Tag: Interiors

Homes for Sale
11/10/11 3:59pm

Back After a Break: William Jenkins Mod in Willowbend

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Modern Design, Willowbend
4 Comments

After a fall cleaning and October vacation, this 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Willowbend jumped back into the market over the weekend. The price is still $259,900, but that’s down $15K (in 2 jumps) from its original ask back in May. It’s a roughly L-shaped 1955 mod wrapped around a pool and fitted onto a cul-de-sac extension by William Jenkins, namesake of UH’s Art and Architecture Library, near several other homes he designed. Busy South Post Oak Blvd. is just beyond the back fence, but inside all is cool and quiet:

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Gleannloch Farms
11/07/11 2:54pm

Grotto Magic: The Seventies Party Castle Where Gleannloch Farms Began

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Homes for Sale, Interiors
9 Comments

Yes, the pool grotto connects directly to the master bedroom of this $2.4 million party estate, if you had to ask. “Long before there was a subdivision called Gleannloch Farms, there was a ranch there called Gleannloch Farms where they raised Arabian horses,” explains a reader who claims to know something about this property. “I am 99% sure that this listing is actually the original house for the ranch. HCAD shows it as built in 1979, which would predate the subdivision by about 20 years, so I guess it would have to be.” You’re looking at the home’s “grand ballroom” above, which faces the front motor court. Also on the 6-acre grounds: a tennis court, a pond with spurting fountain, a detached 8-car garage, a guest house turned into an exercise gym, a separate gameroom building with a summer kitchen, and an actual outdoor pool you can use if this skylit indoor one starts to fester:

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Adaptive Reuse
11/04/11 1:21pm

The Auditorium of the Former Alabama Theater Is Now a Giant Sandbox

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Historic Preservation, Interiors, Renovations, Retail, Upper Kirby
8 Comments

If any ghosts of Alabama Theater moviegoers were still intent on haunting the spaces once occupied by their old seats, they’d be buried in sand by now. A Swamplot reader and theater buff shows us the current state of the building’s innards — as seen yesterday from strategic views through the front and rear glass doors. On its way to a new level and Trader Joe’s-worthy surface, the auditorium’s basement and raked floor have been transformed into what now appears to be the city’s largest indoor sandbox. (From the photos, it looks like only a single motorized sand toy gets to play in it, though.)

A new, permanent concrete floor ordered by the owners of the landmarked 1939 Art Deco building, Weingarten Realty, will replace the removable raised-floor system put in place in the early 1980s, when the theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. was transformed into the Alabama Bookstop bookstore.

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Attractions
11/02/11 1:39pm

Inside Views of Yoshio Taniguchi’s Asia Society Texas Center, Houston’s Next Big Museum District Thing

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Interiors, Museum District, Museums, New Construction
13 Comments

The big new Asia Society Texas building designed by Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi along Southmore Blvd. in the Museum District won’t officially open until next April, but a new slideshow featured on the organization’s website provides early peeks into some of the 38,000-sq.-ft. structure’s ultra-spare interiors. Included in Paul Hester’s photos: Views of the 280-Poltrona-Frau-seat Brown Foundation Performing Arts Theater, meeting spaces with carefully framed garden perches, and closeups of several sleek staircases. The AsiaStore Texas gift shop will probably look a little different from this once it gets loaded up with stuff to sell:

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Demolitions
10/31/11 10:14am

Did Weingarten Realty Just Bury the 1939 Art Deco Interior of the Alabama Theater in Concrete?

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Historic Preservation, Interiors, Leasing, Renovations, Retail, Shopping Centers, Strip Centers, Upper Kirby
30 Comments

It sure looks like it: Here’s a photo of the theater’s west parking lot, sent to Swamplot by a reader who noted that a concrete pour began on Saturday morning. Earlier this month, Weingarten received a permit for “Landlord Improvements — Infill/Leveling,” though the permit’s title doesn’t make it clear what kind of leveling the national REIT wanted to do to the landmarked structure at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr., which is expected to be transformed into Houston’s first Trader Joe’s market.

Why would Weingarten want to pour a thick layer of concrete onto the floor of its historic building — and how much demolition of the theater’s interior might be accompanying this work?

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Attractions
10/27/11 11:30am

Inside Houston’s New Sundance Cinemas Downtown

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Downtown, Interiors, Nightlife, Openings and Closings, Renovations
38 Comments

Here’s what you’ll want to know about the new Sundance Cinemas taking the place of the shuttered Angelika Film Center in Bayou Place downtown: First, you’ll still get 3 hours of free parking underground. Seating is by single-seat reservation only, but you’ll be able to pick your preferred movie-watching spot (and print out your tickets) from the comfort of your own computer if you want to avoid lines. Adult tix for evening shows are $10.50 ($3 less for matinees), but there’s a tacked-on “amenity fee” that varies from nothing to $3 depending on the time of day and day of the week of your showing. What amenities will you be receiving in return for that little upcharge? Well, there’s the parking, the seat-reservation system, and the facility’s cost of maintaining “as green a facility as possible.” Plus, the 8-screen theater promises no TV-style advertisements before movies start.

And how’s the place looking so far?

