More imports for West Ave! A tidbit from the Chronicle:
Rome, a resort-style day spa and salon, plans to open at West Ave. in the summer of 2009. Conceived by Las Vegas-based spa operators, Resources & Development, the spa will encompass more than 10,000 square feet in the mixed-use development at Kirby and Westheimer.
West Ave rendering: Urban Partners
Read more about: 77098, New Construction, Retail, River Oaks, Theming, Upper Kirby
The location: the Kroger on West Gray, next to the River Oaks Shopping Center. The time: yesterday afternoon. The song: Eric Prydz’s “Call on Me.” The performers: SexyATTACK, along with a cast of butter- and egg-loving walk-ons.
You’d think this sort of grocery celebration would have gone over better at the Disco Kroger on Montrose, but that effort got shut down. No problems outside the Menil, though.
Read more about: 77019, Grocery Stores, Montrose, Performances, Public Art, River Oaks, Street Theater
Houston restaurant reporter Cleverley Stone has names and details of four new restaurants and a bar slated to open at West Ave, the multistory mixed-use development now under construction on the corner of Westheimer and Kirby. All are culinary imports from Dallas, San Antonio, or California, though one has already moved nearby:
With the ambience of a European café, indoor and alfresco options will be available with dining areas separated by a wall of French doors. The décor will incorporate custom built wine racks and handpainted fresco wine labels on canvas. The menu will offer a contemporary collection of French-Continental, Asian Fusion and Wine Country
Though a number of the 390 luxury apartments upstairs are scheduled to become available this August, the restaurants and stores below them in West Ave’s first phase won’t open until August 2009.
After the jump, two more newish images of West Ave from the architect’s website.
Read more about: 77098, Apartments, Bars, Mixed Use, New Construction, Restaurants, Retail, River Oaks, Upper Kirby
This time, the folks selling the home at 3740 Willowick in River Oaks are really going all out.
Maybe last November they hoped that the release of Stephen Fox’s The Country Houses of John F. Staub would unleash a new era of interest in the Houston architect — and result in a recordbreaking price for the 1955 Staub-designed ranch-like mansion backing up to Buffalo Bayou, across from Memorial Park.
The book did fine, but Staubmania never really took off. Now, almost five months later, the sellers can’t harbor any illusions.
This time, the John Staub marketing machine kicks into full gear:
Read more about: 77019, Books, Broadacres, Buffalo Bayou, Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, John Staub, Lectures, Memorial-Park, Ranch-Houses, Real Estate Marketing, River Oaks, Shadyside, Tours
This massive 20,000-sq.-ft. home featured on New York Architect Alexander Gorlin’s website is under construction at 2950 Lazy Lane in River Oaks. The Museum of Fine Arts’ Bayou Bend Collection is next door.
Gorlin’s client is the youngest member of the Forbes 400 list of the Richest Americans (he’s number 317): 34-year-old former Enron trader John Arnold, who now runs secretive Centaurus Energy, a small but extraordinarily successful hedge fund company that trades energy commodities.
Four years ago, Arnold bought a recently renovated 1926 home in the French Norman manorial style in the Homewoods subdivision of River Oaks. The home, which had sat on the market for close to three years, had been designed by Houston architect Birdsall Briscoe in collaboration with John Staub, who was building the Bayou Bend estate for the children of former Texas governor James Hogg next door. Briscoe’s creation was dubbed “Dogwoods” by Hogg’s son Michael, who lived there for many years with his wife.
A year after purchasing Dogwoods — valued by HCAD at $4.9 million — Arnold angered River Oaks preservationists by tearing it down.
After the jump, more illustrations of the house John Arnold will be trading into, plus a few photos of the one he didn’t leave behind.
Read more about: 77019, Demolitions, Historic Preservation, Home Design, Homewoods, Houston Architects, John Staub, Land Sales, Modern Design, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction: Residential, River Oaks
Houston interior designer Joni Webb takes time out from her usual focus on French design to tell the story of a home in Avalon Place that was done up first in an English country style (top photo), and then — some years later — completely redone by the same owners to something more . . . 18th century Swedish (second from top).
The English incarnation, which was captured in a Country Living magazine feature in the 1990s, had taken years to perfect, Webb reports:
. . . the finished project was perfect: a cozy English, country-style home, filled with authentic antiques, Italian oil paintings, wall to wall seagrass, faux painted yellow and red walls, toile wallpapers, Bennison fabrics and Kenneth Turner candles. It was an open, fun house - the site of many parties where people gathered around a roaring fire and lounged in the deep George Smith sofa, all the while remarking on how warm and inviting the home was.
So, it was a great surprise to many, including [Houston interior designer Carol] Glasser herself, when the wife declared she had changed. She no longer loved her home’s decor, she wanted a new look - a Swedish look - and not just a Swedish antique here and there, but a total, complete Swedish home. And so, for the second time, everything in the house was either sold or was stored and they started the process of decorating their home, completely from scratch, again.
