If it’s Tuesday, this must be the Neighborhood Guessing Game. Wanna play? Read the rules if you’re new to it . . . then dive on in with your guesses!
Where in Sam Houston is this place? When you’re ready to see more interior pics, see below!
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Tag: Interiors
More new players in this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game . . . but more old guesses, too!
Three of the 4 Montrose guesses were nicely specific: We had Montrose north of Alabama and west of Montrose Blvd., “the northwestern corner of Montrose, east of Shepherd around West Dallas,” and “either off Hawthorne or above Westheimer between Dunlavy and Montrose.” Two of you guessed the Heights, with a third player specifying the “Shepherd/Durham side” of the neighborhood. There was another vote for Woodland Heights.
Six guesses clumped together: Boulevard Oaks, Edgemont, Greenbriar, Southampton, Southgate, off Bissonnet east of Kirby. We had individual guesses of Garden Oaks, River Oaks, “the area around Braeswood and Buffalo Speedway,” and Bunker Hill. Also, single votes for the generic “Eastside,” “around the Medical Center off 288,” Eastwood, Idylwood, Sienna Plantation, Sugarland, Friendswood, Pearland, and Village Grove in Pasadena.
The winner is . . . first-time guesser Chris, who strolled right into the correct neighborhood:
Nicely remodeled…has a 20’s or 30’s style, though I cannot tell if it is designed that way or authentic. Looks like they use every inch for living or storage, which means it *is* probably genuinely old–still, I am not sure of the actual size as the wide-angle lens throws me off. Still, the look is reminiscient of Eastwood’s finer homes, or perhaps Idylwood.
. . . but then kept on going:
Or maybe off Greenbriar around Rice. Now I’m confusing myself.
Come on back to the East Side, Chris!
Another first-time player, Brian, clearly deserves an honorable mention for making these sharp calls:
It looks like the dropped ceilings along the edge of the kitchen were done for the sole purpose of adding air conditioning after construction. The vegetation appears too close, too big, too lush to be new construction. The roof line on the second floor seems more shingle style than victorian, so I doubt the Heights.
After the jump: on the Live Bodies side of Brays Bayou. Plus . . . it’s been snagged!
Here we go again! Photo, interiors, and real-estate sleuths: Your clues are here. Can you identify the mystery neighborhood?
If you know this house already, you can play too . . . but please follow the rules of the game!
Fun inside-only photos . . . below!
You guys are good! And better at this than you think you are. You found all the right clues to this week’s puzzle . . . the problem was just putting them together!
Before we get to our winners, your list of guesses: Oak Forest attracted 4 votes. There were 3 guesses each for Montrose and West University, and 2 each for Bellaire and Lazybrook. We had 4 separate votes for Knollwood, Timberside, Woodshire, and Stella Link. The rest went to Meyerland, Timbergrove, Clear Lake, Kemah, “something out I 45 towards the Gulf,” the Houston Ave./Sawyer/Washington area, Afton Village, Cleveland, the Heights, “that area south of Richmond, east of Shepherd but immediately north of the recessed portion of 59 over by Mt. Vernon,” Alief, and Braes Terrace.
This week’s win goes to two players: CK, who called Clear Lake:
. . . it’s hard to tell if it’s a street outside or lakefront.
Aha!
And Joni Webb, who called Kemah:
It’s old – say 50 years, low ceilings, actually cute for once . . . mature landscaping . . . lots and lots of palm tree type plants and it could be around Kemah – those really cute old houses there. Artsy community.
For this game, Clear Lake and Kemah were close enough. Seabrook would have won it outright, and Ruggles East would have beaten that!
So . . . what were the clues? marmer picked up a few:
The craft room and living room are on the front of the house, and narrow, probably original rooms. Most everything else is an addition. What’s with the weird bedroom with French doors and no window treatment? Do exhibitionists live here?
And so did toadfroggy:
My only thought is that those blue cabinets would never have survived in an area that’s seen much flipping, so it’s unlikely to be in any of the close-in nabes if it’s even in Houston at all.
