Memories Of Garden Oaks

[Reefmonkey]

I've always been curious about this neighborhood on Shepherd near Crosstimbers. The old Sears, the old movie theatre, it looks like at one time this was a nice up-and-coming post-war middle-class area. Anyone have the scoop on who developed it, when, and when it passed its prime?

[Porchman]

Brief history from http://gardenoaks.org

"In 1937, Edward L. Crain established Garden Oaks on a tract of land just north of the Houston Heights. Comprised of 5 sections, Garden Oaks offers a unique blend of mid-century homes

[jm1fd]

I've always been curious about this neighborhood on Shepherd near Crosstimbers. The old Sears, the old movie theatre, it looks like at one time this was a nice up-and-coming post-war middle-class area. Anyone have the scoop on who developed it, when, and when it passed its prime?

I would guess that it passed its prime in the 70s or 80s, and is now well on the way to a....uhmm...re-priming? Can't buy anything in there for under $200k now.

[Reefmonkey]

Brief history from http://gardenoaks.org

"In 1937, Edward L. Crain established Garden Oaks on a tract of land just north of the Houston Heights. Comprised of 5 sections, Garden Oaks offers a unique blend of mid-century homes

[jm1fd]

Hopefully the subprime crash won't affect the reprime.

I'd be a whole lot more worried about the impact of the declining price of oil. There haven't been enough sales in a short enough period of time in GO to cause a huge number of foreclosures to turn up.

It seems like a great candidate for regentrification

Regentrification? The white folks never left....

[Reefmonkey]

I'd be a whole lot more worried about the impact of the declining price of oil. There haven't been enough sales in a short enough period of time in GO to cause a huge number of foreclosures to turn up.

I was mostly just trying to turn a pun off of the prime-past-prime-subprime thing. However, if people were refinancing, or taking out second mortgages, they might be in trouble even though there haven't been lots of new sales.

Regentrification? The white folks never left....

Regentrification isn't necessarily a race issue. It is simply the movement of a higher social or economic group into an area. For instance, the movement of upper-middle class white people into what had been primarily a working-class to lower-middle class white area would still be regentrification. As far as I know of the area, it has never been a huge place for wealthy yuppies to move in. Mid-century it was solid middle-class, but by the 70s the same economic class that would have moved into it in the 1940s and 1950s was now living further out, in neighborhoods outside of HISD. If yuppies did start moving in, tearing down older one-stories and putting in two-stories, etc. that would still be regentrification.

[Native Montrosian]

Garden Oaks has calmed down a bit - they're busy tearing up Oak Forest at the moment. 2/1 original house a few over from us sold for lot value of $180K in 6 weeks.

[cumby]

My understanding (based on just a little hunting in there before settling about ten minutes away) is that if you buy a house there, there is some closing cost of like .5% - 1% of the purchase price that goes straight to the homeowners' association. That would definitely go towards keeping the less desirables out of there (even if they just end up a couple streets over). Anyone able to verify this?

Oak Forest was getting pretty torn up before and now post-Ike I imagine that will boom since quite a few have to be demolished whether the homeowner wants to or not. Bad thing about having all those nice trees, a couple might land on your house! Don't fret though, not everyone wants to build those montrosities. We have a family friend planning to rebuild something very much like what she had before on her lot.

My understanding (based on just a little hunting in there before settling about ten minutes away) is that if you buy a house there, there is some closing cost of like .5% - 1% of the purchase price that goes straight to the homeowners' association. That would definitely go towards keeping the less desirables out of there (even if they just end up a couple streets over). Anyone able to verify this?

Oak Forest was getting pretty torn up before and now post-Ike I imagine that will boom since quite a few have to be demolished whether the homeowner wants to or not. Bad thing about having all those nice trees, a couple might land on your house! Don't fret though, not everyone wants to build those montrosities. We have a family friend planning to rebuild something very much like what she had before on her lot.

Well that link verified it for me -- Garden Oaks is not worth this IMHO, esp with the less desirable areas so near:

http://gardenoaks.org/gomo/hoa.html

The new owner is obligated to pay a one time assessment (Transfer Fee) when a parcel is conveyed by one person to another (except in connection with the division of community property after a divorce or as the result of the death of an Owner) <LI>The Transfer Fee is equal to 0.75% of the greater of (a) the gross purchase price of the Parcel as shown on the closing statement, or ( the appraisal of the Parcel as shown on the then-current records of the Harris County Appraisal District.

[CHiPs]

I'm currently looking for a home in Oak Forest, since I can't afford anything in Garden Oaks. Will Oak Forest look like Garden Oaks in 10-15 years? Any recent tear downs?

[cumby]

I'm currently looking for a home in Oak Forest, since I can't afford anything in Garden Oaks. Will Oak Forest look like Garden Oaks in 10-15 years? Any recent tear downs?

Um...yes and no. I have little hope that some parts will ever move past metal carports and junk in the yard. But I'd say the closer to Garden Oaks you get (like south of 43rd, around Ella) the more you see the big houses coming up.

[jm1fd]

I'm currently looking for a home in Oak Forest, since I can't afford anything in Garden Oaks. Will Oak Forest look like Garden Oaks in 10-15 years? Any recent tear downs?

