CreekDweller

I recently finished a true crime book by Kathryn Casey called Warrant to Kill. It chronicles the 1992 murder of an Olde Oaks resident by a Harris County deputy. I was shocked as I was reading this; my family has lived in Olde Oaks since 1989, only a couple of streets away from Amber Forest Drive where it happened, and we had no idea. I mentioned it to one of our neighbors who's lived here longer than we have and they weren't aware of it either. Does anyone recall this taking place? The book gave the impression that it was fairly publicized around Houston at the time.

Champions is in Houston and Champion Forest and the other Cypresswood subdivisions should be in Spring not Klein. Just because an area is in Klein ISD doesn't mean it's in Klein proper. Spring ISD is just about entirely in Houston.

I noticed development on the Cypresswood side of the Creek that backs up directly to the Northgate Forest Country Club and Golf Course. I wonder if they plan to connect the communities with a bridge over the creek? That would shorten the trip to KHS considerably if they were to do that.

They're extending TC Jester over Cypress Creek to Cypresswood Dr. It was supposed to happen several years ago but the funding was never there & now it's being done to help decrease the traffic at the 1960/Kuykendahl light.

Then what is that one I am talking about. It begins with a "Northgate", too.

You are talking about Northgate Crossing. That is off I-45. Northgate Forest is a golf course community off of FM 1960 west of Kuykendahl.

One thing The Woodlands distinguishes itself by is the 'eclectic' names it gives its streets & subdivisions. I appreciate this to an extent and some of them are creative and quite attractive (especially in the older sections like Grogan's Mill) but they seem to have run out of decent ones. The newer the neighborhoods are, the worse the names get and Sterling Ridge seems to be an all new low. I was there the other day and some just bordered on ridiculous (Gallery Cove, Sprite Woods and Korbel Court were among them).

Anyone else feel that way? What are some of the worst (or best) street/neighborhood names that you've seen around town?

Where do the school aged children in Northgate Forest go to school at? Private Schools?

My family lives in Olde Oaks on a street directly adjacent to Northgate. We've known a lot of the Northgate people pretty well, my family were members at the country club, etc. There aren't that many kids in there to begin with (I swam for Northgate's swim team as a child and virtually all the kids were from Olde Oaks) and those that are there go to area private schools (Northland Christian, John Cooper, St. Pius, etc) and there's a few that homeschool. There's also a bunch who pay for their kids to go to Klein or Cy-Fair schools. I graduated from my private high school last year and can name maybe one or two Northgate kids who went to Spring ISD schools (and they're in college now).

Virtually none of the school-age kids in Northgate actually go to Spring ISD schools. But that's not why the Northgate people are so upset. They want to switch districts so they can raise their property values and move out of Northgate Forest. They know their MUD taxes are going to skyrocket within the next couple of years once the place gets built-out and NFDC stops subsidizing them. They know their Country Club certainly isn't a selling point anymore - the course is poorly maintained, the clubhouse is old & outdated, and membership turnover is high. They know the traffic at 1960/Kuykendahl is inhuman and they'll be living down the street from a major underpass very shortly. So they want to trade "Wastefield" for Klein because there's really not much else going for them right now. Every year a new section of houses opens there that nobody ever moves into. Half the lots in the original section that opened in the early '80s are still for sale.

I went to school with the kids of the family that live(d) there. It seems like the high-end Panther Creek neighborhoods were open to a lot more architectural liberties. That is one of the better examples though. I cringe every time I'm driving on Woodlands Parkway past the lake and have to look at that giant white box. One day I got curious and drove to Windward Cove to get a better look at the house and it's hideous - all painted (and unpainted) concrete, and huge glass windows that let you see everything going on inside at any given moment. People just refer to it as "The Glass House".

I really don't see the same level of excessive affluence here as you do, as say in Uptown/Galleria. Its here, but its pretty well balanced out with the same or more number of middle income.

And in reality, homes are so much more affordable up here that I am often shocked to walk into expensive homes that are furnished in velour lazyboy. Seems many are killing themselves for a home that is beyond their reach, when they could have another incredible home that is within their reach.

In fact, in a collection made to beautify a cul-de-sac up here, I was shocked to find that two of the checks I collected, bounced...and they weren't big checks either.

I do think the kids are bored up here, but teens are always bored..everywhere. I find it hysterical that the Woodlands teen demands to be catered to as a population.

I know exactly what you're talking about, and these people seem to really stretch to get the "best" house possible. I went to school at John Cooper for the bulk of my education and whenever I went to friends' houses they'd often be these 6,000-sq ft mini-mansions on a golf course or the lake and yet the furniture looked like it came from a yard sale or Ikea and there'd be a Camry and a 6-year-old minivan parked in the garage.

The only explanation I've heard is that the builder in that neighborhood went bankrupt after the real estate market crashed in '86. To cut their losses they started building big houses on lots that were too small to hold them and then sold them on the cheap. Supposedly the bank that financed them foreclosed on most of them and sold them at rock-bottom prices and the property values never recovered.

The fact that they're really bad looking might also have something to do with it.