Who best to complete this European migration? Carol Glasser, the same designer who had created the house’s first look. (This time, she enlisted help from Swedish Style expert Katrin Cargill.) After the jump, more before-and-after photos, plus nitty-gritty details of international style-travel.
Read more about: 77019, Avalon Place, Furniture, Home Decor, Interior-Design, Interiors, Renovations, River Oaks, Theming
With new bold, rich watercolor renderings now posted to its website, OliverMcMillan shows its mixed-use proposal for Westheimer is serious. The River Oaks District won’t be in River Oaks exactly, but it would mark a serious upgrade for this portion of Westheimer just inside the Loop, on a portion of the site of the Westcreek Apartments.
What’s planned here: 300,000 square feet of retail space, 300 fancy apartments, 250,000 square feet of office space, plus two hotels — rumored to be a W and a Le Meridien. The W Hotel will house 150 condos on its top floors.
After the jump: those shiny watercolors, plus plans and an aerial view!
Read more about: 77027, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Highrises, Hotels, Mixed Use, New Construction, Office Space, Proposed Developments, Retail, River Oaks, Shopping Centers, Westheimer
A reader writes in to report that a house discussed recently on Swamplot had also been featured in Architectural Digest last October. And so it had! But really, they called it “Trapezoidal Transcendence”?? Whatever. Swamplot had the guts to call it what it really was: A River Oaks teardown.
Oh, well — there’s no accounting for taste. Unless, of course, you consider demolition a form of judgment:
By the way, that amazing modern house in the Tall Timbers section of River Oaks is definitely toast.
In this case, apparently, the decision of that judge was final.
Read more about: 77019, Buying and Selling, Demolitions, Home Design, Land Sales, Modern Design, River Oaks
How’s that River Oaks “you loved the book, now try the home” marketing tie-in going?
Well, Stephen Fox’s volume on The Country Houses of John F. Staub is currently ranked #10,535 on Amazon.com, which probably isn’t so bad for a book about a dead architect. It is heavily discounted, but it’s collected several favorable reviews online.
The reviews aren’t looking quite as good for the Staub ranch-mansion at 3740 Willowick: The asking price was dropped earlier this month from $7,495,000 to $6,950,000. For a 2.3-acre River Oaks lot with Buffalo Bayou frontage, that’s a healthy step closer to . . . yes, land value. And looky at all the excitement just down the street!
Read more about: 77019, Books, Buffalo Bayou, Buying and Selling, Homes for Sale, John Staub, Land Prices, Ranch-Houses, Real Estate Marketing, River Oaks
Here’s the problem with these sleek houses on full-acre lots in River Oaks: They’re selling for too damn cheap! The gorgeous land at the southern boundary of Memorial Park fronting Buffalo Bayou at 3840 Willowick — hogged by this eighties-modern home designed by New York architects Stonehill and Taylor — got swept up for between $45 and $57 a square foot at the end of August.
At that price, wouldn’t your head be spinning with the themed-towering-mansion possibilities? Bring on the demo and stucco crews!
Well, the stucco and foam cornice pieces will probably take a while, but the big machines with the giant claws are on their way, according to this morning’s demolition report.
Photos, plans, and details of the house-that-got-in-the-way — including some fine examples of how to distract from a River Oaks land sale — after the jump:
Read more about: 77019, Buffalo Bayou, Buying and Selling, Demolitions, Development Strategy, Home Design, Land Prices, Land Sales, Memorial-Park, Modern Design, River Oaks
A 1955 River Oaks “country house” designed by John Staub appears on MLS just days before architectural historian Stephen Fox’s book on the Houston architect appears in bookstores. Mere coincidence? Or brilliant upper-end home-marketing technique?
There’s a slight price difference between the two: The Country Houses of John F. Staub lists for $75, though Amazon.com whacks 37 percent off of that. No telling if the sellers will accept a similar discount off the $7.495 million asking price of 3740 Willowick.
The house overlooks Buffalo Bayou and features four fireplaces, three bedrooms, and six full and one half baths — all in a single story. Yes, it looks like some ranch-house flavor got mixed in here. There’s a garden loggia and lots of trees, plus a three-car attached garage. It’s a 5,532-square-foot home on a quarter-acre lot.
The book is 408 pages long and comes in hardcover. It features photographs by Richard Cheek, and will take up just three-quarters of a square foot on your coffee table.
After the jump: the not-so-ranchy interiors.
Of the house.
Read more about: 77019, Books, Buffalo Bayou, Buying and Selling, Home Design, Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Interiors, John Staub, Ranch-Houses, Real Estate Marketing, River Oaks
A permit was issued late last week. And so sitework begins for the 119-unit, 168,398-square-foot Belle Meade at River Oaks, on Westheimer between Ferndale and Sackett, developed by Grayco Partners:
The project is a 6-story epicore (light steel) construction on top of a 2-story podium garage. The boutique building will resemble the look of turn of the century, old New York hotels in brick with cast stone details, while spacious interiors will include such amenities as hardwood floors, 10-foot ceilings, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and individual wine chillers. Community amenities will include conditioned interior corridors, heated pool, fitness facility, business center and a resident recreation room.
