03/13/12 2:39pm

Who snuck all the wood paneling into this 4-plus-bedroom Meadowcreek Village mod on Berry Bayou? Its original owners, according to the home’s seller, who reports they ran a Houston lumber shop called All Woods Schroeder. The shop was located in the industrial complex at 5401 Lawndale just west of Country Club Place; this home served as a showcase for some of the exotic and fine woods it carried. That’s teak paneling you’re looking at above, wrapping the kitchen. For walnut, try the living room and dining room:

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02/24/12 4:42pm

Does the Saint Germain Foundation qualify as a church? That’s the story the listing agent sticks to in her description of the property for sale on the corner of Greenbriar and Portsmouth. As a qualifying religious institution, it’s exempt from local property taxes. The Illinois-based group, founded by mining engineer Guy W. Ballard in 1934, is selling its longtime Houston home across Greenbriar from the Shepherd Plaza shopping center and worldly-goods discounter Tuesday Morning. According to followers of Ballard’s teachings, the organization’s founder had previously completed earthly stints in the person of Achilles, Alexander the Great, Kings Richard I and Henry V of England, and George Washington; in 1939, in lieu of dying, he became Ascended Master Godfre. The 3,000-sq.-ft. home at 3700 Greenbriar was built a year later.

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02/16/12 10:18am

Is all that living space on the second floor of this metal warehouse building right off the Tomball Pkwy. frontage road near the end of Jones Rd.  really window-free? Built a decade ago, the 5,062-sq.ft. structure is an unrestricted property suitable for mixed use — and that includes homesteading.

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02/14/12 4:36pm

Only 5 interior walls are left in this 1,275-sq.-ft. house in Clark Pines, west of Shepherd from the Heights. The 2-bedroom, 1-bath property on a 8,093-sq.-ft. lot is listed for rent — for $2,100 a month. A Swamplot reader reworked the property over the course of 2 years. “This is my first remodel and I’m hoping for feedback,” writes the landlord. (Some feedback has already arrived, in the form of a “possible tenant.”)

What sort of work has been done to this place?

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01/26/12 12:57pm

Good news for those of you saddened by the disappearance of Ken and Linda Lay’s gargantuan 33rd-floor Upper Kirby condo from the MLS rolls at the end of last month: Your opportunity to watch the asking price on the castle-in-the-sky penthouse float down to earth is back! Where had it gone? “It appears the Huntingdon high-rise condo at 2121 Kirby was removed from the multiple listing service for a few days so it could be relisted without showing that the price was reduced . . . again,” reports the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson. “That seems to be a common trick of the trade with Realtors.”

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