. . . which earn them both honorable mentions. No interfering liars this week!
After the jump: Around and about that house!
And here we are with the 15th round of Swamplot’s Neighborhood Guessing Game! Players, are you ready? Newcomers, have you studied the rules?
This week’s home comes to you from . . . somewhere! And you get to guess where that somewhere is. See below for a few select photos and then . . . guess away!
Houston interior designer Babs Watkins’s ur-Aqua Beach House in Galveston, featured in a summer issue of Veranda magazine shortly after the home was completed in 2004, is now on HAR, notes Joni Webb:
The beach house generated quite a stir as it was knock-out gorgeous and was furnished with wonderful, painted antiques instead of typical tacky, beachy, white wicker. The most alluring aspect of the house was the color aqua used throughout. Aqua was everywhere, aqua floors, aqua fabrics, aqua furniture, aqua mirrors. Without a doubt, owing to how memorable this beach house was, it started a trend for Veranda: each summer since this home has graced the cover, Veranda has featured another aqua beach house. Obviously they are trying to top Watkins’ version, but in my opinion, the torch has not been passed. Watkins’ work remains the best of all the Veranda “Aqua Beach Houses.“
Webb finds not much has changed about the house since it was featured, but does note some surprises. The HAR photos show . . . a pool table! And a huge open Kitchen that looks onto to the living space! And a curvy banquette and ottoman covered with a woven palm-tree-print fabric on the opposite side of the Kitchen counter. And . . . lots of floral prints in the Master Bedroom. And many more not-ready-for-Veranda moments hidden from shelter-magazine gawkers. But Webb isn’t so fussy herself:
It certainly is everything one would want in a second home, if, of course, you have a couple of cool millions. . . . In fact, this is the second time it has been listed. It’s held up pretty well, and is remarkably still “photo ready” for a second shoot which is amazing for a beach house considering the wear and tear they take.
The 6-bedroom, 6-and-2-half-bath house is on the canal side of Laffite’s Cove, and sprawls over three lots. The asking price is $2.1 million, but you may be too late to buy it: It’s listed as “Pending Continue to Show.” After the jump: a few pics from HAR, before they’re disappeared!
CNET’s Daniel Terdiman takes a tour of the Johnson Space Center and comes back with some photos of equipment and facilities being developed for Constellation, the back-to-the-moon project scheduled to begin launching in 2013. (The Space Shuttle program will be phased out by 2010.)
For those of us interested in the latest in Houston interiors technology, Terdiman includes photos of a mockup of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, meant to take the next generation of astronauts to the moon and beyond. Is that a strip of velcro on the wall on the right? Cool!
Doesn’t look so exciting to you? Hey, they’ve got 5 years to work on it!
After the jump: The Orion capsule mockup from the outside, plus the new 12-wheeler parked outside!
Well, where were we? This week’s mystery sky-pad fetched individual guesses of: Greenway Plaza, Museum District/Med Center, “near Woodway,” Gessner and Memorial, Memorial between Shepherd and Westcott, The Woodlands, Champions, Champion Forest, Riverside Terrace, Sugarland, Missouri City, River Oaks, Glendower Court (actually, “North of Westheimer and probably west of Shepherd, in that town-house filled area south of River Oaks”), and the Galleria.
Some of you guessed particular buildings. Two of you took a stab at Regency House, 2 1/2 fell for Four Leaf Towers, and 2 said it was the Timber Top. We also had guesses of the Huntingdon, the Willowick, Bayou Bend Towers, “the highrise near the Medical Center and Hermann Park” (the Parklane or the Warwick Towers or the Mosaic?), the Endeavour, “a small mid-rise apartment complex” on Augusta between San Felipe and Westheimer, the St. Clair Condos near the Post Oak YMCA, 14 or 15 Greenway Plaza, Hermann Towers (?), and the Spires.
The winner is LawrenceDean, who was first to name the Timber Top highrise in Champion Forest — and threw in this bit of color commentary:
I’m going to go with this being a glimpse of the lifestyle of a (very old) northside baller…..
