Tag: Katy

Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows, Homeowners' Associations, Katy, Quicklink

4 Comments

POSSIBLE SCAM TARGETED KATY-AREA HOAS Complaints from 3 suburban homeowners’ associations — including the one for the Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows gated community west of the Grand Parkway near Fry Rd. in Katy — have been filed against Arrow Community Management, alleging the Cinco Ranch management company misappropriated HOA funds. Arrow’s owner, Taggert Mayfield, received a sentence of 3 years’ deferred adjudication earlier this month after he pled guilty to mishandling $20,000 in HOA funds. Sgt. David Schultz of the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office tells reporter Deborah Wrigley that one new report he’s investigating claims an Arrow-managed HOA is missing about $120,000. The company, which appears to have shut down its operations, had contracts with more than a dozen HOAs in Harris and Fort Bend Counties. [abc13] Photo of Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows: Keller Williams Premier Realty

77494, Crime, Estates of Avalon at Seven Meadows, Homeowners' Associations, Katy

06/08/11 1:53pm

Just Reduced: Katy House of New Tile Throughout

Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy, Memorial Parkway

31 Comments

What’s missing from the set of images that goes with this Memorial Parkway brick 2-story? Only photos of the tile recently installed on the garage floor. Other than that, the listing does a pretty good job of illustrating the agent’s contention that this 1989 4-bedroom, 3-1/2-bath, 2,365-sq.-ft. home does, in fact, have “new tile throughout.”

77450, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Katy, Memorial Parkway

05/23/11 9:51am

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Bear Up There

Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy

12 Comments

1706 Chateau Bend Ct., Katy [HAR]

77450, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy, Real Estate Marketing

05/16/11 12:41pm

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Storm Window

Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy

13 Comments

19811 Lantern Village Ln., Katy [HAR]

77450, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy, Painting

Art

04/25/11 11:54am

Katy’s Forbidden City Now Being Sold Off Lot by Lot

by Aaron Carpenter

Buying and Selling, Katy, Openings and Closings, Retail

1 Comment

A buyer has at last been found for the carefully constructed Forbidden City exhibit at the shuttered Forbidden Gardens attraction in Katy. Well . . . for a portion of it, at least. Ben Cornblath is director of the museum and cultural center that closed under mysterious circumstances in February, then held an open-to-the-public selloff of many of its holdings. He tells Swamplot that a group of people in an “environmental” company associated with the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo has expressed interest in . . . that big shed that’s been standing over the model and protecting it from things like sleet, Hurricane Ike, and the Houston sun. The park is still awaiting the company’s bid. Cornblath says such structures appear to be a rare commodity around the metropolitan area, and this one has a strong track record of sheltering an entire miniature Middle Kingdom city for nearly a decade and a half. But getting the steel structure out of there won’t be easy: The move may require a crane.

What about that thing beneath the sought-after roof, the one-twentieth-scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City?

77493, Attractions, Buying and Selling, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings, Retail

04/20/11 10:55am

Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Bright Interior

Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy, Real Estate Marketing

24 Comments

22802 Spatswood Ln., Katy [HAR]

77449, Home Decor, Homes for Sale, Interiors, Katy, Photos, Real Estate Marketing

Cinco Ranch

03/25/11 2:16pm

Everything Was Going Fine at the Berryhill in Cinco Ranch — Until This Happened

Katy, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Quicklink, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers

7 Comments

EVERYTHING WAS GOING FINE AT THE BERRYHILL IN CINCO RANCH — UNTIL THIS HAPPENED The Berryhill Baja Grill in Villagio Town Center — that Tuscan-themed shopping center in Cinco Ranch — has closed. “Not hugely newsworthy,” a Swamplot reader admits — except for one little part of the story. According to a lawsuit filed earlier this month by Villagio Partners, the restaurant hasn’t paid its rent in twenty-seven months. Berryhill moved into the shopping center in August 2007 but the franchise’s operators haven’t paid at all since the beginning of 2009, according to a filing with the Harris County District Court. [Ultimate Katy] Photo: Villagio Town Center

77450, Cinco Ranch, Katy, Leasing, Openings and Closings, Restaurants, Retail, Shopping Centers

