A reader calls this odd home “a lottery winner’s dream!” The listing agent calls it “the ultimate bachelor pad.” But does either pitch fully explain what’s going on in this $4 million, 6,753-sq.-ft. medieval chateau fantasy in Rivercrest Estates?
A few highlights:
We have a winner of that Rice Design Alliance membership!
First: your guesses in last week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game. We had “just outside the Loop,” Oak Forest, Katy, Olde Oaks, “Memorial/Dairy Ashford area” (2 guesses), the Memorial Villages, “somewhere south of I-10 and east of Highway 6,” “off Briar Forest between Dairy Ashford and Wilcrest,” south of Memorial City Mall, west of Bunker Hill between Hammerly and Memorial, Memorial close to Beltway 8, Kingwood, near Lake Houston, Bellaire, Westbury, Tanglewood, Meyerland (2), Riverside Terrace, Clear Lake (3), Braes Heights, Lakewood Forest, Brook Forest, Pinehurst, Humble, Wilchester, Westchester, Nottingham Forest, Nottingham VIIIage, Nottingham Country, “Nottingham something,” “around I-10 and the Beltway, Spring Shadows, south of I-10 “around the Gessner area,” Maplewood, Ashford Village area, 77077, Southgate, “near the Med Center,” Huntwick Forest (2), Quail Valley, “near the Costco on Bunker Hill,” near IKEA, Green Trails, Green Trail Estates, Champion Forest, Memorial Bend, “near off Memorial just east of Hwy. 6,” near Gessner south of Clay Rd., north of I-10, near Pinecrest Golf Course,” Sharpstown, “Braeburn area,” Katy near Katy-Hockley Rd., Baytown, Spring Creek Oaks, Mission Bend, West Bend, Walnut Bend, Northampton, Pasadena, Cypress, Jersey Village, Dickinson, Sugar Creek, near Hearthstone Country Club, Copperfield, Briar Meadow, Pearland, Memorial Northwest, River Oaks, and Texas City.
The winner of that one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance? flake, for landing on Jersey Village! Congratulations, flake!
Want the details?
HOW ABOUT A LITTLE SOMETHING IN TUSCAN? 
If the $7.4 million price tag on his 12,734-sq.-ft. Friar Tuck French-chateau-that-is-actually-from-France turns out to be too much of a stretch, maybe you’ll be interested in the upcoming auction of real-estate developer Jerry J. Moore’s tchotchkes: “Many of Moore’s belongings were 19th century French, to go along with the French chateau-styled home that he owned on the eastern edge of Hunters Creek Village. Auction items include marble statues, bronze statues, a 19th century billiards table and a Steinway grand piano. ‘All of the furnishings are the best of the best,’ says Ray Simpson, owner of Simpson Galleries. ‘Everything he did was over the top.’†Moore died last year. [Houston Business Journal] Photo: Simpson Galleries
How heavy are those pieces in Plodes Studio’s new collection of outdoor furniture? At least light enough to tote down to White Oak Bayou off Studewood for this photo shoot. Houston designer John Paul Plauché — who often evokes aspects of the local landscape in his interior furnishings — calls this new line “Float.”
And it looks like each piece just might. The extruded lounge, couch, chaise, and side table are made of foam coated with hard rubber, and are available in 6 colors.
The line’s official launch takes place this Thursday night at Montrose’s Peel Gallery.
Photos: Plodes Studio
Ah, the single life! This one-bedroom, 625-sq.-ft. take at 2016 Main appears to have every necessity in place, down to that single toothbrush artfully placed next to stainless-steel counter bowl. Ax the giveaway Downtown and Midtown views, and wouldn’t this have made an excellent candidate for Swamplot’s weekly Neighborhood Guessing Game?
Asking $129,750 — since mid-ish July. Maintenance fee is $510 a month.
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: (DON’T FEAR) THE SCULPTURE “More gargoyle!” [wilf, commenting on Piney Point Village Megamansion: Now $10 Million Off!]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL “Well, I don’t know if this is staged or what, but I teach 7th grade English and my students have had a BLAST writing a descriptive paper about this apartment! They were in major gross-out mode…I got lots of good adjectives out of them!” [Clare, commenting on Inside the Messiest Apartment in Houston. Ever.]
