Tag: New Construction: Residential

Demolitions
07/27/10 2:54pm

Live from Goodhope St.: Extreme Upsizing in South Union

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New Construction: Residential, South Union
7 Comments

Yesterday was demo day at 3613 Goodhope St. in South Union. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host Ty Pennington (or his designated photo-Tweeter) sent out this pic Monday, showing the final moments of the Johnson family’s 700-sq.-ft. 1945 bungalow. What’s going on today at the Houston build?
HHN Homes manager Linda Stewart tells Swamplot last night’s rain set back the schedule. The slab for the new 4,500-sq.-ft. home is now on track to be poured at 3 pm today. Pre-assembled wall panels should be “ready to set” 50 minutes later, she says. Intrepid (and now hard-hatted) Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia files these photos from the scene:

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Bellaire
07/26/10 1:56pm

Swamplot Street Sleuths: Just Needed a Coat of Paint

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Downtown, Homes for Sale, New Construction: Residential, Signage, Townhomes, Washington Corridor
1 Comment

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

We’ve got some answers to your questions:

  • Downtown: The mystery of the missing Houston Pavilions signs (shown — or rather, not shown — above) is solved . . . in rather unexciting fashion. The development’s management office explains the lettering is being painted, and should be reinstalled in short order.
  • Bellaire: Noting that other lots just west of Bellaire High School have a similar shape and size, subprimelandguy provides a matter-of-fact explanation for the triple-deep lots on the south side of Maple St.:

    Mimosa (and the adjacent smaller lots on the south side of Maple) ends short of the Loop simply because that was the edge of the Bellaire Oaks subdivision when it was developed in the 50’s. The larger lots are in a different subdivision likely developed by a different developer, and of course at that time the Loop didn’t exist for Mimosa to extend out to.

    None of you took the bait on the reader’s second question: Should a triple-size lot always command a triple-size price?

And what about that monument to eternal redevelopment at the corner of Washington and Jackson Hill?

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Disaster Aftermath
07/26/10 7:46am

Extreme Makeover: South Union Edition

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New Construction: Residential, Quicklink, South Union
22 Comments

EXTREME MAKEOVER: SOUTH UNION EDITION Texas Children’s Hospital pharmacy technician Eric Johnson, his wife Elaine, and their 5 daughters — all of whom live in a 720-sq.-ft. Hurricane-Ike-damaged house at 3613 Goodhope St. in South Union — learned over the weekend that they’ll be traveling to Paris this week. When they return on Saturday, they’ll find their old home gone and a new 4,500-sq.-ft. 2-story home installed in its place, designed by Studio RED Architects and the team from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and constructed by HHN Homes and hundreds of volunteers. The Harrises run a small marriage and family counseling nonprofit they founded called Optimum Lifestyle. Host Ty Pennington and the EM:HE crew are promising an “innovative tears-free episode” of the teevee show this time (the Harrises got the news in a comedy club). And no, this home is not in the Third Ward. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

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Bellaire
07/20/10 6:11pm

Swamplot Street Sleuths: The Case of the Missing Houston Pavilions Signs

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Downtown, New Construction: Residential, Signage, Townhomes, Washington Corridor
8 Comments

Got an answer to any of these reader questions? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.

  • Downtown: A reader wants to know why the backlit signage that used to be attached to those fancy Houston Pavilions multi-story hole-in-the-middle bridges over Fannin and San Jacinto streets Downtown is — gone! “You can see the remains of little black studs that supported the letters. Probably not a big deal at all, just something I noticed the last couple of trips [and] thought I would share.”
  • Bellaire: From just outside the Loop, we have interest in the “extremely long residential lots” on the south side of Maple St., just east of S. Rice Blvd. (Map here.) Each property, bounded by a storm drain to the south, is the equivalent of 3 lots deep, a curious reader notes. And asks: “1) Why does Mimosa end before W. Loop? 2) Is a triple lot property 3x the value of single lot? What shapes their value?”

