This low-slung sorta Usonian-style home mounted between the Sugar Creek and Riverbend country clubs in Sugar Land was built in 1975 by and for Houston builder H.A. Lott, known for his work constructing the Astrodome, among many other local buildings. The home was designed by local Frank Lloyd Wright devotee Karl Kamrath of MacKie and Kamrath Architects. After a few recent updates of the granite countertop, mosaic tile, and vessel-sink variety, it went on the market last month — for $1,080,000.
Must be pretty bad, if a brand-new listing has to resort to a gallery of stock photos (some shown above) in place of actual property pix. “Enter at your own risk, with a mask,” reads the description. But the note to agents is more colorful and contradictory:
Sold As is. Investors only. Cash Only. A diamond in the WAY rough, enter at your own risk, with a mask. Unoccupied, Feel free to walk on property. Inhabitable. . . . Drive by only, just make offer.
“I can only imagine what condition this place is in,” writes the reader who sent us the listing. All the excitement and adventure can be yours — for just $110,000.
Yeah, that’s an outdoor kitchen wrapped around a tree in the back yard of this home that’s just gone up for sale in Maplewood. ’Neath the leaves: 2 grills, a wine chiller, a refrigerator, and a stainless steel sink. And inside? A whole lot more . . . plus carpet:
When Swamplot featured her Pearland home back in June, Bloggess Jenny Lawson was crafty enough to couch within her verbal guarantee that the place harbored NO ZOMBIES the hint that she just might be able to score some — if, y’know, you were into that sort of thing. And now, almost 2 months later? Score! Quietly last week, someone slashed the asking price on the sallow, undead 3-bedroom suburban special by another $10K. Lawson and family since escaped to friendlier digs, but the old and now empty home in Southern Trails limps on at $199,000, $20K down from its original price. Can’t someone stop the bleeding!!!?
Here’s a 1920 bungalow taking up valuable space on a 7,000-sq.-ft. lot on Merrill St. near Watson. The lot size and the Woodland Heights address make the “perfect combination for building your new home in the Heights,” declares the new listing. The structure, “in need of extensive repairs,” features 3 apparently unphotographable bedrooms and 1 bath. List price: $245,000.
The subdivision for this home on Meineke St. on Houston’s southeast side carries the intriguing name of “Freeway,” but most of you will just call it Gulfgate. It’s only a block south of the South Loop, and Gulfgate Center is just a mile to the east. The home is listed as the official address of All Purpose Plastering, but the for-sale listing has been plastered on MLS for only a couple of days.
The 3-bedroom, 1-bath house was built in 1960 and measures a little more than 1,000 sq. ft. But look what you can fit inside:
This new concoction in Briardale, just steps from the corner of San Felipe and Sage, isn’t your ordinary farmhouse-themed Tuscan-style mansion. No, this home is loaded up with actual materials snatched from actual old buildings in Europe! Among the repurposed Yurpian booty: limestone floors and stone surrounds from France, 19th century doors from a palazzo in Florence, and an 18th century stone sink. Plus plenty of antique brick from Chicago. A stone-vault-like Powder Room affords a relaxed, yet secure environment for guest excretions.
Completed just last year, the home was built by Burton Construction — best known locally for its not-so-Tuscan work at CityCentre — for the family of the company’s founder, Brad Burton. But the Burtons are now ready to sell, if one of you is willing to cough up the $3.5 million asking price. Here’s what you get:
Intrigued by the South Union neighborhood where the team from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and HHN Homes is making a valiant effort to build a 4,500-sq.-ft. home for the Johnson family — in less than a week? Maybe you’re wondering what the rest of the area is like? Well, the home right next door, at 3609 Goodhope St., is for sale! Asking price: $40,000. Don’t worry: It won’t be the fanciest home in the neighborhood.
Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:
We’ve got some answers to your questions:
Mimosa (and the adjacent smaller lots on the south side of Maple) ends short of the Loop simply because that was the edge of the Bellaire Oaks subdivision when it was developed in the 50’s. The larger lots are in a different subdivision likely developed by a different developer, and of course at that time the Loop didn’t exist for Mimosa to extend out to.
None of you took the bait on the reader’s second question: Should a triple-size lot always command a triple-size price?
