

We always expected that it might take longer to sell the homes. They are bachelor pads. They are not for people with children, they are not for residents with bad knees, they are vertical structures for people who don’t mind using the stairs. Since both Francois [de Menil, the architect] and I have lived in Manhattan in buildings without elevators, we didn’t think it would be such a big deal. We were wrong.

Hey, nothing a little retrofitting can’t solve! Barden says a 4-story lift could be put in “easily” — but she hasn’t, because some potential buyers preferred it as the architect designed it, and “didn’t want to give up the extra storage.”

Francois lives in a 4-story townhouse in NYC, my first apt. in NYC was in the Apthorp, an old pre-war building on the upper east side without an elevator. I schlepped luggage and groceries up the stairs, and stayed thin and fit. Francois and I were dead wrong about the elevator issue. Houstonians valet park at restaurants, stores, hospitals, and even some churches. (New Yorkers don’t). And therein lies the problem.

608 Stanford Unit B sold three months after completion, last May. Unit A? Not so lucky:

The second unit has had contracts, unfortunately, none of them have closed. . . . we’re hoping to close on a contract with a buyer who happens to be an architect. It seems that the people who most appreciate these homes can’t afford them. (Architects, engineers, designers)

After the jump: what a bargain! Plus, a bit of news . . .

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Remember those sleek modern million-dollar white-stucco townhouses designed by New York architect Francois de Menil for a small lot over in Temple Terrace, just behind Allen Parkway?

It was unusual to include the One-Two Townhomes being on the AIA Houston 2006 Home Tour in that they were, and are, unfinished. “My concern was that they would soon be sold,” says [developer Carol Isaak] Barden, “and then nobody would get to see them.”

She shouldn’t have worried. One of the units apparently sold a little less than a year later, and the other is still on the market — though it’s not a million-dollar townhome anymore. After construction finally ended last July, there were five successive price reductions. Since the end of last month this 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 2,845-sq-ft. townhome has been available for a humbling $779,000. If you count the garage level below and the rooftop deck as a single story, that’s almost as good as getting one whole floor . . . free!

After the jump, a brief gawk inside.

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