- 10729 Spell Rd., Tomball [HAR]
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Tag: Homes for Sale
It was the star of a Houston Mod open house last November, announced as available in a private sale. But it doesn’t look like anybody bit at the reported $1.9 million asking price, or at a later price closer to $1.8 million. Then last week, this River Oaks time capsule made its debut on MLS with a few spiffier photos and a $1,675,000 price tag. The home was designed by architect M. Arthur Kotch in 1960 for the founders of Cain Chemical. When the Cains moved to New York City 5 years later, it was sold to the family of a co-worker. That family has owned it ever since. Here’s 3,371 sq. ft. of Midcentury, straight up:
Back on the market at a new, slightly higher price: This hulking 1979 single-story mod in Atascocita Shores, spread across 2 acres of Lake Houston’s west bank. For $1,250,000, you get a 7,319-sq.-ft. 5-bedroom, 4-full and 2-half bath lakeside pad; a 4-car attached garage; a guest house; and all the water you can look at or drink:
Emerging this week onto the market from usually low-slung Lazybrook: This honking 2-story from the seventies, weighing in at 3,670 sq. ft. on a half-acre lot. Just a few blocks south of White Oak Bayou, in the upper left armpit of the 610 Loop, the place looks like it has room for more than a couple: There are double ovens, double disposals, double dishwashers, double AC systems, double sinks in the Master Bath, and recent double-paned windows. Only one swimming pool, though. Then there’s this logo and mascot:
- 10818 Pepper Ln. [HAR]
For sale by owner: One flat-roofed Memorial Mod, decaying in leafy solitude — it’s been uninhabited for the last several years. The home was commissioned in 1954 by Bernhardt O. Lemmel, who came to Houston to head the art department at the University of Houston, and his wife, who served as the general contractor. Designed by M. Bliss Alexander, the 2-bedroom home features all those midcentury greatest hits: clerestory windows, a multi-sided fireplace, terrazzo, and sliding doors facing its wooded lot.
Prancing onto the market just yesterday: This 10,672-sq.-ft. gated bouquet in that cute little already gated neighborhood in The Woodlands, not far from the smaller mansion Chamillionaire generously handed over to the bank last year. Features 6 bedrooms, 6 full baths, 6 balconies, a 5-car garage, all guarded by a small army of spotlit corbels. There’s a putting and pitching green in the yard of the acre-plus lot; you can warm up there before braving the winding, mile-long trek to the Carlton Woods golf course.
- 25110 Summer Chase Dr. [HAR]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHERE YOU WANT ALL THOSE FLOWERS “Seriously – in the bathroom sink? In the yard? By the pool? It’s like if you crossed Ladies Home Journal with Dr. Seuss (‘Would you, could you on the grass? Would you, could you on desk of glass? What about near the commode? Or three vases, on the road?’)” [LT, commenting on Old Braeswood House of Bouquet]
Flowers sure do dress up a room! . . . or two. But where’d they get the budget to deck this house on Morningside Dr. with so many identical arrangements and vases?
A reader who says he’s always been curious what the gaudiest house in Houston looks like on the inside tells Swamplot his wish has come true — now that photos of this 5-bedroom just-outside-the-Beltway home at 12930 Memorial Dr. have been published on MLS. Four readers have written in to express awe at its appearance. “I’m not sure how to even begin describing the living area decor,” writes another, who also seems transfixed on the “giant high heel and giant lady statues (or are those murals?) in the entryway,” as well as the mermaid-themed master bathroom.
PRICED OUT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD 
“These days, South Park is undergoing yet another change: an influx of Hispanic residents, from 16 percent in 2000 to nearly 20 percent in 2009. That number is expected to jump to 22 percent in five years, while the number of black residents is on the decline: 82 percent in 2000 compared to an estimated 77 percent five years from now. Census data shows no white people living in the area at all. . . . The median home price is $50,400 — an increase of 15 percent since 2000. This sounds promising until another statistic is revealed: The median income is a mere $33,196 per year, which is nearly 15 percent less than ten years ago. The most expensive listing for a [South Park] single family home on HAR.com right now — a completely remodeled three-bedroom house on Bataan with granite countertops in the kitchen — is less than $78,000, its asking price recently reduced in a bid to attract buyers. The modest house, built in 1955, has been on the market for months.” That price reduction doesn’t seem to have had much effect: The home at 5538 Bataan Rd. was just taken off the market. [Houston Press] Photo: HAR
