rs_

Hi, I'm trying to gather information on how to trace the history of my house. It's an over/under duplex in what I believe is known as "Four Square" style. It was completed in 1931. There are a couple of other houses on the block with a very similar style, and I've seen a lot of them throughout the neighborhood and in 3rd Ward. My house is near Broadmoor Park.

Adding to my confusion is the "shed" behind the house. It's very well-built, out of what looks like cedar planks. It has a "horse window" on it, like the one Mr. Ed would stick his head through. It looks like the original roof was tin, but most of it has been replaced with the same asbestos tiles that the main house uses.

I asked my longtime-resident neighbor about it and he only remembers back to the 60's. It's been a rent-house since then -- for awhile a rotating cast of artist/hippie types lived there (the 70's Volvo floormats and custom-made "WAR IS PEACE" sign I found in the shed attest to that), and in the 90s it became a "frat house" of sorts where a lot of UH athletes lived. I started renting it in 2008, and my new wife and I bought it in 2010 when the landlord got out of the business.

I tried tracking down all the former owners on HCAD, which has online records back to 1984. (It has changed hands several times since then, reinforcing its "rent house" lineage.) I can't locate any of them, at any rate.

So...I'm looking for any ideas of how to continue in my research. I suspect there are offices I can go to and look at big books but I don't know which ones. Thanks for any thoughts!

Attached is a picture of the house.

rs

Also, LOL @ Blood In Blood Out mural.

Of the people I know who have recently bought on my block (I'm at Broadmoor & Elliott St.), most of them are Hispanic and white-collar. I know of several instances of (Hispanic) young people moving back into old, family-owned houses in the neighborhood and fixing them up.

I think Houston is too diverse, and the East End not dense enough, to aggressively gentrify in the "Williamsburg" or now the "Bushwick" sense of the word. As others have said, I think it's becoming less and less useful to think of these shifts in terms of "white" vs "other", especially in Houston. (That's one of the reasons I choose to live in Houston when I could live anywhere. People who haven't lived elsewhere don't realize just how tolerant people are here, and best of all they wouldn't think to make a big deal out of it.)

One case in point is that the neighborhood coffeeshop has a "hipster" feel but it's also got a distinctly Hispanic feel. I think East End's future is an "amphibious" one.

rs

(I just looked in the mirror and -- by God -- I'm a young, hip white guy!)

I really, really like the neighborhood the way it is (I would like to see the schools do a better job but maybe that's not just here) -- but I think the imminent Light Rail will be good for everybody Eastward, regardless of cultural stripe.

My wife and I had a serious discussion before moving into the neighborhood. We didn't want to be the stereotypical gentrifiers who came in, made our house way "yuppie-fancier" than the rest of the houses on the block, built a giant fence to put our BMW's inside, drove across town to Whole Foods to shop, and only came out to walk our tiny dog in $100 yoga pants. (We don't actually have a BMW, yoga pants, or a tiny dog.)

Initially we intentionally made an effort to blend in: to spend time with our neighbors, to make our own fun instead of going to Montrose -- and to decide that if Fiesta didn't have it, we could either grow it or we didn't need it. A few months later paying boutique prices for things actually annoys us, and we've learned to cook and garden very well.

rs

Somewhere up the thread, The Meridian was mentioned. I've got several friends who work at a church/coffeeshop/art gallery at Taft & Welch (Montrose/Midtown) called Ecclesia. It is, for lack of a better description, a "hip/artsy" church.

In late 2007, as a favor (I'm not affiliated with them formally), I ran a statistical analysis on their attendance. 80% of the congregation was under 35, and lived in Montrose or Midtown. They have three services on Sunday -- maybe 200 people showed up to each then; my guess is that's increased since.

The rumor mill tells me that Ecclesia has bought The Meridian and plans to vacate their current space on Taft (I used to live nearby, and parking and noise had become major problems for their neighbors) and move in to The Meridian. My guess is, also, that the Ecclesia management has a pretty clear hypothesis on where "20-something hip people" are migrating in the next 5-10 years or so.

rs

I've been renting an over/under 1928 brick duplex at Elliott & Broadmoor (just down the street from Broadmoor Park) since August. By a stroke of luck, the bottom was suddenly vacated a week before we moved in, so some good friends of ours moved in the bottom. My wife and I were married, on the balcony, in December -- the downstairs neighbor officiated.

The neighborhood seems to be about half Spanish-speaking (we don't speak much at all), but everybody has been very friendly and hospitable to us. The kids on the block treat the entire street as one continuous playground, including our yard. My wife is giving one boy guitar lessons, and I routinely help another fix his bike. (The point here is simply that any neighborhood or situation is going to be what one makes of it.)

The landlord is a pretty well-known guy around East End apparently; he's been in the neighborhood since the early 80's. I asked him to consider selling us the place around January never thinking he'd take me up on it. Two weeks ago he said he's making a lifestyle change and agreed to sell it!

We've agreed to a price that will, basically, make the mortgage payment equal to the current rent. (We plan to build about $10,000 into the mortgage to replace the electrical boxes and to do some plumbing work. The pier and beam foundation was fine, in our case.)

Attached is a pic of the aforementioned wedding at the house. (I hope that posting it does not violate any forum rules.)

hth,

rs