marmer

Niche, can you give us any perspective on how it's worked in Galveston? My sense is, and I could be wrong, that it's very restrictive in what you can to to a 100-year-old house. there are still plenty of old houses in bad shape awaiting restoration. People do restore houses in Galveston that would be teardowns elsewhere People almost always build significant additions to the rear of Victorian "townhouses" Property values have gone up significantly in historic districts but are still relatively affordable One of the reasons for that is that Galveston is still not particularly safe and has pockets of seriously bad neighborhoods. It would seem that the answers might be pertinent to this discussion, particularly to The Heights.

Thanks, SCDesign, for the information you provided in this post. If your first sentence was directed at my previous post, then I thought it only fair to point out that I had just a technical question, not a financial interest. (unlike you or RedScare, for example.) In point of fact, I live in Pearland, in a tract subdivision, which has always had very strict architectural controls. I think it would be fair to say that many of us suburban sprawl denizens think that is perfectly normal, even though we've all got horror stories about the Yard Police. That was not completely clear to me and I suspect it's not widely known. Thank you for clarifying that. Don't a lot of areas where the houses are more than 50 years old already have deed restrictions? I'm thinking of River Oaks, Southampton, Southgate, etc. Your point that those other areas are equally worthy, if not likely, to be "protected from development" is not only well taken, but in my opinion desirable. I am surprised that blockface preservation is the main focus, and I didn't catch that in my perusal of the Guidelines. But that goes to the point of my earlier questions: 1. Even if blockface preservation is of paramount importance to "whoever," how does that prevent reasonable additions to the rear and sides of a house? Your Victorian in a block of Craftsmen example seems to be about new construction; my sense is that most of the homeowners are worked up about not having their additions and remodels approved. 2. If the ordinance goes through, isn't there a mechanism to revise the Guidelines if necessary? In particular if it is unnecessarily onerous to residents? 3. It seems to me that the main focus should be preservation of structures. Don't demolish usable houses, especially if they have significant architectural elements. I don't see why that _wouldn't_ be a good thing all over Houston.

I don't own property in the Heights, so this discussion doesn't affect me as personally as it does several of the posters in this thread. And I certainly see how deeply emotionally charged this is becoming. But I do have a sincere, non-rhetorical question. Leaving aside the strong tradition of property rights in Houston, which I understand, what exactly is so onerous about the Heights Historic District Design Guidelines? I did read through them as SCDesign suggested above, and honestly I didn't see anything that stuck out as being unreasonable. I saw several alternatives for expansion of houses and even several compatible new-construction alternatives. Seriously, for those of you who have dealt with the Design Guidelines personally and professionally, what are some of the specific issues? Secondly, since my interest in the issue doesn't go much beyond "don't demolish old houses which can be saved," are there reasonable changes to the Guidelines, specifically those dealing with alterations, which could be proposed and might likely be passed which could make the situation more palatable? Chester seems to be implying, for example, that simple bathroom additions, presumably to the rear of a house are (capriciously) rejected. In other words, are there easy fixes to the rules that HAHC might consider which would save more houses in the long run by avoiding a protest backlash?

In your list above, the "Residence of H.C. Weiss" (sic, it's WIEss) is the Rice President's House at 2 Sunset (corner of Sunset and Main.) Built for Harry Carothers and Olga Wiess by Watkin in 1920 and later altered by Harrie C. Lindeberg in 1926 and John F. Staub in 1935, it was rehabilitated for use by the Rice President in the early part of this decade. Harry C. Wiess was one of the founders of Humble Oil and Refining Company and built Humble's Baytown Refinery along the Ship Channel. You can see some pictures here.

It might not be too widely known, but we had an independent minor league team in the area for the past coupla years: the Bay Area Toros, based at the Texas City High School stadium. They played teams from other Texas cities, and some neighboring states. Most of the players were young and living with local families. I saw one game and it was good, cheap, no-nonsense baseball; the stadium was just a municipal park ball field; you'd see better for any of the local college teams. There were maybe a hundred fans there, cheering pretty enthusiastically. I saw a couple of good fielding plays but no impressive hitting. I think they're on hiatus this season, citing (surprise!) travel costs.

Looks like Bing has added birds-eyes down to the House of the Century, but only just. Not all views are visible. It was being weird for me but I was able to get a good look at it. Start here and move around.

Yeah. What sev said. My wife and I are interested in this, too. We had a neighbor who had a great experience with this, but unfortunately they moved away and we lost touch. I think Lewisville is a little too far away, unless sev is planning to stay at Lewisville Lake (I actually have stayed there in a trailer, it's OK but there are better destinations.) True, but the rates for the small ones look pretty reasonable to me. And if what you want is to camp in Big Bend or Palo Duro Canyon, a hotel isn't going to cut it. And having camped unhappily in both kinds of shelter, I can attest that a trailer is way more comfortable than a tent. Of course a hotel is way more comfortable than a trailer, but sometimes we must do things to make other people happy. Spouses and children, for example, who for whatever reason enjoy camping.

Yay indeed! Thanks for posting this, sev! Between this and the Cite archives we amateur historians have had some good news lately.

