10/01/10 3:59pm

The little ’uns have left the buildings: The Infant House, the Little Treasures House, the Wee-Bits House, the Toddler House, and the Bloomer & Sunflower House are all vacant now. The Esperanza School, a Heights daycare institution, has moved west to the former Ben Milam Elementary at 1100 Roy St., leaving its unique campus cobbled together from Heights Blvd. and Harvard St. houses behind. Founded in a grand Lovett Blvd. home in Montrose, the school moved to Heights Blvd. in the mid-eighties, expanding into adjacent and nearby kiddie cottages one at a time. And now they’re all for sale, in little mortgage-bite-size pieces!

Well, almost: all except the main school house at 639 Heights Blvd. (now under contract, snatched up before it could be listed), and the Discovery House at 429 Heights Blvd. (which the owner is keeping).

But 5 of the 6 listed and deed-restriction-free properties form an almost-contiguous (okay, there’s an alley down the middle) 35,700-sq.-ft. plot across 7th St. from Donovan Park. One reader comments: “The two on Harvard back up to two on the Blvd., so that is at least a dozen townhomes. No law against a high rise, either.” A quick tour of the homes standing in the way:

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09/08/10 4:04pm

This reinvented Ranch on Staunton St. in Afton Oaks has had a little work done since the last time it was on the market — way back in April of last year, at around $400K cheaper than its current price tag. That American colonial look is gone, wrapped by layers of stucco and Hardie panels and a new standing-seam metal roof. Other nips and tucks for the 60-year-old include a ceiling lift, a new fixed-in-place fenestration program, and a few hundred sq. ft. of additions.

A couple before-and-after comparisons for the 3-bedroom, 2,688-sq.-ft. redo:

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08/31/10 8:08am

This updated corner Ranch with the DJ-booth-style kitchen in the center sits just outside the designated 100-year floodplain in Candlelight Estates. It showed up in MLS just yesterday, sporting a $349K sticker price. Includes 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a 9,400-sq.-ft. lot, a pool, and these HDR pix:

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08/30/10 11:59am

This Fonn Villas cul-de-sac saltbox backs up to the Town & Country Candlewood Suites. That puts it within range of the afternoon shadows of CityCentre‘s taller buildings. Inside, a lot has changed since 1964: A recent kitchen renovation includes an eat-in island where seated family members can watch a wall-mounted TV, monitor the wine closet or powder room, or just stare out the window if they don’t feel like talking to each other. The place was listed just last Friday, for $559,000.

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08/26/10 12:16pm

Just what is it that gives this Sweetwater chateau that authentic French je ne sais quoi? Could it be the multipurpose wine room? The big-enough-for-giant-pancakes breakfast area? The Vince Young seal of approval? No telling if any actual chateaus were harmed in the making of this grand home, but that’s all likely ancient history anyway — this place dates from the last century!

Listed earlier this week for just under $3.5 million, this little cul-de-sac palace backs up to the grounds of the Sweetwater Country Club and packs in 4 full bedrooms and 3 full and 3 half baths — all in just 7,744 sq. ft. Many delights await you in this photo tour:

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08/25/10 12:14pm

The last time a Glassman Shoemake Maldonado house in the Museum District with a notable staircase went up for sale, things didn’t end so well. Now the 1997 home the local architecture firm designed for Carl and Pam Johnson in Ranch Estates is on the block, for $1,395,000.

The 3- or 4-bedroom, and — yes — 5-bathroom — house is probably best known for its inset nautilus-spiral-stair nose, dramatically framed at night (and in magic-hour photos) by porch and interior lights. Inside, at the end of the staircase spiral on the first floor there’s a round bar, which faces into the double-height dining room. One of the exciting things about the sale of a minimalist house like this: There’s no telling how much furniture and stuff a new buyer will be able to pack in there. Just look at all the available space:

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08/24/10 4:41pm

It only went on the market yesterday, but Swamplot readers are already gawking at this house on Locke Ln., across Eastside St. from the Lamar-River Oaks shopping center. The 3-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath number is listed for $1,089,000, and sits on a 10,147-sq.-ft. corner lot. What’s to look at?

