06/13/17 9:30am


The little swatch of test facade tilted up at 7551 Main St. north of Brays Bayou earlier this spring is still standing, a reader’s drive-by snap attests this week. The piece, which shows off the look of a handful of warmer and cooler beige-and-brown pairings, is likely related to the much taller project planned on the site by Allen Harrison Company, which bought the land last year. The developer has the spot marked for an 11-story residential building (the top 7 of which’ll hold 186 apartments, and the bottom 4 of which’ll hold 285 parked cars). A reader over on HAIF also spotted the recently completed review of the building by the Federal Aviation Administration folks, who okayed the plans for the 125-ft.-tall structure as not a flight hazard.

Photos: Swamplot inbox

Beiges of Brays
07/07/16 10:30am

2330 N. Braeswood Blvd, Old Braeswood, Houston, 77030

2330 N. Braeswood Blvd, Old Braeswood, Houston, 77030

Per historian Steven Fox’s telling, the 1933 home at what’s now 2330 N. Braeswood Blvd. is the work of architect Joseph Finger (a few years after the Lancaster Hotel was built, and a few years before Finger went on to design City Hall). The 4-bedroom house sits on 1.13 acres and was the first one built along Braeswood Ct. (which loops off of N. Braeswood just west of S. Main St.). The exterior railings shown above are copper, and the enthusiastically tropical painted tile mural on the chimney reportedly dates back to the 1930s as well.

The Old Braeswood Property Owners Association traces the house’s Houston-history-heavy ownership record in a 2013 newsletter; the article follows the trail from a mysterious associate of Spindletop oilman T.P. Lee, to friends of future Texas governor Ross Sterling, to the son of Meyerland namesake Frank Meyer and beyond.

Want to add your name to the list? The current asking price is $2.6 million. Look around below:

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09/09/14 3:30pm

2535-glen-haven-05

2535-glen-haven-01

At the newer end of Old Braeswood, where the housing is typically more fifties vintage than stately prewar stock, there’s an updated stoney-faced original home with a smooth-sided seventies addition. The latter blocks the large corner lot’s interior from cross street Kirby Dr., 3 blocks north of Brays Bayou and the Rice School. Some of the added space rocks on, including the family room with its sturdy stone fireplace (top). A contract on the property fell through in May 2014, when the asking price was $1.15 million. After a brief timeout, the home reappeared in July with a fresh price tag that’s still in effect: $1.29 million.

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No Stone Unturned
04/28/14 4:00pm

2215 Glen Haven Blvd., Old Braeswood, Houston

Minus the air conditioning and other newfangled add-ons, an old Old Braeswood property looks every bit the manorial English estate architect Carl Mulvey intended when he designed it back in 1929. The property, located in a section of the neighborhood falling east of Greenbriar Dr., was listed “as is” last week with a $1.15 million asking price. Inside, there’s plenty of time-burnished woodwork.

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Carl Mulvey’s Gables Galore
02/05/14 3:45pm

2345-underwood-01  2345-underwood-02

The half-an-acre lot in Old Braeswood, down Main Street from the Texas Medical Center, means there’s a yard left despite additions and expansions over the years to a 1938 home. Relisted a week ago, the stately property is trying again with another price reduction: $2.399 million. Its initial listing in April 2013 held out hopes for just under $3 million. A couple adjustments by $200K and $300K took it down to $2.499 million before a holiday hiatus.

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Minding Manors
01/17/14 10:45am