My guess is that it might have happened about the time Ross Sterling died in 1949. After his death, it probably seemed like a good idea to have the Yoakum name on both sides of Richmond. Of course, that's just speculation. The lapse of deed restrictions and the building of the Southwest Freeway certainly had an impact on the Rossmoyne neighborhood's identity.

Note the link above. Cite archives from all but the most recent two years are now available online. This is news to me, and very cool.

Isn't that the city emergency management center? Really, I think that's what it is.

Yep, and we can't really blame Sonoma, or predatory rent, or any of that stuff. It's just run its course. Sad, though. It was one of the last vestiges of what made the Village special. Are there any other survivors? British Isles is the only one I can think of.

Back when it was Butera's and Cactus Music and Whole Foods and The Empire Strikes Back and Rocky Horror, I don't remember parking being a problem. All of those things drew pretty good crowds. What's changed? I am fully willing to believe that my perception and memory are imperfect, but I did spend a lot of time in that area in the 1979-1984 era.

Not to be confused with a double entree, of course. (On trays? We serve everything on trays?)

Well, scarface, you're not going to convince me and I'm not going to convince you. I still think Pearland is the best of the suburbs, and I'm glad I live there. I just don't find hardcore suburban retail development very pleasant or interesting, and one of the reasons I moved there when I did was that there wasn't much of that, and if I needed to go to a big national chain, Almeda and Baybrook were close enough. I would LOVE to live in Angleton if I could make the commute work. I grew up in Lake Jackson.

Thank goodness! My family all love mac & cheese and hate hamburger helper. Glad it isn't just me.

Just be careful when you start adding meat. You don't want to start reminding people of Hamburger Helper.

Pretty much what he said. The traffic, everywhere, is three times worse. 518 used to be a true rural highway with horses and cattle on each side and a 50+ mph speed limit. Now it's lined with shoddy half-vacant strip centers and storage places. Once you get to 288/518 it's all national retailers, often with half-hearted inventory. (Half Price Books is a notable exception.) 288 used to be a great commute, now it is to be avoided during any daylight hours, pretty much. There is just such...lack of originality in so much of the business planning. Does Pearland really need another undistinguished little Mexican restaurant? Another storage place? Another fast food place? Three Super Wal-Mart's, a Super Target, two CVS's, SIX Walgreens, three Krogers, five Sonics, two Home Depots, a Lowe's, two IHOP's, three Burger Kings, three Pizza Hut Delivery's, two stand-alone Starbucks and who knows how many Starbucks in grocery stores? I can think of at least four. I don't mind the "master bland communities." They are safe and attractive and the value for price equation is one of the best, if not the best in the whole area. My house is nearly paid off, my daughter has had the benefit of good if not exciting or innovative schools, and there are still a few small-town amenities. The library is first rate, there are some great independent stores like O'Day's and Pearland Lumber, there's a cheap movie theatre a mile from my house and two or three locally recognized restaurants about the same distance. (Central Texas BBQ, Santa Barbara Italian, and Killen's)

Fair enough, if you like where you live now. You probably would have liked the Pearland of 20 years ago more than now. I moved out there 20 years ago this fall and I liked it MUCH better then. But, you were the one who said "But I will be forever bitter that my office is down there and I have to drive from the city to the goat farm every day." Just trying to save you a little bitterness, that's all.

You ate at Fish City Cafe. I agree with you and 20thStDad about Pearland Town Center. It's bush league at best. It looks like they weren't trying. It's full of weak clothing and specialty stores which will fail in a few months or years. And the major retailers like Barnes & Noble, Macy's, and Dillards have small, poorly stocked, cheap-looking stores. You have a reverse commute and you're complaining? At one time Pearland had a certain rural charm, as recently as five years ago, and pockets of it still exist. Now it's just becoming suburbia. Still, if you work in Pearland and live in Houston, it seems like you could move to Pearland and come out ahead financially and in quality of life. Just sayin.' Another example of where I agree with TheNiche. I remember thinking at the time "WTF were they thinking with that?" Especially since there's already something similar in The Woodlands. I'm pretty sure that they are all finished and the other ones are/were stored at David Adickes' studio on Sawyer Street. You can see them on Bing's birds eyes or Google Earth. Putting them around the city sounds interesting but they need to be relatively safe from vandals. Both Bushes and Obama, for example, seem like obvious targets for graffiti and the presidents with eyeglasses look like likely candidates for theft or tampering. Art car? Probably more like a heavy truck. Not gonna happen unless Adickes wants it to, and he seems to want to keep the set together in some way or another.

It's an interesting story. Check it out. Houston Press article from 2001 Flickr photos of house

Well, THAT'S interesting. Let us know how it is. I can't imagine that the combination of weird (some expensive) ingredients and a downtown high-rent location isn't going to kill them in a coupla months, but maybe I'm wrong. Hope so.

I didn't even know it was there.

Dowling Music was started by local pianist Richard Dowling who decided that the area needed a retail classical music store. He may have hired some of the old W-K staff (that would have been a smart and classy thing to do) but it is in a strip center on 59, not in either of the former Penders locations.

Nice. That courtyard and corridor patina looks like neglect to me, though. I might get tired of looking at that after a while.