And what about that monument to eternal redevelopment at the corner of Washington and Jackson Hill?
A representative of Margie Beegle Sales expects this two-story home in Southgate across the street from Rice University to hit the market next month. If you’re interested in a sneak preview of the home or would enjoy the opportunity to participate in the frenzied dismantling of the rather astounding collection of collections mounted inside, here’s your chance. The estate sale at 2141 University Blvd. is this weekend. Looking for a Kabuki mask or a vintage Hell Driver Rodeo racetrack? You’re in luck! A few more featured items from among the assembled treasures: KISS Psychic Circus action figures, some rather large Nutcracker figurines, and two full size mirror-image representations of Cracker Jack’s blue and white logo-man Sailor Jack with his dog Bingo. A much abbreviated preview of the scene:
Modern architecture fans in Houston have been whispering about this 1964 Meyerland home ever since it went on the market late last month. Houston Mod featured it as its “Mod of the Month” open house a couple of weeks ago. Commenters on a Swamplot post about another modern-era home have also been discussing the 3,172-sq.-ft. home, which sits just a couple blocks north of Brays Bayou. As one of them noted, it’s the former home of Houston architect John R. Dossey, who bought it with his wife more than a decade ago and renovated it extensively.
If that name sounds familiar, it might be because Dossey pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to possession of child pornography. The charges stemmed from the stakeout by an FBI unit in March of a feeder-road pay-by-the-hour Scottish Inn & Suites hotel in southwest Houston, where Dossey was arrested in the company of a 16-year-old prostitute. Dossey admitted to taking photos of the girl, and a later search of his home on Manhattan Dr. (yes, pictured here) netted his computers, the inevitable forensic hard-drive search, and the child pornography charge.
Dossey, who’s been in custody without bond ever since, transferred ownership of the home — and the 12,755-sq.-ft. lot next door — in May. And yes . . . both are now for sale! Which means you can conduct a little surveillance of the scene on your own:
This house on Merry Lane in Idylwood is one of 4 “Century Built” homes designed in the late 1940s and early ’50s by a not-particularly-famous Houston architect named Allen R. Williams Jr. Where are the others? One — demolished a while back — was somewhere off Campbell Rd. north of I-10, though nobody seems to remember where. Another is on West 43rd St. in Garden Oaks. The third, built not far from Idylwood in Simms Woods, was restored and renovated by architect and interior designer Ben Koush in 2005, who dug up the home’s history, got it registered as the city’s first modern protected landmark, and now features it on his firm’s website and in occasional home tours.
All the homes had walls made of lightweight hollow concrete tiles (with electrical wires running through them in conduit), heavy slab foundations with grade beams and piers, metal casement windows, and roofs made of concrete panels and insulated with Fiberglas boards. And they all had similar floor plans. The Idylwood house has been on the market since the end of last month — for $150,000 — because its original owner, Carl Stallworth, passed away recently.
What could you do with this place?
Mod tracker and photographer Ben Hill believes this early-fifties Ranch is the best house Houston architect Wylie W. Vale ever designed in Katy. It’s a little less country — and features more rock — than this Swamplot reader favorite he designed a mile southeast, on Woods Hole Ln.
This 3,345-sq.-ft. single story, which sits on an acre of land near the center of the original town, has been on the market since mid-June, for $375,000. The home was originally built for former mayor Arthur Miller. And it was still in the family when Hill took these photos last year:
Nope, no idea why this 2-story house for sale at 3834 Brook Garden Ln. in Katy won’t be shown until “furthur notice,” but given that cute little literary reference in the listing and the main photo included (above), it sure is tempting to guess. Yes, this is a 3-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home built 6 years ago in the Lakes of Bridgewater subdivision that features a well-stocked bar and . . . well, after that it gets kinda hazy. Won’t you stumble along with us for a quick tour?
Tucked into the Memorial townhome ghetto in the upper left armpit of the West Loop and I-10, you’ll find this 1970 number designed by Preston Bolton. Bolton, who believed in tall ceilings way back when they were stuck in last place and nobody thought they had a chance, stuffed 3 courtyards into this 2,616-sq.-ft. single-story townhouse plan, and placed it on a street where everybody knew his name. The home went on the market last week, listed at $325,000. Interested in a brief tour?