Former Stables Restaurant, 7325 S. Main St., Old Braeswood, Houston

7200 S. Main St. at Greenbriar, Old Braeswood, HoustonThere’s a stub end of North Braeswood Blvd. that extends just east of where the Stables Restaurant (pictured above) stood until 2007 at the corner of Greenbriar Dr. and South Main St. It leads to the St. Nicholas School along the northern bank of Brays Bayou, southwest of the Texas Medical Center. A reader alerts Swamplot that a variance sign has gone up on the now-vacant 8.5-acre parcel (at right) that surrounds the school and extends along S. Main up to Pressler St., and which used to house the Stables, the Red Lion restaurant, and the Bermuda Apartments. The variance lists 7200 Main and Springwoods Realty Company as the developers of the site, but doesn’t announce what the development is. Springwoods Realty is best known in Houston as the developers Springwoods Village, the curious 1,800-acre eco-themed development also of possible Aristotle Onassis origin whose announcement preceded that of the adjacent new ExxonMobil campus south of The Woodlands. And 7200 Main shares the New York address of Springwoods Village’s somewhat mysterious developer, Coventry Development Corp. The variance asks for permission not to extend North Braeswood or terminate it in a cul-de-sac, as would normally be required:

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What’s up at Greenbriar and S. Main?
10/09/13 1:00pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: CAN YOU HEAR IT NOW? “On a related note, a number of years ago I lived across the street from a condo complex. For no apparent reason, their dumpster started getting picked up in the middle of the night. After the second or third time this happened, I looked up the company president’s name in the public records; as luck would have it he had a listed phone number. The next time it happened I called and woke him up while the racket was going on. That was the last 3 AM pickup.” [mollusk, commenting on Arriving Late and Departing Early in Old Braeswood] Illustration: Lulu

10/08/13 2:10pm

“At 11:20 pm last night, my husband and I heard the sound of heavy scraping, metal on concrete,” reports a neighbor of the recently sold teardown at 2530 Maroneal in Old Braeswood. “It is an odd sound to hear at that time of night. It was at least 8 hours too early for trash pick-up, and it went on for a long time. After about five minutes of listening to this my curiosity and frustration drove me to get out of bed, robe up, grab my eye glasses and see what I could see. The back of my property was dark but that’s where the noise was coming from. We called the police. By the time we finished giving the police our information, the sound shifted to that of a large truck driving away. I’d guess whatever they were doing back there took about 15 minutes to execute.”

Morning light revealed 2 new neighbors: the Dumpster pictured above and this machine:

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02/07/11 3:20pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE YOU WANT ALL THOSE FLOWERS “Seriously – in the bathroom sink? In the yard? By the pool? It’s like if you crossed Ladies Home Journal with Dr. Seuss (‘Would you, could you on the grass? Would you, could you on desk of glass? What about near the commode? Or three vases, on the road?’)” [LT, commenting on Old Braeswood House of Bouquet]

10/16/08 6:15pm

Neighborhood Guessing Game 28: Dining Room

We have a winner!

But first, your guesses for this week’s contest: River Oaks and Southampton each attracted 3 of you. There were 2 votes each for Tanglewood, Memorial and the Museum District. The rest: Spring Branch, West University, “along Kirby and west,” near the Ashby Highrise, Southgate, Castle Court, Boulevard Oaks, Montrose “between Richmond and Alabama, maybe between Hazard and Dunlavy,” Garden Oaks, Riverside Terrace, the First Ward, Old Braeswood, Bellaire, Rivercrest, Lynn Park, . . . and Heaven.

John (the first one, not the second) knew what to look for, and nailed it:

The built-in bookcases and day-bed thingy look exactly like those in my Ayrshire ranch house, and since this one fairly old and two stories, I’m going with Old Braeswood.

Congratulations!

A very strong honorable mention goes to movocelot, who figured out the house’s age and came extremely close to deducing the precise geometry of its recent expansion:

This house is old enough & well-situated enough to have been remodeled – seriously – twice. I see various windows, elec outlets and cabinetry.

Guess the newish family room pushed out from the kitchen has the newish master bath on top, for a new ridge at a 90 to the main house. (The original roof has the lavender office under it. Circa 1930.)

(Actually, it’s the Kitchen that has the Master Bath on top of it — saves on plumbing costs!)

Commenter karen, who was already familiar with the house, gets a special mention for trying to stir things up . . . with this wonderfully misleading entry:

Oh, this is totally southhampton! 1940’s construction, and beautifully updated. No professor in southgate could afford to do that. and it can’t be river oaks or old braeswood because the lot’s just not big enough. there are neighbors all but peeking in the windows!

Ready for the real tell-all?

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