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Buying and Selling
10/21/11 7:26pm

Champions Golf Course Chateau: Sold, for $3.5 Million

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Champions, Foreclosures, Home Design, Interiors
22 Comments

Have a look around this little 25,637-sq.-ft. castle on a 5-acre lot at the edge of the Champions Golf Course. The master suite alone measures 3,000 sq. ft. Construction began in 2005, but last year the property was taken over by the lender, Encore Bank, before the final touches could be completed — like the elevator connecting the 3-car underground garage to the rest of the house. The MLS listing announced the bank planned to auction the home by November 5th to the highest bidder. But it was scooped up before then — for $3.5 million — by someone who could truly appreciate its fine marble and plaster finishes: the founder of a drywall contracting company and his wife. Wayne and Karen Martin tell the Chronicle‘s Nancy Sarnoff they plan to finish the home and landscape it with “European-style” gardens and reflecting ponds. “There’s a lot of history in that place. It’s phenomenal,” Martin tells Sarnoff.

But they don’t plan to move in.

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Grogan's Point
10/18/11 11:31am

On the Market: Woodlands House of 1000 Pigments

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Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interiors, The Woodlands
34 Comments

No faux finishing technique — or potential painting surface — was spared in the latest redo of this 21-year-old 9,181-sq.-ft. Woodlands mansion in Grogan’s Point. You’ll count 6 or 7 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a study, and gameroom, all with walls carefully protected by multiple coats of carefully splotched pigment. Those finishing touches put the many wall colors of this home beyond the reach of description.

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Homes for Sale
10/14/11 2:44pm

An Allen Bianchi Rivercrest Stone Showcase

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Interiors, Rivercrest
39 Comments

Listed earlier this week, for $3.8 million: This 3-story home, designed in 2008 by Houston architect Allen Bianchi for the president of a stone supply company. That would explain the more than 20,000 sq. ft. of stone surfaces attached to the house, including the limestone cladding outside. The 4-bedroom, 5-1/2-bath block sits on 3 3/4 gated acres on West Rivercrest, just a few mansions south of Briar Forest Dr.

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Home Decor
10/13/11 9:00am

River Oaks House of Wow

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, River Oaks
52 Comments

Only 2 days on the market, and already this River Oaks home has become a Swamplot tipster favorite. Born in 1934 from plans by the Russell Brown Company, the home’s more recent mostly red- and green-hued interior is attributed to George Weinle, apparently a fan of hovering centerpieces. The 3- or 4-bedroom home sits quietly across from Elliott Park, just west of Kirby Dr. It’s been listed for just north of $2 million.

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Condos for Sale
09/29/11 10:23am

Ken and Linda Lay’s Penthouse Condo Now Available for Nearly Half Off

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Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
14 Comments

That thump you heard? The sound of this 33rd-floor Huntingdon penthouse once owned by Ken and Linda Lay dropping another million dollars. Over the weekend the asking price for the 12,827-sq.-ft. castle in the air fell to $6.99 million. Enron founder Ken Lay died in 2006, shortly after being convicted of 10 counts of securities fraud and related charges. His widow first put this little pied-à-terre at 2121 Kirby Dr. on the market in the fall of 2009, for $12.8 million. By the beginning of this year, it had floated down to $8,875,000.

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Comments
09/27/11 6:36pm

Comment of the Day: Inside The Knowles Family’s Walmart Home for the Holidays

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Farnham Park, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Memorial, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing
No Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: INSIDE THE KNOWLES FAMILY’S WALMART HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS “That sitting area by the fireplace looks familiar — is that where they filmed the commercial with the band members/family opening up all their gifts from Wal-Mart?” [Hellsing, commenting on Is This the House Behind the House of Deréon? Beyonce’s Mom Tina Knowles Selling Farnham Park Mansion]

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Adaptive Reuse
09/26/11 5:13pm

What Would Stay and What Would Go in a Trader Joe’s Alabama Theater Clearance

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Historic Preservation, Interiors, Retail, Upper Kirby
7 Comments

Trader Joe’s hasn’t yet signed a lease for the former Alabama Theater location at 2922 S. Shepherd it’s considering for its first-ever Houston store. But the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance has scouted out a few details on what would likely stay and what would likely go in a Two Buck Chuck-ified Art Deco theater interior. Staying: the building’s mezzanine and lighting, though with “some modifications.” Going: the Shepherd-side entrance vestibule of the 1939 building, including original enameled panels and poster frames and the swirly-patterned terrazzo flooring — which is sloped too steeply to meet current ADA requirements, according to the city’s planning director. A Weingarten Realty spokesperson says current plans are to replace the terrazzo with concrete. Also, the mural shown above — which formed the right cheek of the theater’s movie screen (later the magazine section of Bookstop) — is slated for removal.

Photos: David Bush (terrazzo) and Jim Parsons (mural)

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Farnham Park
09/23/11 4:36pm

Is This the House Behind the House of Deréon? Beyonce’s Mom Tina Knowles Selling Farnham Park Mansion

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Homes for Sale, Interiors, Memorial
24 Comments

Fashion designer Tina Knowles put her Houston estate on the market this week — just days after the London Fashion Week launch of her and daughter Beyonce’s House of Deréon International Collection at Selfridges. Coincidence? Yeah, more than likely. The fashion line of women’s clothing and bedding is named after Knowles’s mother and Beyonce’s grandmother, Galveston seamstress Agnèz Deréon (later Agnèz Beyincé). Knowles founded the House of Dereon line with her daughter in 2004 — the same year she bought this property in the gated Memorial-area neighborhood of Farnham Park off San Felipe, west of Voss.

Boasting 5 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half baths, and the sort of charming, quasi-institutional exterior that could only have sprung from the 1970s, the home is listed at a dollar under $3.5 million. Inside, it’s been done up this way:

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