However, this came after some excellent advance work by Bernard, who is apparently expert in staring out of windows:
I don’t see how it can be “in townâ€. Take a look out the window. There’s nothing but green space. It’s hard to imagine a high rise in town that wouldn’t have a view of at least a couple tall buildings popping up from the tree tops.
It’s clearly a two story unit. Must be a penthouse. But it doesn’t look too high up. The building can’t be more than 15-20 stories.
Maybe it’s on the west side of town with a west facing view. It would suck to have a penthouse facing the wrong direction. . . .
There are two patches of green out the window. Is that a golf course? Maybe some forward thinking developer stole (I mean borrowed and never repaid) some S&L money and built a mini-high-rise out in The Woodlands or Champions. I don’t know those ares very well.
If only you had! That’s enough for an honorable mention, though!
Special recognition goes to our two fully authorized troublemakers this week — Jeff and GoogleMaster — who identified the listing to us privately and then vied to keep easily swayed guessers focused on inside-the-Loop neighborhoods. This loopy comment by Jeff, in particular, is priceless:
Seriously, only an Inner Looper would have elephant tusks next to their couch.
After some initial overreaching, this Timber Top penthouse has been sitting on the market for quite some time. How long? See our summary:
Okay, Neighborhood Guessing Gamers: Here’s your home. Guess where it is!
If you’ve seen this place before, please be sure to check the rules before you post a comment. But then please do! We could use some tricksters in the mix.
If you haven’t . . . good luck. This one could be a toughie.
When you’re ready to see the rest of the pics of this week’s pad, see below!
The votes are in! Thanks to all of you who played this week’s game! We had some great comments this time.
Two of you thought the house we showed might be in Sugar Land. Another two guessed Clear Lake. Tanglewood also got 2 votes — one specifying “near Winrock.” Bellaire had two too — one of them pegging it off Newcastle, south of Bissonnet. There was a traffic jam around Memorial, with single guesses of Memorial, the Memorial Villages, “west of 610/east of Voss and north of San Felipe/south of Memorial,” “Blalock/Bunker Hill area near Memorial/San Felipe,” “one of the Kickerillo subdivisions,” “off Briar Forest between Kirkwood and Dairy Ashford,” and Huntwick. The Woodlands, Crestwood, Champions, Augusta, Rice Military, Westhaven Estates, the Heights, Pearland, Manvel, Riverside Terrace, Midtown, Buffalo Speedway, Knollwood, Woodlake Square, and Greatwood attracted one vote each.
The winner was CK, who took a stab at Bellaire . . . and nailed it. Good work!
Honorable mentions go to four contestants who were able to tease out a few interesting details about the house. First, Scott, for this sad but brilliant bit of real-estate logic:
If it’s a new build, where’s the wine fridge? Get those bottles off their butts and on their sides!
Joni Webb figured out that the exercise room was on a 3rd floor, and pegged the house as so 20th century:
this is newer build, probably 1990s because the flooring is wood and tile, not the newer limestone. plus – brass hardware screams 80s and 90s not 2000s.
margo captured the gist of the place with this classic comment:
this is some sort of eary 90s red brick type jobey.
markd distilled that even further, to “Bellaire McMansion.” Right on . . . but a little late. Plus “off Newcastle” is a few blocks off.
No secret agents played the nastier version of the game this time!
After the jump: It came from Bellaire!
Having survived the ordeal of a home photo shoot for a local shelter magazine, Houston blogger and interior designer Joni Webb graduates to the big leagues. A “national magazine” liked what they saw of Webb’s West U home in Houston House & Home, and asked her if they could photograph her Family Room and Guest Room for two separate upcoming issues. Webb’s response?
After last year’s physically tiring and mentally exhausting photo shoot, I swore I would never do it again. But, somehow, here I was, less than a year later, again welcoming strange photographers into my house. Of course, nothing is ever easy.