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08/24/10 1:24pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: JUST ANOTHER WOODSIDE GARAGE EMERGENCY OUTPOST “Is that a chalk board I see in the third to last picture? If so, no wonder why cops and EMT types are interested in this place. Maybe they can hold roll call in the den.” [bgreen, commenting on At Loop’s Edge: A Bit of Woodside from 1958]

08/24/10 8:15am

A few neighbors actually picketed this home on the corner of Decatur and Silver streets for months after it was built. In 2001 Cite magazine labeled it “probably the most scrutinized — and criticized — private home in recent Houston history.” What was all the fuss about? It was a brand-new home built on a long-vacant lot around the turn of this century in a recently designated historic district: the Old Sixth Ward.

The protest signs have been down for years, but a for-sale sign went up in the yard last fall. After a failed closing, the house came back on the market this summer. Then a second buyer couldn’t come up with financing. The sellers cut the asking price $20K, to $539,999, just last week.

The 3 bedroom, 2 full- and 2 half-bath house was designed and constructed by Houston’s MC² Architects. A picketer-free photo tour is below:

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08/23/10 11:37am

Hidden behind the tall soundwall that lines the westbound South Loop feeder road, just before Stella Link: this 1958-model kitchen-dining-den cockpit, control center for an original-owner listing in Woodside that went up for sale last week. “Be sure and notice the exceptional original doorknob” on the front door, instructs the listing. What’s more to see here?

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08/19/10 11:49am

This home in Lakeside Place, one block north of Briar Forest between Wilcrest and Kirkwood, was until recently the location of Briar Oaks Home Care, an assisted-living facility. What a nice place to live for a while with a little assistance, no? But not for too long: The facility was foreclosed on, and just went up for sale earlier this week.

The listing counts 6 bedrooms, but that may include the converted dining room. Also on its way to living-space status: a drywalled but unfinished garage.

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08/18/10 12:16pm

You’d probably heard that the whole Tuscan thing was big up in the northern burbs, but did you imagine it this big? This “Outstanding 15 Century Tuscan Custom Home” in the gated Legends of Augusta Pines development — with garage space for 5 cars — was listed last week for $1,499,000. It’s hard to imagine any size person that wouldn’t fit in this home — though actual Tuscan giants might want to upsize the furniture and bathroom fixtures:

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08/17/10 8:50am



What’s hiding
behind the gates at this brand new listing in The Woodlands? Oh, can’t it just be a surprise? What you’re working with: 6-7 bedrooms (one of those in a separate apartment), 6 1/2 baths, and a 4-car attached garage. An unmentionable amount of square footage on a 35,588-sq.-ft. lot. And a private dock at the stub end of one of Lake Woodlands’ many splayed fingers. All dating from 1990.

Don’t you want a peek?

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08/13/10 3:56pm

Reader Claire de Lune has a reconnaissance report on the mysterious home at 9765 Oak Point Dr. in Spring Branch Woods Swamplot highlighted yesterday — you know, the new “enter at your own risk, with a mask” $110K listing apparently so horrifying to the agent that only a series of seemingly random stock photos could properly represent it. “There IS a house behind all that foliage,” our volunteer correspondent assures us. But then: “I must say, of all the stock photos [the listing agent] used, the little children running away in fear is the MOST appropriate.”

Claire de Lune reports that the rest of the street is pretty, but there’s no for-sale sign in front of this home:

This is a corner lot, overgrown with a minimum 3-4 years of neglect. Dead tree limbs on the roof suggest Ike damage. I suspect someone who really knows where and how to dig can find out when the taxes were last paid. . . . This place is within walking distance of the ginormous HEB @ Bunker Hill and all that surrounds it.

A couple more photos from the scene:

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