08/01/11 8:11am

Only a few days after it sold, the 1961 Tanglewood home and bomb shelter on Brown Saddle St. featured on Swamplot back in January has been put back on the market. Only this time, the listing doesn’t mention the shelter or the abandoned pipeline slicing through a portion of the property — or really anything about the building itself. No more interior pics, either. The low-slung modern structure is now tagged as “not liveable” and won’t be shown — though the agent does fess up to having a key. The asking price? Only $550K more than what the property sold for earlier in the week, when the home and its interior were touted as sales features. At 38,263 sq. ft. (that’s actually been marked down a few thousand sq. ft. from the earlier sale), the lot is advertised as the biggest in Tanglewood.

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07/29/11 8:02am

What’s to see at the Wichita St. Mystery House estate sale today and tomorrow? The usual household stuff . . . but “tons” of it, according to the Craigslist ad. You know, several refrigerators, an uninstalled “apple and desert rose” jacuzzi bathtub, and an uninstalled elevator. Sadly, all contents of the well-turreted home at 2309 Wichita (as well as its neighbor at 2306) must go. The home Charlie Fondow just couldn’t stop adding onto and renovating for more than 3 decades is still listed for sale at $325,000, but teevee reporter Isiah Carey — who calls the persistent builder’s distinctive creation the Castle of Third Ward — says he’s heard that “the bank is ready to get rid of it for much less in a short sale.”

Photo: Candace Garcia

07/11/11 1:31pm

How many games of saltwater volleyball have actually been played in the backyard pool of this opened-up 1938 cottage at one of Colquitt’s stub ends? Inside, walls have been removed in the main living space, and colors let loose. Still: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, in 2,338 sq. ft. Plus, whatever you play in the back, all those folks in the 5-story Upper Kirby Apartments across Morningside looking down on you from their neighborhood-side windows will no doubt be jealous that you get that backyard space all to yourselves. More pics:

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06/22/11 6:08pm

It’s certainly not the first aircraft to show up in a Google Maps satellite view, but this Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 found lounging on Broken Bough St. just east of Gessner may be the first to be found through a real estate listing. A reader came across a portion of the airplane image in the HAR map view of this 1961 Memorial Forest Ranch listed for sale one street over. The home features 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a den with fireplace and backyard view, and is conveniently located on the flight path to Hobby Airport.

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06/15/11 2:38pm

The white house at the corner of Hawthorne and Garrott in the Westmoreland Historic District where Lyndon Johnson lived for a couple of years in the early 1930s got a $50,000 price cut at the beginning of this month: It’s now for sale for $375,000. Johnson came to town to teach public speaking and business arithmetic at the old Sam Houston High School downtown; he shared a room in the house with his Uncle George. By the end of 1931, the future president had moved to Washington to become a secretary to newly elected congressman (and King Ranch heir) Richard Kleberg.

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06/13/11 11:02am

A reader asks us to check out the views from the large windows in the master bath of this 1959 Woodshire 4-bedroom. Looks like you can see out, across a little inside court to the red curtains of . . . the master bedroom? Oh, and back atcha! Similarly, uh . . . inspiring views from behind those red curtains, into the bathroom and shower:

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06/10/11 5:56pm

Yes, there’s a mini seawall wrapped around the base of this Ostermeyer Rd. winner in Baybridge Estates in Galveston — and it “protected the home” from Hurricane Ike, according to the listing. Other Galvestonian touches to this 4-bedroom, 4-bath house on a hill, constructed in 2005 by Rawlins Residential Builders: Rough-textured travertine tile at the front entrance, and a big first-floor washroom suitable for summertime sandy swimsuit removal operations. The 1.3-acre lot includes a long driveway entrance across a pond and other only occasionally submerged terrain. And then you get to this:

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06/08/11 1:53pm

What’s missing from the set of images that goes with this Memorial Parkway brick 2-story? Only photos of the tile recently installed on the garage floor. Other than that, the listing does a pretty good job of illustrating the agent’s contention that this 1989 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath, 2,365-sq.-ft. home does, in fact, have “new tile throughout.”

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