COMMENT OF THE DAY: BACK IN THE WILD DAYS OF CASTLE COURT “I’m sure the townhouses on Mandell near Castle Court are quite nice, but what could ever compare to the story of the house formerly on the site that housed Hugo the gorilla? Thanks to a friend who lived nearby, seeing him remains one of my most vivid memories after over 40 years.” [Hellsing, commenting on Comment of the Day: You Can’t Buy Home Again; more info]
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Tag: Houston History
A local engineering firm is buying the original 1967 model of AstroWorld listed for sale recently on Craigslist — and plans to donate it to the Houston Public Library’s Metropolitan Research Center, so that it can be put on display in the newly expanded Julia Ideson Building. I.A. Naman + Associates president and “very regular” Swamplot reader Thomas G. Barrow says he learned about the model from our post yesterday: “My accountant happened to be walking by my office and I asked if I could have some money. He looked at the piece and said ‘That’s cool!’ and a few minutes later we did the deal.” Barrow says he’s already spoken with library officials about the installation, and that they’ve already begun looking for an interim home for the model before it goes on display to the public. Naman was the mechanical and electrical design engineer for AstroWorld, the Astrodome, and several related facilities.
- About Us [IAN+A]
- Domed Stadium Air-Conditioning Design (PDF) [IAN+A]
- Previously on Swamplot: Now on Craigslist: Original AstroWorld Model, For Sale: Early Model AstroWorld
Photos: Bill Davenport
Why is the original scale model of AstroWorld listed for sale on Craigslist? Curator Bill Davenport spent a lot of time dusting the giant model before exhibiting it at his Norhill gallery last fall. He says he’s going to need to move the “irreplaceable (if awkwardly large) bit of Houston history” out of Optical Project on 11th St. soon — “and I really don’t want to dis-assemble it and put it back in Mr. Henderson’s garage, where it will get dirty again.” Ed Henderson built the model in 1967; it was returned to him when the park was dismantled 6 years ago — after long stints in Judge Hofheinz’s 9th-level suite at the Astrodome, and in a Foley’s display case downtown before that. For the Craigslist appearance, Davenport jacked up the asking price to $5,500, but says Henderson would accept $3,000 “from somebody who planned to keep the model in Houston, or donate it to the Houston Public Library’s Metropolitan Research Center.” Library representatives have told Davenport they’d like to put the model on display in the newly expanded Julia Ideson building downtown, but don’t have the money to pay for it.
- Original model of Astroworld – $5500 [Craigslist]
- AstroWorld 1968 [Optical Project]
- Previously on Swamplot: For Sale: Early Model AstroWorld
Photos: Bill Davenport
WHERE THE GRASS IS ALWAYS NEATER 
“I used to walk to school everyday and I used to pass by the home of the richest man in the area and he had a square block that was magnificently trimmed at all times and in the back of my mind subconsciously I considered a lawn like that as ‘success.’ So when I bought me a big house here in Houston the weeds were growing all around my trees and everything and i couldn’t get anybody to do it. Finally I found somebody that’d do it and he reached down into the grass and he got bit by a snake and I spent the rest of my day trying to save his life rather than get my yard done.” — dance instructor George Ballas, inventor of the Weed Eater, who passed away over the weekend at age 85. Ballas came up with the idea for his transformative product after watching spinning bristles clean his Cadillac at a car wash near Houston International (now Hobby) Airport. Until he sold the company to Emerson Electric, the company’s worldwide headquarters stood at 10515 Harwin. The company got a major boost from commercials shown during David Frost’s interviews with former president Richard Nixon in 1977. [Business Makers; obituary] Photo of Ballas’s West Houston lawn: Corky and Shirley Ballas
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.
ANDY FASTOW COMES HALFWAY HOME The Enron trial star rolled into town from Louisiana with an entourage yesterday to begin a 6-month stay in an unidentified Houston halfway house. The former CFO of Houston’s most famous company ever pled guilty to 2 charges of conspiracy for misleading investors about Enron’s pretty darn tricky financial situation; he began a 6-year sentence — marked down from 10 for some good testifyin’ — in 2006. Fastow is scheduled to be released on probation and go all the way home on December 17th. [Houston Chronicle]
HOUSTON’S SPACE SHUTTLE TRIBUTE — IN PIECES 
Sure, Houston won’t be the rest home of choice for any of the space shuttles that retired intact, but what about the ones that blew up? Mayor Parker says she now supports a plan being promoted by several family members of Columbia and Challenger astronauts to store recovered remnants of the exploded Columbia orbiter in a large warehouse connected to Space Center Houston. More than 80,000 separate pieces of debris recovered from the 2003 disaster are currently stored in a 16th floor office in the Vehicle Assembly Building of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. Parker tells the Chronicle‘s Mike Morris she thinks an exhibit of burnt and broken shuttle parts here could “create a fitting memorial to those astronauts. Not a tourist attraction, but to really recognize the commitment that Houston and Houstonians have made and the sacrifices they’ve made for space. That is an opportunity.” [Houston Politics; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Columbia debris: CollectSpace
The synopsis of the new opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith is under embargo until performances at the Royal Opera House begin on February 17th. But judging from the released video trailer (below), it’s likely the production will also feature the London stage debut of the former Gigi’s Cabaret on the 290 feeder road just across 34th St. from the Northbrook Shopping Center in Houston (or more probably its interior), where in 1991 the former Walmart and Red Lobster employee had the extremely good fortune of meeting the greatest sugar daddy of them all, billionaire J. Howard Marshall II. Both Smith and Gigi’s later underwent renovations and name changes: Smith from her original Vickie Lynn Hogan; Gigi’s more recently to Pleasures. But how realistic will the portrayals be? Will set designer Miriam Buether’s version get the Houston strip club’s stage and runway areas right?
