Back again with another Neighborhood Guessing Game! Are you ready to play?
You know the drill. We’re still playing under the same old rules — for now: You look at the photos below. You start to get a sense of place. Maybe you start to get a little sleepy. But then you shake that off, and scroll to the bottom of the page so you can enter your guess of this home’s neighborhood in the comments. And you explain your brilliant methods of photographic deduction.
Got it? Let’s see those photos, then:
Houston architect Preston Bolton built this bright house for himself in 1970, on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou just west of Memorial Park. It went on the market earlier this week, listed for just under $2 million.
We’ve had a pretty good run of 35 Neighborhood Guessing Games. So a train wreck like this week’s contest was probably overdue.
At least 6 participants in this round already knew the property posted on Tuesday. Sadly, only one bothered to spice up the game by writing in with the answer, then attempting to deceive the other players with wacky but mildly credible guesses. Most everyone stuck by the rules, but those rules will probably need to see some adjustments (beginning next year) to prevent the NGG from turning into a contest where players compete to guess at things they already know.
Here’s where those of you who were actually guessing thought this colorful pad might be: Meyerland, Tanglewood, the edge of River Oaks, Southampton, Mandell Place, Montrose, the Medical Center, the near Northside near Patton and Main, on Blossom near Shepherd, the Memorial Villages, “somewhere near the Galleria,” Rivercrest, Southgate, Rice Military, Camp Logan, Memorial near Westcott, “that modernish enclave of new houses north of Richmond and west of Kirby,” “just west or southwest of Highland Village shopping center,” or off Woodway near Buffalo Bayou.
The winner this week was John, who managed to stretch out his quick guess into this complete sentence:
My guess is, of all places, Tanglewood.
A few of the many (later) Tanglewood entries:
I think it is that hideous house that is painted school bus yellow just off the boulevard that was built maybe 10 years ago.
this has to be that horrible house in tanglewood near chimney rock.
This has to be that bright yellow, Legorreta wannabe house just east of Chimney Rock.
It reminds me of the hotel Pierce Bronsan stayed at in Matador. All that purple, pink and yellow sure is festive.
Special honors go to this week’s double-agent, Richard, who unleashed some mad FUD-inducing skillz:
The owners of this paean to contemporary high-class-Mexican architecture are probably maxing out their platinum American Express cards at the Louis Vuitton shop at the Galleria. The scale and colors remind me of the Camino Real Hotel in Mexico City, but if they want to sell this house in Rivercrest, they’re going to have to make a trip to Home Depot for some taupe and tan colored paint. This second-home for Mexican immigrants of the non-gardening-or-custodial variety is in Rivercrest, probably even north of Briar Forest on Crestbend. . . .
In fact, after reviewing a previous Swamplot headline, may I venture to guess it’s on the corner of Crestbend and Enchilada??
So what’s the scoop?
First things first: If you know this residence, or if you think you know it, please read this page and focus your attention on rules number 3 and 4.
For the rest of you: Welcome to this edition of Swamplot’s Neighborhood Guessing Game, where you never know where you’re going to end up!
Many of you know how to play already: Study the photos below, look for clues, then try to figure out what neighborhood this place is in. Explain how you’ve come to your conclusion in a comment. Then wait . . . for Thursday, when the answer is revealed, and everyone will recognize what a brilliant expert on Houston real estate you are!
Or not.
Wanna chance it? The photos are this way:
HOLIDAY HEAT “Fireplaces in Houston are kind of like spleens or tonsils; probably used to be necessary, but really just for decoration now, until they flare up and cause a problem, or allow racoons, birds and rats unfettered access to your living room. Along with all the other picturesque images of family life I gleaned from Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney, I always envisioned my home with a fireplace. The only trouble is, Drew makes so much of his own heat that he can barely stand to be near himself without sweating. I’m always moments from losing a limb to frostbite, so it’s difficult for us to agree on a mutually comfortable temperature. But, as you can tell, the fireplace is lit in this photo, so we must be learning to compromise. Indeed. All I have to do to make Drew thrilled to sit in front of a lit fire in December is turn on the fan. And the air conditioner.” [A Peine for Your Thoughts]
Where was this thing?
First, your guesses: 2 each for Braes Heights, Bellaire, Westbury, and Garden Oaks. Plus: “within a mile of Montrose/Studemont /Studewood,” east of Montrose near Alabama, near Westheimer and Kirby, Highland Village, Montrose, Meyerland, Castle Court, near the Menil, Sharpstown, West University, Larchmont, Oak Forest, Timbergrove, Lazybrook, Timbergrove or Lazybrook, Spring Branch, “Maplewood, west of Chimney Rock, maybe even right on Beechnut,” “somewhere right off of Shepherd between 59 and Allen Parkway,” Idylwood, near Stella Link, and Afton Oaks.
Fortunately, nobody guessed the Heights. Is it in the Heights? In a lazy, geographical way, maybe. But not really. Only the real-estate agent would call this neighborhood the Heights. Or, more specifically, “Heights/East.”
Which means the winner is . . . the quick-to-the-draw marmer, in the very first response:
This smallish one-story was probably built just before or just after WWII, and is probably within a mile of Montrose/Studemont/Studewood, could be anywhere between Bissonnet and North Main.
And it is — just barely — at the top end of both ranges.
If someone is able to detail the garage history of this home, it might win Carol an honorable mention. Without that, the nod goes to Howard Hughes, for this bit of only somewhat peccable real-estate logic:
Lack of seperation between the living/dining areas, as well as a small squatty window denote this as a post-war house…probably from the mid to late 1950s. $ was spent on the interior decoration, so it’s probably in an area enjoying a resurgence.
So . . . what’s with the garage?