One more puzzle for you to solve:

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Comments
07/19/10 3:31pm

Comment of the Day: Room To Grow in the Heights

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Demolitions, Houston Heights, Industrial Properties, New Construction: Residential, Quicklink
13 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: ROOM TO GROW IN THE HEIGHTS “Driving past the site on 25th St over the weekend, it looks like the entire block (bounded by 24th, 25th, Ashland and Rutland) has been vacated. Platted at 33-ft frontage, this would mean space for about 40 new home single family residences. There also appears to be demo activity on the north side of 25th street on the same block. Add this to the warehouses on the 500 block of W 22nd and 23rd (part of the Sullivan Bros. project) and there’s probably potential for 60 new houses in a pretty small area. The price points on similar houses has been $450 to $550k, which means about $30M total. I’m not sure how quickly this area can absorb that much supply.” [Angostura, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Do Adair]

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Apartments
07/12/10 1:58pm

The Norman’s Replacement Price

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Buildings for Sale, Montrose, New Construction: Residential, Redevelopment
14 Comments

A reader writes in to let Swamplot readers know the unpublished asking price for the 8-unit apartment building going up on the ashes of The Norman apartments at the corner of West Alabama and Stanford, featured here last month. Pssst: It’s $875,000, all stucco colors shown included. The building is expected to be complete next month. And here’s one of the last pics of its hot hot predecessor, taken during a little incident last August:

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Apartments
06/25/10 2:04pm

A Bright Stucco Future for the Norman Apartments

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Construction Materials, Montrose, New Construction: Residential, Redevelopment
5 Comments

The Norman apartment building at 717 West Alabama at Stanford St. caught fire and burned last August. The 8-unit Montrose building, which the Houston Press saw fit to declare the city’s “Best Apartment” back in 2004, showed up in Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report just before Christmas. A reader sends in pics of the new multicolored stucco-and-foam construction going up in its place and notes:

It appears that they were quick to rebuild, It looked to me that they used the old piers, and just added the support beams for a (pier & beam foundation). Glad to see that they took advantage of the exsiting foundation.

And look, new foam quoins at the corner, to hold the stucco rainbow together! Are they fireproof?

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Comments
06/02/10 5:41pm

Comment of the Day: I Can Get It for You Wholesale

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Homebuilders, New Construction: Residential, Quicklink
5 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE “. . . Tricon Homes, if they are not the number one builder in terms of number of units in the Heights, they are definitely in the top two. Since the 90’s they’ve built over a hundred units a year, with the majority of them located in the Heights. If you think their construction costs even sniff $100/sqft, you simply do not know what you are talking about. I sell land for a living to top builders in town, and work for a home building company that builds from the $150’s to $1.8M. A $1.8M house in Memorial will average $120/sq.ft in direct costs for construction. Are you trying to say that it costs more per square foot to build a bungalow with siding in the Heights than it does a brick/stone mansion in Memorial or River Oaks?? If so, again….go find a better builder cause you’re getting ripped off.” [MCoerver, commenting on Comment of the Day: The High Cost of Building Small]

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Ferndale
05/12/10 1:59pm

Hangin’ with the Large and Lonely Homes of Bammel Lane Park

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Homes for Sale, New Construction: Residential, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
14 Comments

A couple of readers have expressed — how best to put this? — concern for the financial well-being of the developers behind the Bammel Park Homes featured on Swamplot early last year. Writes one recent visitor to the complex:

The development was originally intended to have 12 homes. There are only three complete and it doesn’t look as if any more will be built. . . . The front gate is rusted, the driveways haven’t been paved, the fountain is clogged, there isn’t any landscaping and loose wires are hanging here and there.

Didn’t Black Diamond Development claim the park-like setting would in fact be “enchanted”? Meanwhile, the asking prices for the hefty properties at 3204, 3244, and 3248 Bammel Ln. have been cut in three hacks each from $2.239 million to $1.798 million. Just look at all the bricks that includes:

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Demolitions
04/19/10 4:12pm

Up and Down in Hyde Park

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Homes for Sale, Houston Architects, Hyde Park, Montrose, New Construction: Residential
14 Comments

The Hometta blog features construction pix of the pair of houses going up on Hyde Park 2 blocks west of Montrose — designed by Collaborative Designworks, Houston’s most notable practitioners of those folded-spiral stucco balcony-wall-soffit wraparounds. 1212 and 1216 Hyde Park won’t go on the market for another few months, architect James Evans tells us, but when they do they’ll likely be priced “in the low $1M range.”

But . . . haven’t we visited this little corner of Hyde Park before?