Grayco is also developing Museum Place, at Fannin and Oakdale in Midtown—a “contemporary design” also on a two-story podium. And Braeswood Place, on North Braeswood just east of Stella Link: the more usual four-story stick apartments hugging a parking garage, but it’ll also include 21 townhouses. It’s meant to look like Rice. All three properties will be managed by Camden Property Trust.
Read more about: 77004, 77025, Apartments, Midtown, Museum-District, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Parking, River Oaks, Texas Medical Center, Townhomes
Note: Story updated below.
A house in Houston can’t earn much more of a modern Texas pedigree than this: Designed in 1970 for Oveta Culp Hobby by quintessential Texas architect O’Neil Ford. Built by Brown & Root. Later, the home—until his death earlier this summer—of former Texas secretary of state, attorney general, chief justice, and 1978 Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hill.
It’s just been listed with Greenwood-King agent Colleen Sherlock: three stories, five to seven bedrooms, five full and two half-baths, 8275 square feet on a quarter-acre lot in River Oaks. Asking only $2,395,000.
From O’Neil Ford, you’d expect a classic Texas modern design: clean brick lines with a sense of history, an easy flow between indoors and out. Until you get inside, where—it appears—an early-1960s interpretation of a New England colonial interior has somehow been grafted in.
Sound like a jarring contrast? Continue after the jump, and see for yourself.
Read more about: 77019, Architects, Homes for Sale, Houston History, Interiors, Modern Design, ONeil-Ford, River Oaks
The Houston Business Journal gives more details on the River Oaks District, a 15-acre, $600 million mixed-use development proposed for Westheimer just inside the loop, on the site of the Westcreek Apartments, between Highland Village and the Galleria. It’s hard to imagine River Oaks moving further west than that. Once you get to the other side of the loop of course, you might as well call yourself Tanglewood.
Two luxury hotels are on tap. The five-star properties will have a total of 500 guest rooms, and 150 condominiums for sale at the top of one tower.
Another building will hold 300 upscale apartment units. A 10-story office building with 250,000 square feet of space also is part of the mix. And since the Galleria is synonymous with shopping, the developer plans 350,000 square feet of mostly ground-level retail space.
San Diego developer OliverMcMillan says groundbreaking is scheduled for a good year-and-a-half from now. So there’s plenty of time for this project to morph into a more typical Houston-style mixed-use project: maybe a stylish Sam’s Club next to some shiny new apartments?
After the jump, plans and more flashy drawings!
Read more about: 77027, Apartments, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Galleria, Highland Village, Highrises, Hotels, Mixed Use, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Office Buildings, Proposed Developments, Retail, River Oaks, Shopping Centers, Westheimer
One of the biggest office landlords in Texas has announced that he wants to build a very tall tower in either Chicago, Los Angeles, or Houston. Zaya Younan, who’s been in the real-estate business for five years, wants to show the world how tall a building he can erect. How tall is that?
. . . he doesn’t want a building that will barely rate a mention in the history books, a delicate titleholder surpassed in some Asian capital before its paint dries. “I want it to be the tallest for as long as I am alive,” Younan told the Sun-Times. . . .
The chairman of Younan Properties Inc. said that to build something with a lengthy hold on the record, he’ll need about 500 feet of cushion between his building’s height and any probable competitors.
By today’s standards, that means going up about 3,000 feet. It’s Sears Tower times two. It could cost $4 billion.
The Chicago Sun-Times article declares that the wealthy and powerful L.A. developer “is not crazy.” Younan Properties owns and manages the Norfolk “Tower” (it looks maybe ten stories tall; see the photo above) at Greenbriar and 59 in Houston. The company is the top office landlord in Dallas and the third-largest owner of Class A office space in Texas.
Houston airspace height restrictions blah blah blah downtown blocks too small a base blah blah blah free publicity in three cities blah blah blah.
Read more about: 77019, Development Strategy, Highrises, Mixed Use, Proposed Developments, River Oaks, Skyscrapers
A three-bedroom, two-bath, 2700-square-foot house on a cul-de-sac. A half-acre, wooded, park-like lot. Overlooking the bayou. Designed by Houston’s own Frank-Lloyd-Wrightian architects, MacKie & Kamrath, and built in 1969. Lots of built-ins and stained glass.
At $259,000, is it a bargain?
It’s in Meadow Creek Village. Meadowcreek has some nice mid-century moderns. But yes, it’s on the southeast side of Houston, and it’s not too far from Hobby Airport or Pasadena. That bayou is Berry Creek, a tributary of Sims Bayou.
So some of you are probably imagining how nice this house would be if it were only in a different part of town.
How nice would it be? Read on for an estimate—and more photos.
Read more about: 77017, Architects, Homes for Sale, MacKie and Kamrath, Meadowcreek, Memorial, River Oaks, Southampton