Looks like the barn door’s closing on this one. . . . Do we have a winner of the prizes from this week’s sponsor: the HIWI: Ike book, the original Houston. It’s Worth It. book? The “Hunkered Down” stencil kit?
Sadly, no. This one stayed just a bit out of reach.
Your guesses for the home in this week’s game: Oak Forest (3 of you), Sharpstown (3), Meyerland (2), Briargrove, Westbury (2), Spring Branch (3), Old Spring Branch, Glenbrook Valley (2), Mangum Manor, “one of the Willows,” Lindale Park, Afton Village, Westview, Spring Valley (2), Braes Heights, Timbergrove Manor (2), Braeswood, Old Braeswood, Riverside Terrace, Tanglewilde, Southgate, Memorial Plaza, “between Meyer Park and Westbury Square,” “Simsdale — the area across the bayou north of Garden Villas, around Reed Rd. south of Bellfort, east of Mykawa,” Midtown, Walnut Bend, Robindell (2), the “Robindell/Maplewood area,” Shadow Oaks, Lazybrook, Ella around 11th, Larchmont, Afton Oaks, Oak Estates, River Oaks, “between West Alabama, Weslayan, the 59 feeder, and Drexel,” Memorial Bend, Ayrshire, Norhill, and “on Brays Bayou, or very close to it, along North or South Braeswood, between Kirby and Stella Link.”
Any Modern-friendly enclaves missing from this list?
More than 6 reductions over the last 2 years mean you can now snap up this 20,000-plus-sq.-ft. Piney Point megamansion for less than half its original $19.9 million asking price. The spread belongs to Douglas R. Johnson and his wife Melanie, who divorced a year and a half ago, reports the Chronicle‘s Shelby Hodge:
The house began as a 6,000 square-foot teepee sitting in the middle of a lush wooded acre on Arrowwood. We are told that the couple pumped $16 million worth of expansion and improvements into the place. Eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, three half-baths and a paneled wine room and bar dating from the 1920s are part of the package. And did we mention the vast third-floor entertainment area that features a lavish theater center, game room and bar?
According to the divorce decree, Melanie and the boys get to live in the house until it sells. The judge gave Doug the right to control that sale. He priced the property at $19 million — unheard of in the Memorial/Piney Point neighborhoods. There was little interest. Melanie went back to court recently and secured rights to control the sale herself. And how things have changed.
According to MLS records, the home went on the market in April of 2007. Its most recent price cut — just a few days ago — was a mere $3.4 million.
Until his Johnson Broadcasting Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last October, Johnson was listed as the sole owner of KNWS, local TV’s Channel 51. Johnson also filed for personal bankruptcy, but reportedly told the Chronicle at the time that it all had to do with the divorce.
How’s this home doing in the ratings? Well, the listing puts it at about 26,214 sq. ft., but the appraisal district only counts 21,240. But even that lower figure is enough to get the home onto Wikipedia’s list of the largest single family residences in the United States.
The home’s price may be down, but the commission is now up to 12 percent. And the photos sure make it look like the volume is still turned way up:
Note: Story updated below.
Developer (and Swamplot advertiser) Carol Isaak Barden says to give her latest project another week or 10 days before it’s ready — the paint isn’t quite dry yet. But all the peppers, candles, and watermelons are certainly in place for these fancy photos she sent us.
Barden calls the home, which is available for sale in a non-MLS kinda way, the “Tree House.” The architects are Erick Ragni and Scott Strasser. The 4,150-sq.-ft. home (3,500 if you don’t count the oversized garage) is on a 50×100-ft. lot at 1608 Indiana, across the street from HISD’s Wilson Montessori School.
What’s so tree-ish about it?
Antiques fan Spencer Howard takes readers on a tour of a Hyde Park house full of them: the home of his former boss, architect John Zemanek.
The home’s design “falls somewhere between a Texas farm house and Japanese Tea House,” writes Howard:
However, the landscape, structure and furniture are accented with mysterious objects. Some are recognizable and easily comprehended, but most are not — engaging the viewer to imagine the story behind the piece.
