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Frank Lawyer House In Hilshire Village


texasdago

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I spotted this on HAR.com today. A high end house, no doubt...

The site lists it as being designed by the sole owner/architect. HCAD lists the owner as Frank D. Lawyer. Frank Lawyer, FAIA was a senior designer for Caudill Rowlett Scott and eventually became a senior partner and Sr. VP of the firm.

1030 Glourie Circle in Hilshire Village (Spring Branch)... just west of Wirt.

http://www.har.com/search/engine/indexdeta...=0&backButton=Y

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At $420k, it had better be one nice house. However, I am thinking the price is more for the neighborhood. The house isn't that big and the the yard size isn't that much larger than normal for the 60's. It's not inside the Loop whcih was my first thought. The house doesn't look too bad in the photographs, althought it looks like it has been setting vacant or unmaintained for some time.

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True... it's not quite inside the loop but in Hilshire Village, one of the Memorial area (although north of I-10) villages. That is a good price given the location. Also, Lawyer made quite a name for himself as an architect - not necessarily residential - so that might add something to it. I believe that with a bit of cleaning up, that could be a great house.

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  • 2 years later...

It's been a bad couple of years for the architectural works of Mr. Frank Lawyer.

Bulldozers and remodelers started to mess with one of his most important works, Cypress College in Cypress, CA, where they eliminated many of the concrete railings and walkways that interlinked the structures into a unified whole. I'm not sure if more was done, because its been about 9 months since I've been by there.

I drove by Mr. Lawyer's Houston house today and noticed that the new owners had painted the entire thing, bricks and all, in a pale grey. The carport / porte cochere has been enclosed with painted plywood and a large "colonial" light fixture has been installed on the front wall facing the driveway, about where that nice tree used to stand in photo #2. I can only imagine what they did with the inside.

It was in relatively good condition when sold, but apparently the new owners wanted to move past the home's solid architectural pedigree into something more, well, plain grey.

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Cypress College by CRS:

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CRS School Design Article

Charles E. Lawrence was also a principal partner with CRS starting 1958. I met him and his wife last week. Following are photos of the house he designed for his family in Mocking Bird-Timberknoll:

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He said they moved into the house the day we landed on the moon.

They moved to a smaller place last year.

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The Lawyer House was named as a "Mod of the Month" when we were in the market for a house. It was too expensive for us though.

I think that was before the tours started.

Jason

The Lawrence house ought to be on the website.

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  • 4 years later...

I grew up in this house! My father is Frank Lawyer. Lot's of great memories in that place.

I rebuilt the decking around the courtyard shortly before he sold it.

The house was designed and built in 1963 for $35,000. To save money , my mom laid all the interior brick floor herself while i sat in a play pen lol.

Hillshire Village... what a GREAT place to grow up! It's now a diamond in the rough. It's own small piece of old style paradise in the middle of of everything. Only a few exits from the Loop. It's not that big, perfect to jog around the whole thing every morning.. as my Dad and i did together many years. Trick or Treat on Halloween.. yes the REAL THING!

When the house was first built the house across the street from us had not been built and the neighborhood used that lot as a make shift baseball park.. what fun we had!

My Dad designed and built a new house in Wimberley Texas on a hillside back in 1998 and He and my mom lived in both houses during the years until about 2004 when we moved everything out of the Houston house and put it up for sale.

Lots of people these days and during the last 20 yrs have bought old 60 houses in the Village and torn them down to build what my Dad called "Big Ugly's". U know.. the big brown brick two story boxes? Cause everyone wants more space now. But Dad told whoever bought it that he would not sell it to them if they intended on bulldozing it.

That house we lived in was a 5 bedroom. Us 4 kids had our own small room on one side of the house 2 brms then a full bath vanity and then 2 more brms, and my parents had the master on the other side all separated by the courtyard and kitchen and LR and Play Room.

We still talk about that house... all the great years we had there. We were very fortunate that Dad picked that place to build. I think it's the greatest neighborhood in Houston.

Mom passed away in 05' and Dad now lives with me in Conroe. He unfortunately has Dementia and the on-set of alzheimer's.

I know what the new owners have done.. and i guess it's whatever. I'm just glad they didn't tear it down! And hope they are enjoying it as much as we did!

Monty

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Also I've been in the Lawrence house many times when i was young.. it was and still is a masterpiece. Unfortunately Tiny (his nickname at CRS) passed away about 2 yrs ago. Lot's of great memories with their whole family... great people and a wonderful Architect.

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Thanks for sharing with us ML. There are a bunch of us here on HAIF that love to hear and share unique stories of growing up in Houston. Your father's home is one of those links to the recent past that only a select few people can appreciate.

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  • 6 years later...

What kind of home his father made a king home or what home. If his father made very good home than his father or home name came in guiness book of world record but because his father made third class home so his name only came in you tube or some peoples know because many peoples made much better than his father. His father is not 1 person who made this kind of home 100 peoples made better than this kind of home because his father didn't made better home so he can't let peoples came inside the home.

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33 minutes ago, Sunny123 said:

What kind of home his father made a king home or what home. If his father made very good home than his father or home name came in guiness book of world record but because his father made third class home so his name only came in you tube or some peoples know because many peoples made much better than his father. His father is not 1 person who made this kind of home 100 peoples made better than this kind of home because his father didn't made better home so he can't let peoples came inside the home.

 

You must have the wrong table, I don't think anyone here ordered a word salad.

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  • 5 weeks later...

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