Cinco Ranch Southwest

03/14/11 1:02pm

Houston Home Listing Photos of the Day: Fire and Water

Homes for Sale, Katy, Real Estate Marketing

9 Comments

Or, if you’d wanted your water to look a little different:

77494, Cinco Ranch, Homes for Sale, Katy, Photos, Real Estate Marketing

02/22/11 1:25pm

Comment of the Day: What You Missed at the Great Forbidden Gardens One-Third-Scale Qin Dynasty Sell-Off

Buying and Selling, Comments, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings, Quicklink

12 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT YOU MISSED AT THE GREAT FORBIDDEN GARDENS ONE-THIRD-SCALE QIN DYNASTY SELL-OFF “I was there on Sunday, came home w/ 2 soldiers, 1 horse and 3 small figurines. The soldiers are FANTASTIC and I wish I had bought more, but for 100 ea it was a little steep to get a whole army of them. I have a bit of buyerâ€™s remorse about the horse, b/c its in pretty bad shape, and is not long for the world. But it was only 25$. There were many people there, but it was by no means crowded, took 45 minutes to get in the gates. The woman who rang me up, told me that a salvager was going to come by on Monday (yesterday) so I imagine the remaining men who were [intact] (there were still 100s left at noon on Sunday) will start turning up in thrift shops around. What else? I am glad I got to see the gardens one time before it was destroyed. It was a lovely ground and I wish I had known about it. (I sort of knew about it, but never went.) Apparently they were going to sell all the cherry trees as well, so they may still be on the market.” [anon, commenting on The 6,000 Garden Gnomes of Emperor Qin: Let the Great Houston Grave Ransacking Begin] Photo: Candace Garcia

77493, Attractions, Buying and Selling, Cemeteries, Comments, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings, Retail

02/18/11 8:40pm

Comment of the Day: Lost Tomb of the Grand Parkway

Comments, Katy, Openings and Closings, Quicklink

4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: LOST TOMB OF THE GRAND PARKWAY “The bulldozed-over ones will make for some serious headscratching in the 23rd century when they are dug up and ‘discovered.’ Maybe the Asiatic Proconsul will use it as propaganda/proof [that] Global Manifest Destiny was already in the making in the early 21st century.” [SL, commenting on The 6,000 Garden Gnomes of Emperor Qin: Let the Great Houston Grave Ransacking Begin]

77493, Attractions, Cemeteries, Comments, Grand Parkway, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings

02/18/11 1:52pm

The 6,000 Garden Gnomes of Emperor Qin: Let the Great Houston Grave Ransacking Begin

Freeways and Toll Roads, Katy, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Retail

10 Comments

This weekend, while New York crowds flock to a recently opened exhibit of Forbidden City treasures belonging to China’s last emperor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Houstonians will have a chance for a much more satisfying and interactive experience with the wonders of the ancients: Crowds here will be swarming to plunder a replica of the massive gravesite of China’s first emperor. It has come to this: Forbidden Gardens, the garden-free (and yes, until now open-to-the-public) little 60-acre museum and cultural center on the Katy prairie has found no buyer willing to purchase intact its collection of 6,000 one-third-scale terracotta soldiers from the 2,200-year-old Xi’an tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di, its one-twentieth scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City, or its many other handcrafted and made-in-China models of historic Chinese treasures. So everything in the museum will be sold off piece by piece, in one giant 2-day artificial-grave-side blowout liquidation sale.

“CASH ONLY!! ALL SALES ARE FINAL!!” screams a notice posted to the ordinarily staid museum’s website:

77493, Attractions, Cemeteries, Grand Parkway, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings, Retail

02/03/11 2:34pm

Overwhelmed by Popular Demand, Forbidden Gardens Gives Up on Craigslist for Its Great Qin Dynasty Liquidation Sale

Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings, Retail

4 Comments

What’s it come to that a quirky little roadside attraction in Katy can’t quietly sell off its extensive collections of handcrafted-in-China replica Chinese figurines and miniatures online without getting overwhelmed? In advance of the curious shutdown of Forbidden Gardens, the institution’s stewards had decided to liquidate its entire collection of scale-model attractions, including the more than 6,000 terracotta warriors assembled for a broadly interpreted one-third-scale replica of the partially excavated tomb of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di. And yes, the venue chosen for a good portion of the sales: Craigslist.

