A builder working on these bungalows at 4204 and 4208 Crawford St. says the owner is freshening them up into rental properties. The Museum Park pair sat side by side on the market for about a year until they were purchased back in April, county records show. Dating to 1929, the roughly 1,100-sq.-ft. houses each have 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. They sit 2 blocks north of Wheeler at Crawford and Eagle St., near where the Southwest Fwy. vaults over Midtown.
Photos: Allyn West
A reader wants in on the scoop with this swath of fenced-in property, bound by Ewing, Jackson, and Hermann Drive in Museum Park: “There has been a lot of surveying and staking of the empty lot . . . between The Parklane highrise and The Plaza Museum District condos. Off-and-on for a month, Bury Partners personnel have been surveying both the perimeter and interior of the property as well as inspecting the sewer access on Hermann Drive. Any thoughts on what this means?”
Photo: Allyn West
This little lot on Almeda Rd. is being cleared for a 2-story office building. Between Blodgett and Wentworth and smushed between the Spanish Village Restaurant and a 2-story brick home, the lot at 4716 Almeda is just a bit more than a tenth of an acre. A replat application submitted to the city indicates that the proposed 3,000-sq.-ft. building is meant to be the new standalone headquarters of Mayberry Homes, which will be relocating from a retail center just down the street at 4412 Almeda.
More urban dominion: The unwanted vegetation has been ripped out and the foundations poured for the 8-pack of townhouses going by Rosewood Estates, developed by McCollum City Homes and Urban Living. These are just south of Wheeler and west of Almeda in Museum Park on a lot cornered by Rosewood and Jackson. And they appear to stick with that if-it-ain’t-broke 3-bedroom, 4-story design that might by now seem pretty darn familiar. Prices here, anyway, range from $489,000 for a 2,224-sq.-ft. one that faces Rosewood St. to $499,000 for the 2,286-sq.-ft. one that overlooks the shared drivepath and Jackson St.
Inside this mongrelized building on Blodgett St., Museum Park residents Matt Scheiner and Lisa Qualls have opened a friendly neighborhood art gallery they’ve named Gallery Jatad. Their suite at 1517 Blodgett — it’s the one with the unpapered windows — used to house a record and T-shirt shop; it shares the strip center with a nail salon, washateria, and food mart. County records indicate that the center, spanning La Branch and Crawford, dates to the 1940s, though it appears to have been bejeweled with those decorative diamonds and a stucco mask in the ’70s, says Scheiner. Inside, the suite has been renovated to feature museum-issue walls and lighting and the old building’s original slab.
The gallerists’ friend Victor Rojas says he will be opening a showroom right next door at 1515 Blodgett for his own furniture and metalwork; and they say they have another friend considering opening a coffee shop in the endcap.
Photo: Allyn West
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GLASS IS HALF FULL — AND BRIGHT RED “I haven’t had any kool aid but it’s hot enough to have some. Rather than be negative, my point was at least it’s Hines. Look at our skyline and all the great buildings are Hines. There are only a handful of developers that build high quality buildings in Houston, rather than the junk most of them do before they go out of business or scoot back to Las Vegas. Rather than be bitter and wish for a bubble, try being positive. It does the soul good. And lastly, if you don’t like what’s being built, why don’t you get all your money together and show us how you could do better! What do you think was in the spot where you currently live or work? Either a virgin lot, or something that was refurbished, or torn down.” [Loves swamplot, commenting Hines Buying Up Museum District Property To Build Highrise Apartments]
A few sources are telling Swamplot that Hines is planning to build either a 20- or 22-story apartment tower on the entire city block where this house stands in the Museum District. The house is at the corner of Caroline and Southmore, directly across from Yoshio Taniguchi’s Asia Society Texas Center and that recently cleared residential lot immediately behind it. The block is bound by Caroline, Southmore, Oakdale, and the light rail line along San Jacinto. One of the sources says that 3 of the 4 property owners on the block have agreed to sell, and that Hines will be taking those properties over on July 1. Another source speculates that Hines might go ahead and build around the holdout. As of this morning, there’s been no word from Hines — though a rep in an email writes: “No deal has been closed so it is too preliminary to discuss,” which sure makes it sound as though there is an “it.”
Photo: Swamplot inbox
“There’s a lot that’s recently been cleared immediately behind the Asia Society,” reports a reader. You know the one, at the corner of Oakdale and Caroline St.? The one whose owners refused to sell, forcing Asia Society architect Yoshio Taniguchi to design around it? Where there was that 1930s vine-covered home being used as a doctor’s office that was supposed to be sold and renovated into a restaurant, but never was?
Well, in February, 5219 Caroline appeared in the Daily Demolition Report. And this photo taken from the median shows what the site looks like now. The reader continues:
All of the neighbors have questioned who owns the property and what is to happen to it. According to HCAD it appeared to be owned by Balcor, the company behind the rather unpopular Parc Binz. . . . We’re wondering if the Asia Society is trying to buy the land . . . [T]he neighbors who live in the town homes across from Asia Society have complained that the social events held on site tend to be quite loud, quite late. Overall, the neighborhood couldn’t be happier to have this organization in its bounds. And, if they were to own that land, if only they’d open a little gourmet coffee shop. That would please hundreds of people. . . . I’ve heard from Asia Society . . . that they’re trying to purchase the land. I think there is something more going on there — but no one is talking at this point.
Photo: Allyn West
Walking by the vacant site on the corner of Binz and Chenevert on the way to Hermann Park, reader David Hollas notes that the large sign advertising a 75,000-sq.-ft. medical-offices-and-retail development planned for the site has been taken down. Meanwhile, the surrounding neighborhood has been peppered with Ashby-Highrise-style signs protesting Balcor Commercial’s planned 6-story Parc Binz building and parking garage at 1800 Binz St— and “hi-rise buildings” in general. Opposition to the development got some media attention last year, but Hollas has seen sign changes on the property before: “About 2 years ago, the signs offered the sale of townhomes that were to be built imminently, but never materialized. After a period of inactivity and weed growth, the city came and decked out the site with code violation placards. Eventually the site was mowed and trash removed, and the city signs and townhome signs disappeared.”
When he died last year, did Melvin Lane Powers really have a photo of his aunt and former lover, Candace Mossler, enshrined on his living room mantel? Or is this foreclosure listing photo just some agent’s idea of a real-estate insider’s awkward joke? A tipster who’s sure the 3-bedroom, 5-and-a-half-bathroom property near the corner of Caroline St. and Wentworth was the real-estate developer and true-crime celebrity’s home for the last several years (both he and his estate are listed as former owners on the property’s county tax records) believes the fireplace pic — possibly the only home-decor item left in the house — is a portrait of Mossler, who died of a prescription-drug overdose in 1976.