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Home Decor
02/10/10 3:49pm

Kay O’Toole’s House in Back

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Houston Architects, Interiors, New Construction: Residential, Retail, Winlow Place
5 Comments

Ubiquitous design blogger Joni Webb hyperventilates over the March issue of Veranda magazine, which features actual interior pics of the house Kay O’Toole had built behind her Kay O’Toole Antiques & Eccentricities shop. The shop is in the building with the rounded corners next to the Firkin & Phoenix Pub parking lot at 1921 Westheimer:

I had heard the blogosphere mumbling about this Veranda showing Kay O’Toole’s new house and that was what had my mouth watering like Edward’s whenever Bella is around. Honestly, I’ve been waiting over two years for this issue!

O’Toole owns a French antique shop housed in a 1920s brick building that was once home to several different businesses. Through the years, she eventually acquired the entire building and tore down the dividing walls – creating a long and narrow haven for the best of what France, and now Belgium, Sweden, and Italy have to offer.

O’Toole’s single-story, one-bedroom stucco home — designed by Murphy Mears Architects — is another long and narrow haven, modeled after something O’Toole saw in New Orleans’s French Quarter: It’s one room deep, and backs up to the property’s back fence.

Couldn’t Webb have just charmed her way inside, camera in hand? Oh, she’d tried that:

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Bayous and Waterways
01/08/10 4:08pm

Under Construction: The Brookesmith House with the Big Ass Porch Fan

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Brookesmith, Home Design, Houston Architects, Landscape, New Construction: Residential
15 Comments

Architect and Swamplot reader Jeromy Murphy sends in a construction update on the house he and his wife — also an architect — are building for themselves at 502 Archer St. in Brookesmith, “not too far from the container house.” How’s the family project going?

Lori and I designed it together, proving that a husband/wife architecture team can succeed (as long as the husband just agrees to everything his architect wife wants).

One of those design decisions that came so easily: the 8-ft. Isis Big Ass Fan that’ll hang from exposed rafters on a porch overlooking a new retaining wall. The fan isn’t installed yet, but you can see the rafters in this photo:

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Bankruptcies
11/24/09 11:32am

Where Are They Building Now? A Royce Builders Bankruptcy Reunion Tour

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Cypress, Development Strategies, Grant Meadows, Homebuilders, Homes for Sale, New Construction: Residential, Westwood Gardens
12 Comments

Channel 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis sends a KPRC newschopper to buzz the 80-acre Cypress party pad estate of former Royce Builders president John Speer. More than a year after we featured the innumerable builder upgrades of that Mack-Daddy mansion on Swamplot, it’s still sitting on the market — for the same $9.8 million.

Meanwhile, less than a mile to the west, sales aren’t going so well either in former Royce Homes subdivision Grant Meadows:

“Houses are in disrepair. Fences are in disrepair,” explained homeowner Matt Adams. “The whole neighborhood’s been left in ruins.” . . .

Royce stopped paying the bill for the street lights in Grant Meadows in July 2008.

Reliant recently switched them off, and told homeowners they must pay the $14,000 owed before they can turn them back on.

“It’s pitch black out here at night,” said homeowner Evit Byrd, who planned to retire in Grant Meadows with his wife. “You can’t see anything.”

But there’s some good news: Speer has been building again! His new company, Vestalia Homes, which Speer founded 3 weeks after he closed down Royce, is busy constructing and selling homes a little closer to FM 1960, in a subdivision called the Lakes of Cypress Forest.

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Homes for Sale
11/12/09 1:29pm

Fantasy Andalusian: Climbing All Those Spanish Steps

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New Construction: Residential, West End
37 Comments

“I’d need to get in shape to move into this house,” writes the Swamplot reader who sent in this listing for one of those new $million-plus homes in the fenced-off Caceres compound wedged between Reinerman, Feagan, and Detering streets in the West End.

Is this stucco structure really five stories tall?

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Construction Materials
11/10/09 12:54pm

Pitching In: An Architect Helps Out with That Floating Stone Chimney

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Home Design, Homebuilders, Houston Architects, Houston Heights, New Construction: Residential, Townhomes
9 Comments

Note: Story updated below. Stand by for . . . the turret!

One of the nicest things about Swamplot is that we all care about our neighbors! So when one reader sends in a photo of a unique garage-chimney configuration balanced carefully on a townhome near the corner of Ashland and 16th St. in the Heights, it’s only natural that others in our community will want to volunteer their talents and services to help the situation.

The problem: The obvious allures of lick-and-stick stone facing have left a Heights homebuilder with a street face that’s a little . . . attention-getting?

The solution: It’s nothing an architect can’t fix — with a fresh copy of Photoshop and a toolkit of contemporary design favorites! Here’s the completed rendering that was sent into us:

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