The HBJ’s Jennifer Dawson picks up an interesting detail about Springwoods Village, the mysterious eco-themed community being planned by a mysterious company for 1,800 mostly forested acres just south of the Woodlands, at the intersection of I-45, the Hardy Toll Road, and (someday) the Grand Parkway. Coventry Development, still won’t talk about the project’s connection to the rumored but not-yet-announced corporate campus ExxonMobil appears to be building next door, which is expected to consolidate most employees currently based in Houston and Fairfax, Virginia. But it sure looks like Coventry is banking on something big close by: Development director Keith Simon tells Dawson that
Coventry will develop commercial parcels in Springwoods before the residential acreage. The company’s strategy is to build commercial first to create tax value that will funnel money through the tax district to fund infrastructure.
Building standalone office parks and strip centers in the middle of a forest is, of course, a time-honored Houston development tradition. More often these days though, the sprawling houses go in first. But if the major centralized campus of the second-largest publicly traded company in the world is going to bring in thousands of workers nearby pretty soon anyway, yeah — what’s the point?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ALL THE NEW THAT FITS “What exactly would be ‘in character construction’ in the Heights? Run-down 2-story apartment from the 1960s next to a body shop next to a faux Victorian?” [MarkM, commenting on Studewood Place: Some New Building Behind the 11th St. Someburger]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE GOOD OL’ DAYS AT THE HOUTEX INN “I stayed there once for a few hours. It was nice.” [sally01, commenting on Houtex Inn, Round 2]
Responding to Swamplot’s request last week for photos of the former Prudential Life Insurance Tower the University of Texas’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is getting ready to demolish, architect Karen Lantz sends in a few photos she took while on a mod-gawking expedition in September 2003. Last week the medical institution began knocking down the porte-cochere at the building’s Holcombe St. entrance — to allow workers to remove one of the few items being preserved from the building: a mural in the building’s lobby painted by Peter Hurd in 1952. Lantz, who’s a bit of a demolition expert herself (her piece-by-piece dismantling of a home in Ranch Estates was awarded Swamplot’s Best Teardown Award in 2009), includes a few views of the grand entrance to Houston’s first-ever corporate campus:
Update, 5:14 p.m.: Today’s demo is just of an exterior canopy. But the entire building will likely be demolished next month.
The Rice Design Alliance is reporting that M.D. Anderson has begun tearing down the former Prudential Life Insurance building at 1100 Holcombe St. in the Med Center. Since 1975, it has served as the “Houston Main Building” for the medical institution’s campus. The 18-story limestone tower was constructed as the centerpiece of Houston’s first suburban office park in 1952, from a design by Kenneth Franzheim. For almost 10 years, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has been floating plans to knock it down and replace it with a new medical facility. Got any pics of the action, or images of the building’s notable interior to share? Send them in! We’ll publish updates as we get them.
- Prudential/Houston Main Building [arch-ive.org]
- Preservationists oppose plan to demolish historic building [Houston Business Journal]
Photo: Candace Garcia
There had to have been a pretty good view of the developing oil business from the back windows of this home. It was built in 1843 on the eastern bank of Goose Creek in what’s now Baytown, and probably enjoyed those first quiet 60 years before anyone suspected there’d be any oil back there. A little after 1916, though, it must have smelled pretty nasty, backing up to the state’s first offshore oil field.
It went on the market as an estate sale in August: first at $89,000, then lower after a $10K price cut in November. Someone put a contract on it late last week.
BUT IT WAS WORTH IT “‘…the most miserable place in the world. . . .’ ‘Early reports from Houston said that when people came out on any given morning you could find as many as four bodies lying dead in the streets, victims of the previous night’s mayhem.’ You’d be forgiven if you thought this was the Houston of today. But actually this is Houston in the 1830s.” — Chronicle blogger J.R. Gonzales, discussing Houston: A Nation’s Capitol, Houston Arts & Media’s new feature-length documentary about the early development of this city. [Bayou City History] Trailer: Houston Arts & Media