Nope. Never. The lot sizes are a fair bit bigger in Garden Oaks which allows for more trees, bigger setbacks and generally a more luxurious feel to the neighborhood.

[Native Montrosian]

Garden Oaks has its fair share of new builds, but many of the original houses there were larger than the Oak Forest cottages and lent themselves better to remodeling and/or additions. OF is mostly valued for lot sizes, which average around 7700-8000 sq. ft. and up, hence more tear-downs. We could easily put in a pool, add a sunroom to the side and still have room to spare in our back yard. Front yards are roomy, but not the palatial stretches one sees in Garden Oaks.

If one had to compare neighborhoods, I would say OF will be Bellaire in 10 years. According to a friend in real estate, the location standard is really no longer in or outside the Loop, but the Beltway - being inside the Loop is lagniappe. We apparently stole our house in 2001 for $69K according to prices now.

[jlt1988]

A friend of mine owns this house and we are not knowledgeable about mid-century houses and what gives some historical value over others.  Would you share comments about this one? Not the best pic, sorry.

[BenH]

I thought for sure I'd seen an article about the history of Garden Oaks somewhere, but now I can't find it. Check back issues of CITE magazine. I've heard that a lot of those houses were built primarily by home builders. 

Good luck!

[Specwriter]

A friend of mine owns this house and we are not knowledgeable about mid-century houses and what gives some historical value over others.  Would you share comments about this one? Not the best pic, sorry.

 

There are several factors that can affect the "historical value" of a building. Was it designed by a notable architect, did the original owner have some notoriety, are the features of the building true to the style, how much of the original fabric* of the building still exists, and last but not least, is there good documentation of these attributes?

 

*By "fabric" I mean all materials and fixtures not just textiles.

[IronTiger]

I've been living near the Garden Oaks area for some months now and I wanted to ask a few questions about some of the things I've observed driving around and in Google Earth. I wrote these down a while back, so bear with me, because I am curious about these...

 

1. There was a building just south of Sears in its parking lot that was torn down in 2011. I assume this was a department of some sort (it wasn't the auto center). What was it? The garden shop...?

 

2. Was 7928 Shepherd always a strip club, or was it fast food?

 

3. On that note, what about 7720? The sign (rectangle with corners rounded off) looks a bit like a fast food, but the building is larger. There are two identical signs, one on I-45 and one on Shepherd. The front of it is taken by a "adult video" shop, the back an auto repair shop.

 

4. Shepherd and Donovan, SE corner. Until sometime in the late 1990s there was a large former retail building there (abandoned even in 1995, or at least serving another purpose). Was it a Woolco, Globe, Kmart, or Sage...or something else? [EDIT: Turns out it was a FedMart, though possibly a Globe prior]

 

5. At Tidwell and Rosslyn, there's a small, spooky building with several doors and air conditioning units. Seems like there were some carports converted to buildings inside. What were/are they? Single bedroom apartments?

 

6. There was a defunct Whataburger just west of Residence at Garden Oaks Apartments (formerly Crosstimbers Apts.), when did it close? (It was torn down by 2001 and is now townhomes after a long period of being a vacant lot)

[Reefmonkey]

I've liked Garden Oaks since high school in the early 90s. I first discovered it because when I was 16 and a new driver, my mother didn't want me driving on freeways without her or my dad in the car, especially at night. On Friday nights I wanted to get out of the suburbs of Champion Forest and go into town, with one of my favorite places to go being the Landmark River Oaks movie theater on West Gray for indie/foreign films and Rocky Horror. Mostly used to eat at the Birra Poretti's on W Gray right next to the theater. Because of my mom's prohibition on freeway driving, I had to take Stuebner Airline which became Veterans Memorial all the way down until it kind of merged into North Shepherd, and then N Shepherd down under 610 N where it split into N Durham and N Shepherd, keep on N Durham over I-10 and on down until it merged back with Shepherd around Memorial Dr, and on down to W Gray.

 

Once I had gotten south of the auto salvage yards and passed St. Pius X High School, that's when I felt like I was "in town", and the old-looking but still nice houses in Garden Oaks and the midcentury-looking Sears caught my eye. As a suburban kid who hated the boring suburbs, I always thought it would be cool to live in an old 40s house there right on the edge of "in town".

 

I can't answer most of your questions, but the first one, I may be remembering this wrong, but I want to say there was a Conn's or similar appliance and electronics store there. I feel like that's where I bought the minifridge for my dorm right before I moved off to college.

[IronTiger]

51 minutes ago, Reefmonkey said:

I can't answer most of your questions, but the first one, I may be remembering this wrong, but I want to say there was a Conn's or similar appliance and electronics store there. I feel like that's where I bought the minifridge for my dorm right before I moved off to college.

It would've been a part of Sears or at least affiliated with it somehow...there was a Conn's next to 610 that closed around 2010, give or take a few years.

