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Large/Old Home Exposed At Little York & Hwy. 6


Gary

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Since clearing the trees at W Little York and Hwy 6 an old home, that sits on the banks of the bayou, was exposed, and I was hoping someone here may be able to shed some light on it. It looks to be at least 75 to 80 years old.

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Strange - the unpaved-looking road to the house shares an entrance from W Little York with Walgreen's. And streetview dies on that northern side of the street. Looks like they're getting ready to build stuff all around the house, too.

I can't find any kind of HCAD record associated with it, so either they have a private street (name) not visible on the map or HCAD has it as 0. Nevermind, none of the zero properties match that description...

Strange!

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Strange - the unpaved-looking road to the house shares an entrance from W Little York with Walgreen's. And streetview dies on that northern side of the street. Looks like they're getting ready to build stuff all around the house, too.

I can't find any kind of HCAD record associated with it, so either they have a private street (name) not visible on the map or HCAD has it as 0. Nevermind, none of the zero properties match that description...

Strange!

Yeah, the road looks like limestone. I'd really love to find out more about it.

Edited by Gary
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Since clearing the trees at W Little York and Hwy 6 an old home, that sits on the banks of the bayou, was exposed, and I was hoping someone here may be able to shed some light on it. It looks to be at least 75 to 80 years old.

That is so strange! Were you able to peek inside the windows or anything?

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Strange - the unpaved-looking road to the house shares an entrance from W Little York with Walgreen's. And streetview dies on that northern side of the street. Looks like they're getting ready to build stuff all around the house, too.

I can't find any kind of HCAD record associated with it, so either they have a private street (name) not visible on the map or HCAD has it as 0. Nevermind, none of the zero properties match that description...

Strange!

Sevfiv, what do you think my next course of action should be?

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I'll take a look in some phone books to see if I can find a name/address, but I wouldn't go on property unless you go straight to the front door to knock (looks like a car in the driveway from one of the maps). Also, if construction is going on near there, you might be able to ask someone there...or maybe even at Walgreens?

Is there a place to pull over on W Little York?

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Also, does anyone know if this area had was an old townsite or has a name? Or of this section of the road went by a different name (and Highway 6, too)? In 1976, the listings for W Little York only make it up to the ~9500 block (there is one listing beyond that at 12950 for Stewart Stevenson).

edit - I see that W Little York turned in to Fisher Rd. but then shortly ended way before Langham Creek. I also forget that 6 was Addicks Satsuma.

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That's a 47 acre tract owned by Bluesky Commercial. Looks like it's been a long time since the place was occupied as it's been owned by a string of real estate companies for some time. HCAD has the house date as 1940. You can find it on HCAD account 0470900000001. I found the property by finding a nearby address on W Little York, plugged that into HCAD, went to the associated maps and found the account number on the map. Same company owns the properties on Hwy 6 just East of the tract with the house. Blusky appears to be HQ'd at 1303 Campbell, the head office for Visible Changes. You can infer various things from that. Gotta love public records.

Edited by Ross
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I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but I went to Junior HS in the late 80's (Labay Jr. High) with a girl that lived in that house. I remember the bus stopping right on Hwy. 6 to let her on and off at the end of the long driveway. Her name was Stacy Greathouse - I promise I am not making that up.

I've always been intrigued by the house and I hope this topic can unearth some more information about it.

~ Coop

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Thanks for the additional information - and I saw Blusky but totally dismissed it!

That part of the road was Addicks Satsuma I thought, but there is a listing for 6219 FM 1960 from 1976 that shows the Lawrence Marcus Polo Farm..(Lawrence Marcus of Neiman Marcus?).

And here are a couple of block book images of the Matzke survey:

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v047/AE1997_47_0071.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v047/AE1997_47_0178.jpg

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Thanks for the additional information - and I saw Blusky but totally dismissed it!

That part of the road was Addicks Satsuma I thought, but there is a listing for 6219 FM 1960 from 1976 that shows the Lawrence Marcus Polo Farm..(Lawrence Marcus of Neiman Marcus?).

