01/27/10 10:36am

Now that photos have been posted — and the asking price has been chopped a full 7 percent — the whole world gets to peek inside the full-floor condo in The Huntingdon that belonged to Enron founder and CEO Ken Lay and his wife Linda. The buildout on the 33rd floor of 2121 Kirby Dr. was designed in the late nineties by Houston architect Leslie Barry Davidson, who’s proven herself versatile in many historical styles that pre-date highrise construction. But the listing photos show what looks like a glum castle retreat for a king and queen who’ve lost their jester.

Oh, but those 360-degree skyline views of Houston! And really, with angry investors and Californians likely to approach from any direction, you’d maybe want a hideout with 4 good corner balconies, just so you can assess the risks:

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01/20/10 12:32pm

Real estate agent and Glenbrook Valley champion (and Swamplot advertiser) Robert Searcy has been tracking Midcentury Modern properties for sale in the Houston area on the Houston Mod website. Included in the latest list: this wood-filled home in Woodside designed by architect Zachary T. “Zack” Graham in 1957. It’s been on the market for 2 months now, for $369,000, and it’s practically begging for a whitewashing.

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01/19/10 11:03am

ARCHITECTS WITH A LITTLE MORE TIME ON THEIR HANDS A dramatic reduction in plans for new commercial construction — coupled with the Texas legislature’s failure to renew funding for higher education projects — resulted in “about 15 employees” losing their jobs at Kirksey last week, writes Nancy Sarnoff. Also mentioned in passing: earlier cutbacks at EDI Architecture, BNIM, and Gensler. Now that a lot more of you have time to write in, tell us: Are there any other layoffs or related stories we should be mentioning here? [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]

01/08/10 4:08pm

Architect and Swamplot reader Jeromy Murphy sends in a construction update on the house he and his wife — also an architect — are building for themselves at 502 Archer St. in Brookesmith, “not too far from the container house.” How’s the family project going?

Lori and I designed it together, proving that a husband/wife architecture team can succeed (as long as the husband just agrees to everything his architect wife wants).

One of those design decisions that came so easily: the 8-ft. Isis Big Ass Fan that’ll hang from exposed rafters on a porch overlooking a new retaining wall. The fan isn’t installed yet, but you can see the rafters in this photo:

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01/06/10 2:18pm

Among the just-announced winners of this year’s Good Brick Awards given out by the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance is this not-so-recently renovated home on Nottingham St. in West University, which belongs to Carol Triebel and Rick Gist. And it does appear to have some good original bricks on the exterior. In a neighborhood where teardowns or the occasional awkward addition are the norm, Natalye Appel + Associates Architects designed an unusual renovation that kept the 1935 home’s outward cottage form, but twisted its innards around.

The design removed most of the home’s walls and doors, and smushed a core of closets, bath, and laundry into the center of the house along the driveway side. The new main living spaces are now arranged in a C shape around that core.

Then there’s the giant island, meant to do more than Kitchen duty:

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12/15/09 2:11pm

A reader writes in to report finding “arguably Houston’s best version of McKim Mead & White’s famous Low House, with maybe a little Brady Bunch pizazz thrown in:”

Complete with the classic Memorial-area window wall facing the back yard. Bet MM&W never thought of that!

It’s this 5-bedroom 1964 home on a little more than half an acre in Bunker Hill Woods, which snuck on the market for $780,000 at the beginning of this month. Plus, raps the listing agent, pecky pickled cypress paneling in the Family and Living Rooms:

Estate property built by architect for himself. Owned by one family exclusively. . . . Floor in gmrm recycled from Rice U science lab as well as lower cabinets in garage.

Never mind the Game Room floor. Where’d they get that bathroom tile?

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12/03/09 12:52pm

Realizing that Modern house fans may want a little gingerbread of their own this season, local online small-houseplan hawker Hometta is offering detailed instructions on how to bake a mostly edible version of the Draft House, a 3-bedroom, 2-bath model designed by the half-Houston-based HouMinn Practice. And the construction documents for this very small house are . . . free! Among the ingredients: dry mixes and peppermint sticks from the Whole Foods gingerbread chalet kit.

If you like how the sample goes together, plans for a full-size, non-edible version of the Draft House are available from Hometta too. But they’re gonna cost you.

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12/03/09 11:28am

Just a month ago, an executive of Brooklyn’s Boymelgreen Developers was telling the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff that the company was still committed to building those twin 28-floor condo towers at the very end of Woodway on San Felipe, next door to the old Dolce & Freddo gelato shop. Development director Sara Mirski reported that the firm planned to start construction on the Ziegler Cooper design next year, after completing a new market analysis in the spring.