The best thing about real estate’s Christmas season? The Easter Bunny gets to take a break.
A few more animal mascots are hiding in the listing photos for this 4 bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home in Sageglen. How many can you find?
Note: Story updated below.
The mystery buyer of the house at 834 W. 24th St. has revealed herself! Quilter, artist, and Art Car builder Kim Ritter, who says she was “raised mid-century modern,” expects to close on the Museum of the Weird on December 15th. Museum curator Dolan Smith is planning his own art sale on the property two days earlier; Ritter says that the sale will run from 2 to 8 pm, and that the prices will be far less than what you’d expect to pay for, say, a sculpture made of hair:
Come by and get a bargain, stuff starting at 5 and 10 dollars!
Ritter tells Swamplot she’s purchased some of Smith’s work herself, including a piece entitled “Man of Ten Thousand Nails,” which she intends to keep on the property.
Does this mean the museum will be preserved?
For this week’s game, another reader submission — keep ’em coming!
Do you know how to play the game?
Look closely at all the photos. Add up the clues. Plot the coordinates on a map. Then impress everyone with your brilliant conclusions! The winner gets a . . . win!
Ready?
What delights await you in this Westbury Gardens condo? The video choreographs the entrance sequence beautifully.
Under the romantic entry arch, through the peaceful courtyard, past the double doors, up the stairs . . . what’s next?
Conspicuously absent from the MLS listing for 834 W. 24th St. in the Heights: any mention (or photos) of the Scar Room, a small chamber of sculptures and small wood panels on which house owner and artist Dolan Smith and sympathetic visitors graphically documented their physical and psychological afflictions. Sample Scar Room decor: “a submerged doll with a piece of rubber hose wrapped around its neck, representing the umbilical cord that nearly strangled Smith at birth.”
But it isn’t too hard to find exacting descriptions of the home online. The Houston Press, for example, featured this bit of color as it celebrated the home’s come-from-behind win of the paper’s “Best Shrine to the Abnormal” award back in 2002:
Donations of every imaginable variety show up weekly: horns, doll heads, a film canister of Tommy Lee Jones’s spit, balls of Saran Wrap, clumps of hair, an appendix, color photos of fallopian tubes and contemporary art of a disquieting nature. Artist/nutball Dolan Smith has turned his Heights bungalow into a mecca for all things weird. . . .
Smith is supplementing his empire of the bizarre with a two-thirds-complete pet cemetery. Last year, Tropical Storm Allison took its toll on the nascent final resting place for pets. Rising floodwaters filled the jars of 32 dead rats, inadvertently creating biological pipe bombs.
Sure, you’re thinking . . . Who’s gonna buy this place?
No problem. Realtor Weldon Rigby, himself no stranger to homes graced by an occasional mannequin, has already done himself proud. After just a month and a half on the market, the home — listed for $150,000 — went “option pending” on November 14th.
“Brown finds itself at the epicenter of two major design styles that [have] swept the country,” declares Cote de Texas’s Joni Webb. And those would be? “The Belgian and Industrial looks.”
In Houston at least, Jill Brown appears to have cornered the market on large lantern-style lighting fixtures and European instructional charts. On separate recent visits to her last-name-only shop on the corner of Ferndale and W. Alabama, Webb and fellow design blogger Paloma Contreras documented the finds:
Looks like the Guessing Game subject for this round wasn’t quite as popular as last week’s Wylie Vale Contemporary Country home in Katy. But the guesses were better!
Two of you guessed Sharpstown. The rest: Sharpstown/Bellaire, Pearland, Westchase, south of the Westpark Tollway near Highway 6, off Newcastle just south of 59, “anywhere in a wide swath from Westpark [counter]clockwise to 288,” Tanglewilde, around 59 and Beltway 8, the Dairy Ashford corridor, Sagemeadow, “between Bellaire and Harwin; Wilcrest and Kirkwood,” off Fry Rd. north of I-10, “one of the older neighborhoods on the Cinco Ranch side of I-10 around Kingsland or Highland Knolls,” Bear Creek, Katy, Pasadena, Greenspoint, “Sommerset” (Somerset Place on Memorial Dr.?), Atascocita, the Woodlands, Glenbrook Valley, “down I-45 toward Almeda,” “West side south of Buffalo Bayou between Beltway 8 and Highway 6,” Alief, and “somewhere in the stretch of floodplain between League City and La Porte.”
The winner is the reclusive Howard Hughes, for the sufficiently inclusive guess of “the 59/BW8 area.” No one came closer!
An honorable mention goes to Miz Brooke Smith, for these wide-ranging observations (including an equally wide-ranging — but accurate — stab at the map):
How generic can one place get? This could be anywhere, any time between 1979 and 2005. Definitely somewhere flood-prone, given all that room-expanding bias tile. And the wood floors in the bedrooms look suspiciously like laminate. Home-Doodle-special builder’s-grade cabinetry, marbuluxe countertops and molding-less nekkid window frames scream 1980’s el cheapo condo, as does the treeless view out the sliding glass patio doors. But where, oh where could this grim pad be? I will defer to fellow Guessing Game contestants to pin the tail on this donkey that could be anywhere in a wide swath from Westpark [counter] clockwise to 288.
Can we get a little more exact? How about the Northfield Patio Homes, in Fondren Southwest?
It isn’t even vaguely Victorian, and only half of it is new. But the Heights left room for this house anyway: A 1911 bungalow featuring a turn-of-the-century Arts-and-Crafts makeover and addition, on a double-size lot. It’s been on the market since late last month. For only $749K!
Each bedroom of this home at 19502 Gamble Oak Dr. in the Pines of Atascocita has its own distinctive personality!
So . . . what color is the Breakfast Room?