And here are a couple of block book images of the Matzke survey:

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v047/AE1997_47_0071.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v047/AE1997_47_0178.jpg

Three years ago a preservationist friend of mine actually went up to the door of the house and knocked on it. He said that up close the house looked like a hodgepodge of old and new architecture. A gentleman answered the door and clearly wasn't pleased. My friend asked for information about the house and the guy was noncommittal but would only volunteer that it was used as a hunting lodge for a large corporation back in the 60s and 70's, and that it was built with parts salvaged from houses in the Bear Creek area that had been dismantled to make way for the Addicks Reservoir.

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Interesting...IIRC, one of the later real estate transactions was with Mobil Pipeline.

One was also from Carrie Neiman (his aunt, I believe)..

I just remembered to look at HistoricAerials.com and found that there weren't any structures on that location in the 1957 and 1964 aerial maps. It wasn't until the 1973 map that showed a new bridge and driveway in the immediate area. That may bolster the theory that the house was built with salvaged historic materials, or perhaps brought in pieces from various places. My preservationist friend who saw the house up close said it had a large chimney that went up through the center of the house. All early/true examples of that house style (Gulf Coast Cottage/Colonial) featured a central hallway (dog-trot) that ran all the way from the front to the back, and this house didn't have that.

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Interesting...IIRC, one of the later real estate transactions was with Mobil Pipeline.

One was also from Carrie Neiman (his aunt, I believe)..

The Mobil Pipeline transaction was to grant a pipeline easement across the property - the ownership remained the same while Mobil paid for the right to route a pipeline through the easement. I saw the Carrie Marcus Neiman items. Those had to be for her estate, because she died in the 50's.

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Nice info. on that bldg. I know exactly where it sits, wasn't until recent years that it was highly visible from Hwy 6. A lot of new construction going on, in that area, now. That barn-looking house used to be quite hidden by the brush and trees. I say barn because of it's size. Funny, I never thought of it being very old, even though it had that look, always got the impression that it was made to look old. From the style of it, looks like it belongs on River Road, outside of New Orleans. It reminds me of Pappadeaux's restaurants...That's a great bing picture.

Another point of interest close by, a very old Victorian house (train station stop?) along the train tracks that parallel Hwy 290, around Jersey Village.

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it was built with parts salvaged from houses in the Bear Creek area that had been dismantled to make way for the Addicks Reservoir.

Now you have my attention. I've long driven past that house with it's tin roof and wrap-around porch, and been glad that it has held off from selling out for residential or commercial development, like all the other land all around it.

I've done a lot of hiking and research into the old towns of Addicks and Barker in the flood reservoirs, so this revelation is very interesting. That area was settled by German immigrants starting about 1880, and they had a thriving community with a rich social life and traditions. I've seen the ruins of the foundations of some of their old homes, and often wondered what happened to the homes that used to sit atop those foundations. I always figured the Corps of Engineers bulldozed them when they took over the land. So it's interesting to find out now that maybe they survived in another form! Several of the German immigrants were so distraught over the take-over of their land for the reservoir, that they commited suicde rather than see their land and homes taken by the government.

For a great book about the history of this local area, look for a book called "The LH7 Ranch", about Emil Marks, who ran a ranch in that area, with up to 6,500 head of cattle.

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  • 3 years later...

I lived in Copperfield in the 1990s and drove past that old house countless times and wondered about it. One day in the late 90s, driving on W. Little York, I saw a couple of cars parked there, so I decided I would knock on the door and ask about the house.

It only took one knock to get a response. The door was opened by a scruffy looking guy with a police ID badge on his belt. When he opened the door I could see several other scruffy looking guys sitting at desks working on computers.

I told him I drove past that house every day and I was just curious to know something about it. The guy told me he didn't know anything about the house, and they were only there doing property research for a planned widening of W. Little York. Then he closed the door.