The former shopping-center site, just a leap over Buffalo Bayou from Piney Point Village, was purchased by an Israeli company controlled by developer Shaya Boymelgreen 2 years ago, just days after another Boymelgreen affiliate flipped the property at the corner of Richmond and Post Oak — the site of the former Mason Jar and Steak & Ale — for a quick $24 million profit.

But those were the good ol’ days. Now Boymelgreen may have a few other things to take care of before he can get going on the San Felipe Condominiums:

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11/10/09 12:54pm

Note: Story updated below. Stand by for . . . the turret!

One of the nicest things about Swamplot is that we all care about our neighbors! So when one reader sends in a photo of a unique garage-chimney configuration balanced carefully on a townhome near the corner of Ashland and 16th St. in the Heights, it’s only natural that others in our community will want to volunteer their talents and services to help the situation.

The problem: The obvious allures of lick-and-stick stone facing have left a Heights homebuilder with a street face that’s a little . . . attention-getting?

The solution: It’s nothing an architect can’t fix — with a fresh copy of Photoshop and a toolkit of contemporary design favorites! Here’s the completed rendering that was sent into us:

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What fancy high-tech firm just moved into that shimmering new green building off 290 at 43rd St.?

It’s your FBI. And hiding behind those dark shades in the new Houston Field Office:

The building includes a crisis management operations center, room for several crime and gang task forces, an arrest processing area where suspects are brought in, polygraphed, interviewed, booked and fingerprinted.

There’s a “complaint duty” office where anyone can walk in and lodge their concern with an officer on duty.

It also features a heavily equipped exercise room, a clinic headed by fulltime occupational health nurse Tisha Millard and the annual Citizens Academy led by Ronnie Cutlip, outreach coordinator.

The building includes the requisite extra-long-walkway anti-porte-cochere, specially designed to thwart vehicular attacks. But its real innovation is the external green-glass skin, hung away from the building on a lightweight metal frame, and specially formulated so the agents inside will be able to keep their cool when that Texas heat is on:

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11/06/09 8:13pm

Lauren Meyers, archivist of would-be Houston, digs up an earlier plan for a building at 4500 Bissonnet, on the corner of Mulberry St. in Bellaire. That’s the vacant property long in the possession of legendarily delinquent Wilshire Village landlord Jay H. Cohen, where Matt Dilick, the man who now apparently controls it, is planning to build a 2ish-story stucco mild-West meets retail-Tuscan strip center and sell off the rest of the land.

Back in 1946, Cohen’s father, who had developed the Wilshire Village Apartments on West Alabama and Dunlavy 6 years earlier, planned a 122-home subdivision on the 30-acre strip between Avenue A (now Newcastle St.) and Mulberry St. with a partner. And at the southern end of the property, facing Richmond Rd. (now Bissonnet St.), a sweeping, low-slung modern structure spanning Howard St.: the Mulberry Manor Community Center, designed by Houston architects Lloyd & Morgan.

Meyers quotes a Houston Chronicle report from September 1, 1946:

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10/30/09 10:20am

A few readers have requested a final tour of the former Sherwood Forest home of Greenway Plaza developer Kenneth Schnitzer. The home at 314 E. Friar Tuck Ln. showed up in yesterday’s Daily Demolition Report. It was built in 1970 from a design by Houston architects Neuhaus & Taylor.

Have a look around:

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10/26/09 4:01pm

Not a fan of the “ugly uninspired office parks” that line Beltway 8 on the west side of town, radio geek and computer answer guy Jay Lee finds he has a few nice things to say — and photograph — about the recently completed first phase of Westchase Park, a Simmons Vedder office development that’s replaced the Cinemark Tinseltown Westchase just north of Westpark:

There’s a water feature in the front of the building that sports a metallic sculpture which sort of reminds me of the contraption from the movie “Contact.” It’s by far the most interesting piece of architecture I have seen out here on the west beltway.

The building itself is glass and chrome and glints in the daylight. I was kind of hoping the sculpture was a corporate logo of some kind and that this was going to be to world headquarters of some up and coming conglomerate or something. Alas, it is simply a business park and will soon be selling office space to those looking to setup shop in the Westchase District.

On the plus side, it looks pretty cool at night:

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10/01/09 9:36pm

Eastwood clock-watcher Spencer Howard documents the end of the line for the 1935 Sterling Laundry & Cleaning Company building on Harrisburg. Metro doesn’t have any use for the bulk of the Streamline Moderne building in the way of the new light-rail East End Line. But how about grabbing that right-twice-a-day timepiece the building is wearing? The bulky fashion accessory might go with any of several new get-ups envisioned for Eastwood Park across the street.

METRO began the disassembly of the building last week. After several days of careful planning, joints were sawed into the steel frame, stucco clad facade. By the end of the week, a large crane was delivered to the site to assist with the removal of the facade.

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09/23/09 5:23pm

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