A new site plan from Town in City Brewing Co. was approved by the planning commission last month, finally clearing the way for that brewery that would be made out of a trucked-in kit to be put together. The microbrewery, taproom, and outdoor garden on this lot near 1125 W. Cavalcade in Sunset Heights were all supposed to be done by now — or so brewers Justin Engle and Steven Macalello were telling their investors in November, when the Houston-fabricated steel parts first came rolling onto their 9,714-sq.-ft property. But the required 25-ft. setback from a major thoroughfare like W. Cavalcade threw a wrench in their plans.
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Read more about: 77009, Breweries, Land Use Restrictions, Proposed Developments, Sunset Heights
This new build on 27th St. in Sunset Heights comes from the firm of serial mod fixer-upper and recent Astrodome chimer-inner Ben Koush. Completed this year, the 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath house also has a garage apartment in the back. On its own for now, the house has been billed as the 1st of 4 planned in a row here just east of N. Main St.; it’s listed at $499,900.
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Read more about: 77009, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Sunset Heights
November 7, 2012 – 1:02 pm
Here’s the lot in the 1100 block of West Cavalcade, a few hundred feet east of the intersection of Main, Studewood, and 20th St. in the Heights, where a new microbrewery calling itself Town in City Brewing Co. (after a previous name, Yard Sale Brewery, got nixed) plans to build a beer campus from kit parts. The kit arrived on a flatbed truck a week or 2 ago: a collection of steel parts from Houston’s Rigid Global Buildings, selected with help from Rigid’s catalog by the Town in City brewers:
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Read more about: 77009, Breweries, New Construction, Proposed Developments, Sunset Heights
Even without the flag waving as punctuation, this 1890 Victorian serves as a pint-sized Americana residential souvenir, complete with gingerbread trim and turned posts on the porch. The fence, however, is of more modern scale — and function, given its automated gate across the driveway. Flashbacks continue inside the cottage, listed earlier this month at $369,5000. It’s located in the Bartholomew Place tendril of Sunset Heights, a long block west of Metro’s Heights Transit Center.
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Read more about: 77008, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Kitchens, Sunset Heights, Theming
The three buildings listed as 6204 Main St. lie not on the tree-lined block near Rice University, but rather its mixed-use counterpart on North Main. Asking $260,000, the property includes a vacant warehouse flanked by two homes, squeezed onto a quarter-acre in the Rodgers Park area, just south of Sunset Heights and 2 blocks from Metro’s Heights Transit Center.
The warehouse anchors the southeast corner of N. Main and E. 23rd. It’s in “poor condition,” according to the listing. The adjacent houses, meanwhile, are generating rental income. They date back to the late 1920s. The dimensions of every room are described as 10 ft. x 10 ft.
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Read more about: 77009, Commercial Real Estate, Homes for Sale, Land for Sale, Mixed Use, Rodgers Park, Sunset Heights, Warehouses
A graduate of the crape myrtle school of chainsaw insta-pruning appears to have gotten a little creative with the oak trees surrounding the Burger King at Yale and the 610 North feeder sometime over the last 2 weeks. The oak trunks are still standing tall, but all its broccoli-like heads have been knocked off. Is this the work of a rogue landscaper, or a concerted action meant to send a message to any other oaks that dare raise their leaves near power lines, feeder roads, or fast-food signage? “Its the most bizarre thing, and one can only presume it will get more odd appearing once they start to sprout out,” a Swamplot reader notes. “I know there are regulations to plant parking lot trees, but I guess there are none to make sure that they remain? There must be a story behind this odd act, but I can only drive by and drop my jaw each time I see it.”
More closeups of the oak hackery, and a “before” view, courtesy of Google Street View:
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Read more about: 77008, Fast Food, Gardening, Landscape, Restaurants, Signage, Sunset Heights, Trees
February 27, 2012 – 11:55 am
Here are a few pics from the battle that began last Friday between demo crews and at least one of the former Alamo Elementary School’s 2 buildings at 201 E. 27th St. in Sunset Heights. The school shut down back in 1980; since then it’s been used as the site of an HISD storage facility and a series of only imagined — and now, it appears, officially defunct — preservation and repurposing schemes. The original 2-story structure was built in 1913; the single-story structure was added in 1926.
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Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Schools, Sunset Heights
December 14, 2011 – 12:11 pm
A magazine for Houston real estate agents has this version of the backstory behind the body-in-the-bed photo featured in a Heights-area bungalow listing posted last week: “The current tenants are being evicted, and therefore, were uncooperative in making the home look attractive to any other buyers. They refused to clean it for showings and, clearly, even refused to move when [real estate agent Traye] Wise and his assistant stopped by to take interior photos for the listing website; Wise said he asked the husband if he could rouse his wife from bed so they could take just one photo of the bedroom’s interior sans tenants, and while the husband allegedly told his wife to get out of bed, she refused. ‘This was in no way done on purpose,’ Wise said about the bedroom photo. ‘It was supposed to be edited to take (the woman sleeping in bed) out. It was supposed to be Photoshopped, and my assistant put it up by mistake.’” [Houston Agent Magazine; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: 77009, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Photography, Real Estate Marketing, Sunset Heights
December 9, 2011 – 1:37 pm
See what I told you? All gone now. No one will ever find it.
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Read more about: 77009, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Real Estate Marketing, Sunset Heights
August 19, 2011 – 5:33 pm
Inspired, perhaps, by Andrea Grover’s transformation of a former church just down the street into the Aurora Picture Show microcinema (it’s now called 14 Pews), the sellers of the 1960 vintage Community Gospel Church at 608 Aurora St. have now taken to the residential real estate market to unload their 8,190-sq.-ft. building on a 17,880-sq.-ft. Sunset Heights corner lot. Yes, says the listing, this unique property could be converted to a “1-of-a-kind magnificent show home,” or several single-story condos, or — and we quote — “just use land if you have no imagination.” (Bravo!) Among the itemized suggestions for the 80-ft.-by-42-ft. sanctuary, which seats 275 devout worshippers: “fabulous” media or game room; quarters or (very large) mother-in-law apartment; “party room,” or — yes — personal bowling alley. Here it is:
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Read more about: 77009, Churches, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Renovations, Sunset Heights
Comment of the Day: Checking out the Neighbors, Online
“Even the google street view pic makes the place look halfway decent . . . Until you see a large parking lot and strip center next door to the East (and a landscaper’s ass another half block down).” [J, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: When the Flood Came]