I went on my way more curious than ever, but I never went back. In any event, W. Little York WAS widened out to four lanes a few years after that.

I'm guessing that some undercover cops were using the house as a base of operations for some investigations in the Bear Creek and Copperfield area. At that time, it wasn't visible from Hwy 6, and just barely visible from W. Little York.

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  • 2 years later...

 


Old thread, but I'm bumping to chime in support of the resevoir theory, and to maybe get some new eyes on this thread that didn't see it in 2009 but might have some information. Also, to add pics.


 


 

I have long been intrigued by this house, and this thread has scratched and excacerbated my intrigue more than ever.

 

HCAD has the build date listed as 1940. I saw somebody mention they didn't see it in old aerials - I've looked myself (I live down the creek) and remember that the house was there as far back as 1947 (the oldest imagery I found) but had very heavy tree cover, making it difficult to make out a house there. There were a few other, smaller farms, within about a half mile, mile proximity.

 

The Addicks dam was authorized by an act passed in 1938, so perfectly aligned with the hint that it was built from salvages material from the clearing of the dam.

 

I always wondered if this place had rich history as some sort of plantation, with the location on the creek and all. The dates don't quite line up for that, but the dates line up perfectly for the reservoir explanation, which is even more interesting to me.

 

Just from the little bit of information available in this thread, the house is incredible to me. coop's friend who lived in the house and had "Greathouse," as a surname. The shady police officers occupying the home. It being salvaged from one of the most historically interesting areas of Houston. I can only imagine how much more there is to know about the house. 

 

Not the best photo - taken from very far away. The house seems to be occupied now, and the residents put up a little chain and a "private driveway," sign. I also had to adjust the exposure to try to make the house more visible. And as you can see the house appears to sit on a river, as the photo was taken today, the day following the 5/25/2015 floods.

 


post-12972-0-85396900-1432695492_thumb.j

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Wow...this brings back memories. My folks were involved in a partnership back in the late 60's/early 70's that owned this property, actually twice. I remember as a youngster going out there to the "country." Highway 6 was 2 lanes and there wasn't anything on the road except for a "convenience" store and volunteer fire department on the west side of 6 close to where a pawn shop now sits.

We got to the home off 6 on a long winding gravel road through a bunch of Post Oak trees. There was a large house that sat on the property, but I don't remember it being the one in the previous pictures. It was more like a New England style home. There was a swimming pool and some type of horse barn just south of the home. The partnership sold the property to Laurence Marcus (of Neiman Marcus fame) and he started a polo farm on it. He built a very nice polo field on the North side of the property. He evidently had some financial problems and the partnership was able to repurchase the property a couple years later for the same price that it was sold to Mr. Marcus previously.  We enjoyed the property for another couple of years and then sold it again.

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  • 5 months later...

Thanks Fore Right!  You posted a memory of mine as well.   I used to keep my horses at a barn on Hwy 6 close to the convenience store your talking about.  I remember knowing the house was back there but we were too scared to ride our horses back there.  Hwy 6 was the two lane road, and where the Pawn Shop is now, was the store we rode to.  I don't remember the name of the stables we rented from but I remember a ladies name called Naomi (?) ran it.  I now live in this area and see the old house often, lit up or with vehicles outside of it.  Did you say a cop lives there? 

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  • 10 months later...

Reviving this topic as I have a lot of interest in this house. I live close by and have seen it regularly for years. It's being used in some way as I often see lights on at night and cars parked in front of it.

 

It looks like it's actually owned by John and Maryanne McCormack, founders of Visible Changes.

 

I'm tempted to send this to the Bayou City History folks at the Houston Chronicle to see if they could dig anything up. If the info regarding it being built from homes that were in the town of Addicks, I would love to see pictures of the inside of it!

 

The other thing I'm curious about is if it suffered any major flood damage during the tax day flood. The flood gauge for Langham Creek at that intersection got over 500 year flood stage on 4/18/2016.

http://www.harriscountyfws.org/GageDetail/Index/2120

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