What mysterious objects? A few choice rusting relics of Zemanek’s Fort Bend County childhood: a hunk of the engine from the family’s 1923 Buick; parts of old farming implements; the family typewriter, on a pedestal by the front door.
Wanna quick tour of the place?
Where is this house?
Two of you guessed River Oaks and 2 more guessed Old Town Spring. And here were the rest of your guesses: Shady Acres, Nottingham, “one of the Villages out in Memorial,” “an early Memorial development,” “close to or on Kimberley, Barryknoll, Kirkwood, or Wilcrest,” Ashford Forest, Woodcreek off Aldine-Westfield, “between Shepherd and Montrose, Westheimer and Gray,” Bellaire, “somewhere on the bay,” Bellville, Brookshire, Columbus, Brenham, “Tomball-ish,” Wilchester, Wilchester West, on Chimney Rock near Memorial, Cypress, “along 1960 areas that are older,” “older parts of Deer Park or somewhere over there,” Galveston, “off Westview across the freeway from Memorial,” Friendswood, “the oldest part of Kingwood off Northpark,” Porter, “up high on a bluff in Morgan’s Point,” “in the vicinity of Holcombe and Greenbriar,” Braes Heights, and “somewhere around Braeswood.”
This week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game was just for the glory. And the winner? Glory, glory, it’s elnina, who caps off a remarkable streak of dead-on entries with a third win this year. (There were a couple of second-places in there too.) Here’s the vague but closer-than-anybody-else winning entry:
This looks like a country, two-story house, with large floor plan on a lot with a pool.
The spacious rooms downstairs have brick floors and upstairs bedrooms – wood floors. Nice stencils accents throughout the house.
No clocks, radios or TV’s, except a small unit in the bedroom (lol).
I can spot few recent updates – like windows, kitchen appliances, nice marble counter in the bathroom, plantation shutters. But when I look at the brick floors, the condition of the wood on the floors and stairs, the fireplace and the painted paneling, I would say that this house is probably 40-50 years old.
I guess it is sitting in a flood zone, close to bayou or the coast. The picture with the ship makes me think that big water is not far away. Maybe somewhere on the bay?
Congratulations, elnina! You’ve won . . . first prize!
Our runners-up this week are Miz Brooke Smith, with a close-but-wrong-bank Morgan’s Point guess, and Jessica1, who wrote this:
I don’t know what y’all are thinking with the nottingham, wilchester, etc. guesses – I grew up out there and never saw anything quite like this. The wood floors are too old, at least for my part of the neighborhood. And those furnishings! Not energy corridor. I’m saying older parts of Deer Park or somewhere over there, only because I think I saw identical stuff in an antique store in LaPorte.
Ready for the real answer? Here it is:
“I do always seem to be showing you houses that few of us can really afford,” Houston interior-design blogger Joni Webb admits to her readers:
But the secret truth is, nothing gets me more excited than seeing a house which is NOT expensive yet looks like it was designed by a professional! Nothing is better because it affirms what I fully believe, style is not about money.
So Webb sets out to find a few inside-the-Loop homes dressed to meet her style standards — and priced between $300K and $500K. How long does it take her? Two days, poring through “hundreds, if not thousands” of HAR listings.
What does she find?
SEE YA OUT ON THE VERANDA, Y’ALL Time Inc. says it will be shutting down Southern Accents — the magazine, not the drawl — with its September-October issue. Now wherever will we find photo spreads of those delightful Curtis & Windham pool houses? Maybe on the SouthernAccents.com website, which will hang around for a spell. [Media Decoder, via Cote de Texas]
Note: Updated below.
So tell me, whatever happened to . . . those Wilshire Village Apartments? Houston photographer Sarah Lipscomb stumbled across a couple of classic interior shots of the then-new apartment complex while poking through old photos a few months ago with her aunt, Johnna Lee Muller.
Writes Lipscomb:
They didn’t have internet in those days but they got to smoke, read magazines and look at globes.
Another view of home entertainment in the early 1940s, Wilshire Village-style:
