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January 14, 2008 – 8:50 am
Intrepid bicycle blogger Robert Boyd ventures into two more tony westside residential neighborhoods: Farnham Park and Charnwood — only to be hassled by security guards:
Now apparently some residents were alarmed to see me riding in their neighborhood taking photos. So the guards gave me a lot of shit when I left, and they strongly implied that this was private property and that I was not allowed to take photos. It was a humiliating dress-down, which I would have gladly avoided. I was afraid they’d try to hold me or call the cops, but they took my personal information (which if I had any guts, I would have denied them*) and let me go.
No pics of the security gates guarding a public street in his report, but plenty of languorous estates nestled behind twiggy foliage. A sympathetic commenter offers Boyd these words of encouragement:
I understand that these people are wealthy and value their privacy, but if you don’t want people taking pictures, don’t build such a great house.
A great number of Houstonians in other neighborhoods are already taking this advice.
After the jump: Boyd provides photographic evidence that Briarbend Park has Buffalo Bayou’s best front-row seats.
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Read more about: 77024, Briarbend Park, Charnwood, Farnham Park, Gated Neighborhoods, Streets
January 7, 2008 – 8:51 am
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
Read more about: 77024, Hunters Creek Village, Memorial Villages, Streets, Tours
January 2, 2008 – 8:41 am
Nancy Sarnoff’s short interview with the woman responsible for naming new streets in The Woodlands is just too rich:
We use a lot of words that are just appealing, pretty images, like Peaceful Canyon. That neighborhood sold really well and I think it’s because of the name. We even did radio commercials that played off the name and it really helped market the area. Others are Racing Cloud, Amber Glow and Destiny Cove. We even have ones from Star Wars. That day I was really desperate. Nothing was popping into my head. We have lots of nautical names around Lake Woodlands like Outrigger’s Run.
Woodlands Operating Co. marketing director Susan Vreeland-Wendt confirms every cliché about the origins of subdivision street names, from the historical revisionism (“One of our presidents is Alex Sutton, and we have a street named Sutton Mill”) to the what-I-drank-for-dinner-last-night story (“I’ve been known to pore over wine bottles looking for inspiration”) — except the one about suburban names coming from geographical features that were demolished or removed so the place could be built. Fortunately, The Woodlands does carry on the proud Houston tradition of naming places after imaginary or wished-for amenities:
We’ve got Arrow Canyon, Kayak Ridge, Arbor Camp and Rocky Point.
Surprisingly not on Vreeland-Wendt’s list of inspirations: Harlequin romance novels. But she does consult the internet, because it’s full of useful resources.
Photo: Flickr user kaatiya
Read more about: Master-Planned Communities, Names, Real Estate Marketing, Streets, The Woodlands
December 4, 2007 – 6:08 pm
It’s high time for another street-walking adventure from the writing, singing, photographing, and drinking duo of quasi-professional pedestrians John Nova Lomax and David Beebe. Their latest challenge: a 14.5-mile walk along Bissonnet, from Synott Road (just past Dairy Ashford) to Montrose, which brings Lomax to this stirring conclusion on the sidewalk-transforming power of street trees:
By now, I’ve walked damn near the entire lengths of Bellaire, Westheimer, Clinton, Navigation, and Shepherd, and Bissonnet is nicer than all of them, for the simple reason that its sidewalks have far more shade. Westheimer has none between 6 and the Loop, save for a few landscaping fantasias at scattered corporate campuses; there’s none to be had on most of Shepherd unless you duck under a bridge (where you might sit on human turds); sun-baked Bellaire has none from Eldridge central Sharpstown, and the East Side streets are only a little better. Bissonnet, on the other hand, seems like a stroll through Yosemite.
Below the fold: local color.
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Read more about: 77005, 77006, 77009, 77036, 77074, 77081, 77401, Bellaire, Bissonnet, Sharpstown, Streets, Westwood
November 20, 2007 – 11:06 am
Why has this property in Riverside Terrace been floating aimlessly on the market for almost five months? Sure, it’s being sold “as is” — and the “is” apparently doesn’t merit an interior photo. But the home has four bedrooms, contains 2,875 square feet of living space, and is apparently salvageable. Plus it sits on a 11,100-square-foot lot on a “lovely, tree-lined street” in a part of town that’s been pretty hot recently, no?
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Read more about: 77021, Buying and Selling, Drainage, Flooding, Homes for Sale, Land Sales, Riverside-Terrace, Streets
August 16, 2007 – 10:43 pm
Ignoring the objections of snooty inner-loopers who think they’re somehow entitled to a continuous grid of streets, City Council voted yesterday to let a block of Bolsover in the Rice Village become two private circular driveways and a restaurant patio. The deal nets the city a whopping $1.5 million—the price of a couple of small luxury condos, maybe.
That’s the last hurdle for Sonoma, which appears to have gained two stories since its last appearance here. Developer Randall Davis claims buyers have “reserved” all but four of the 225 condos. There’s also 125,000 sq. ft. of retail and office space in the complex.
After the jump, a revised aerial view of the new Bolsover dropoff.
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Read more about: 77005, Commercial Real Estate, Condos, Leasing, Mixed Use, New Construction, Randall Davis, Retail, Rice-Village, Streets