(Last month, the venue’s staff announced that Forbidden Gardens, located on Franz Rd. in Katy just off the stub-end of the long-planned Grand Parkway, would be shutting down — to make way for the expansion of the proposed ring road’s Segment E. But plans provided to Swamplot show that the proposed path for the Grand Parkway would only skirt the theme park property, and would perhaps even burnish its credentials as a roadside attraction.)

An ad on the online classifieds site taken out by Forbidden Gardens’ curators over the weekend offered a “variety of terracotta warriors for just $100 each.” Plus: “We are willing to make a deal if you buy in bulk.” Pieces from other exhibits were offered for sale, including 1/20th-scale buildings — and porcelain figurines, for as little as $1 each! Clearly, this was an “everything must go” sort of event: More pieces from Katy’s strange little “museum and cultural center” showed up in other Craigslist postings that featured vases, store furnishings, even those red benches arrayed around the grounds.

By late Wednesday afternoon however, the ads had been taken down. “At this time interest has been so great that it is overwhelming us,” reads a new note on a new Craigslist ad posted by a museum staff member. “There are only 5 of us and we are all part time.” All those goods are still available — it’s just that the staff couldn’t handle the online rush:

If you are interested in seeing the museum one last time we welcome you. If while there you see something that you are interested in and the staff is not overwhelmed, please feel free to make an offer. . . . If you are interested in purchasing an entire exhibit we greatly welcome you to call the main office. For those of you wishing to purchase individual objects we will be having a mass sell off after the museum closes Feb 13. Please check our website where we will post info on this as it becomes available.

Mass sell-off! In other words, the already strange spectacle of Forbidden Gardens has morphed in its final days into something curiouser still: A museum of replicas where visitors can bid on the exhibits and take them home with them.

77493, Attractions, Grand Parkway, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings, Retail

01/19/11 1:29pm

Out of the Way, Tiny Soldiers, Here Comes the Grand Parkway: Katy’s Forbidden Gardens Is Closing Down

Eminent Domain, Katy, Katy Prairie, Museums, Openings and Closings

21 Comments

Segment E of Houston’s new Grand Parkway — more commonly known as the new ring-road highway planned to cut through the Katy Prairie to link the Katy Mills Mall to the Houston Premium Outlets mall in Cypress (and to facilitate cultural exchange programs between those two institutions) — has its first casualty, and it’s not an Attwater prairie chicken. One of Katy’s quirkiest and most beloved attractions, Forbidden Gardens, has announced it will close. The Chinese history and cultural museum’s peculiar but convenient location on a former rice field along Franz Rd. just off the Grand Parkway’s stub end likely wasn’t “just off” enough. Forbidden Gardens’ last day open will be January 30; a note on its website says the closing will “make way for the Grand Parkway expansion.” Forbidden Gardens opened in 1996.

77493, Attractions, Eminent Domain, Grand Parkway, Katy, Museums, Openings and Closings

Katy

11/11/10 1:50pm

How the TCEQ’s Been Able To Lower Radiation Levels in Katy Drinking Water

MUDs, Settlers Village, Utilities, Water Quality

10 Comments

All it takes is a little subtraction! Say you’ve got 20 picocuries of cancer-friendly alpha radiation per liter in your drinking water. Well, there’s gotta be some margin of error in measuring it, right? Say, 6 picocuries per liter? Then just go ahead and subtract that number out (because you’ve gotta be optimistic about these things, you know, or it’ll kill you). Then . . . voilÃ ! Your level of those nasty little mutation-causing particles is now just 14 picocuries. And phew! what a relief! Because the EPA’s “maximum contaminant level” for alpha radiation happens to be 15 picocuries per liter, and those math wizards at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have just saved your community’s water supply from receiving a violation notice! Slight problem: since 2000, the EPA has requested that states not use this little data-jiggering technique. But not to worry: TCEQ’s Linda Goodins, who oversees all drinking-water safety regulation for the state, doesn’t think the EPA’s request was an actual requirement. (Just to placate to those ever-meddling feds though, TCEQ discontinued its subtraction technique last year.)