[Reefmonkey]

I looked at historic aerial photographs of the Sears and think I saw what building you mean. There is a small building directly south of the Sears, in its parking lot, it is there all the way through the 2010 aerial, but gone in the 2012 aerial. Definitely way too small to be a Conn's . You know, it almost looks like...at the Memorial City Mall Sears, there is a small building off by itself in the parking lot (besides the auto center, which is much bigger), where you can get keys duplicated. I've always assumed it is affiliated with Sears, but it may not be. On the other hand, the building might have once been used by Sears and then abandoned by them and taken over by a key duplicating company. I wonder if the building at the Garden Oaks Sears was built along the same idea as the one at Memorial City Sears?

[houwest]

The building south of the main store was originally the bicycle and small engine (lawn mower) sales and service.  Look a bit south and east of the Sears Store, pre mid sixties and you will see the original Pine Forest Country Club, very swanky.

 

[mkultra25]

On 8/7/2018 at 4:44 PM, Reefmonkey said:

I looked at historic aerial photographs of the Sears and think I saw what building you mean. There is a small building directly south of the Sears, in its parking lot, it is there all the way through the 2010 aerial, but gone in the 2012 aerial. Definitely way too small to be a Conn's . You know, it almost looks like...at the Memorial City Mall Sears, there is a small building off by itself in the parking lot (besides the auto center, which is much bigger), where you can get keys duplicated. I've always assumed it is affiliated with Sears, but it may not be. On the other hand, the building might have once been used by Sears and then abandoned by them and taken over by a key duplicating company. I wonder if the building at the Garden Oaks Sears was built along the same idea as the one at Memorial City Sears?

 

There is a standalone Key Shop still in operation in the N. Shepherd Sears back parking lot. It has been in continuous operation there for close to (if not more than) fifty years. 

[houwest]

Yep, the key shop has been there since I can remember, so that's around 60 years - BTW - I love Lindale...lived on Ave of Oaks during the 50's.  Still looks good, as of 5 or so years ago.

 

[Specwriter]

I don't go by the Sears on Shepherd much these days (my mother practically lived there in the early 1960's) but I take delight in knowing the key kiosk, if you will, is still there. Does anyone know of a Fotomat* still in operation? That would be remarkable.

 

*If you are too young to know what a Fotomat is you can Google it.

[Reefmonkey]

18 hours ago, Specwriter said:

I don't go by the Sears on Shepherd much these days (my mother practically lived there in the early 1960's) but I take delight in knowing the key kiosk, if you will, is still there. Does anyone know of a Fotomat* still in operation? That would be remarkable.

 

*If you are too young to know what a Fotomat is you can Google it.

I'm 42, and remember very well my mom driving up to the Fox Photo booth in the middle of the parking lot of the Kroger on Kuykendahl and Louetta to pick up prints in the early 80s.

[Dagnabbit]

On 8/6/2018 at 10:18 AM, IronTiger said:

5. At Tidwell and Rosslyn, there's a small, spooky building with several doors and air conditioning units. Seems like there were some carports converted to buildings inside. What were/are they? Single bedroom apartments?

 

This building and the one behind it appear to be part of an old "Motor Court" motel, the type you would find in many small towns in the 50s and 60s.

[Ross]

17 hours ago, Dagnabbit said:

 

This building and the one behind it appear to be part of an old "Motor Court" motel, the type you would find in many small towns in the 50s and 60s.

I would agree with that, and add that there are a number of examples in the Houston area, like the Admiral that's across the street from Spanish Flowers restaurant.

[mkultra25]

2 hours ago, Ross said:

I would agree with that, and add that there are a number of examples in the Houston area, like the Admiral that's across the street from Spanish Flowers restaurant.

 

There's one in close proximity to Garden Oaks - the Tropical Motel at N. Shepherd and Janisch, about a quarter-mile south of Pinemont. I realize a lot of folks consider these types of places to be eyesores, but I have a fondness for them as they are among the few remaining vestiges of a postwar working/middle-class Houston. 

[Ross]

6 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

 

There's one in close proximity to Garden Oaks - the Tropical Motel at N. Shepherd and Janisch, about a quarter-mile south of Pinemont. I realize a lot of folks consider these types of places to be eyesores, but I have a fondness for them as they are among the few remaining vestiges of a postwar working/middle-class Houston. 

I go by that one on my up Shepherd to get to 45. There was another one, the Paradise Motel in the 8400 block of Hempstead, South of 11th until early 2016. There are some similar looking apartments at 1304 W 24th, I wonder how long they can last.

[Dagnabbit]

7 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

 

There's one in close proximity to Garden Oaks - the Tropical Motel at N. Shepherd and Janisch, about a quarter-mile south of Pinemont. I realize a lot of folks consider these types of places to be eyesores, but I have a fondness for them as they are among the few remaining vestiges of a postwar working/middle-class Houston. 

 

10 hours ago, Ross said:

I would agree with that, and add that there are a number of examples in the Houston area, like the Admiral that's across the street from Spanish Flowers restaurant.

 

A better comparison would be the Azalea motel in the 7100 block of N.Shepherd at Millville street.

[mkultra25]

21 hours ago, Dagnabbit said:

 

 

A better comparison would be the Azalea motel in the 7100 block of N.Shepherd at Millville street.

 

That's a good one, and it looks largely original with little sign of ever having been remodeled since it was built.