Exactly one week before the big photoshoot, I received news from the local scout. She had a list of things the editor wanted changed for the shoot. Oh? Really? The editor and art director wanted a new window seat cushion (made out of the Bennison fabric, no less!) The zebra rug HAD to go – apparently their readers object to zebra rugs, the suzani on the chair also had to go (suzanis are too bright) and the neon orange pillows must also go to be replaced by other pillows (like what other pillows, I wondered?) Now understand, I had known this shoot was going to happen for about three months – three months that I could have gotten all these changes done with no problem. Instead, the editor gave me one week to get the new cushions and pillows made.
More details of Webb’s quick-change artistry, after the jump!
It’s time for our favorite Tuesday activity . . . that’s right, the Neighborhood Guessing Game! If you’ve never played before, please take a look at the rules before you post. And if you’ve been thinking about playing, now’s a great time to join in. C’mon, lurkers: This round‘s for you!
Ready to see more pics of this week’s mystery house? Here they are:
This week’s mystery house attracted a slew of Montrose-area guesses. Specifically: north of Westheimer and west of Montrose behind Hugo’s; along 59 between Montrose and Shepherd; north of Westheimer and east of Montrose; North Montrose; and Castle Court.
There were two half-hearted mentions of the Heights, along with one guess each for the Heights north of 11th St.; Woodland Heights; and Norhill. Idylwood; the Sixth Ward; Garden Oaks; and “somewhere on the east side” got 2 votes each. The remaining guesses were Cottage Grove; Sugar Land; Shoreacres; “inside the loop just east of 45 in one of those old bungalow type subdivisions south of downtown”; the Beechnut-Gessner area; Caroline St.; and Hermann Park.
The winner — for the second time! — is Jeff, who was the third contestant to mention the Heights, but the first to do so unequivocally and to specify the area north of 11th St.
An honorable mention this week goes to Richard, for the pure entertainment value of this comment:
The multilevel platform in front of the fireplace looks like a sacrficial altar designed by Siegfried and Roy. Note the skull hanging ominously above and the pair of horns and tilted cross on the mantel. And, of course, the throne-like armchair from the lobby of the Embassy Suites on the left.
A large number of you thought the home was an expanded Craftsman-style home. Was it?
Here it is, players. Your chance to win!
Don’t forget the rules. Photos are below. Study them carefully, then post your friendly neighborhood guess!
This week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game has . . . no winner. None of you were even close. But it sure was fun!
Most of your guesses centered around Memorial. We had 2 for “Memorial” and one for “near Memorial Park.” Plus: 4 votes for Bunker Hill Village and one each for Hunters Creek Village, Hedwig Village, Jersey Village, and Hilshire Village. Pasadena and Champions Forest got 2 guesses each, and the remainder went to Baytown, Deer Park, the Mid Lane area, the southeast quadrant of Gessner and Westheimer, South Houston, Westheimer & Highway 6, Braeswood-Fondren near the country club, Greenwood Forest, Royden Oaks, and Fountainview or Bering Drive.
Hey, nobody guessed Meyerland! (No, it’s not there, either.)
This week we also had a few mystery sightings: A “I Shot J.R.” T-shirt in the closet; a sidewalk in front of the house; a fake fireplace in the converted attic; a second foosball table. Where are these things?
Three of you get honorable mentions: Brad, for spotting what may or may not be stirrups fastened to the bar in the uh . . . foosball room; Joni Webb for getting the house’s timeline right:
it’s a total redo – the kitchen and bathrooms. I’m going with 70’s, 80’s with new redo in the last 5 years.
And of course margo . . . for this fun comment:
OMG! Please tell me that my eyes are deceiving me. Is that a leopard rug with head attached draped over the treadmill?? No no no. That is wrong on so many levels. I’ve been known to hang a few bras from my treadmill but never a dead animal. Im going with bunkerhill area i’ve seen some strange buisness in a few houses in that area and this looks about par.
There were no secret disinformation campaigns this time . . . but you never know!
Where is this place? Answer revealed below!
