Swamplot’s next group photo feature should be a lot of fun! We’re headed to the intersection of Hillcroft Ave. and Harwin Dr., in Sharpstown. Your assignment: Take pictures of anything you like that’s within 500 ft. of that intersection. Are you up for it?

Be sure to tag your photos “Hillcroft & Harwin” (and include the quotation marks). Then submit them to the Swamplot Flickr photo pool. Make sure they’re in by midnight next Thursday, November 12th. And please enable adding to a Gallery on your Flickr account. We’ll see the results of your explorations in our photo feature next Friday!

What’s going on at the corner of West 43rd St. and Ella in Oak Forest? A team of Swamplot photographers went to find out.

This is their report. It’s also known as Swamplot’s 3rd group photo feature. How’s it looking?

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A slideshow showing all the submitted photos:

A big thank you to all of our participating photographers!

If you have questions or comments about any of the images — or the area — add them below! And if you’d like to snap some pix of your own, please join Swamplot’s group of roving camera snappers for next week’s assignment!

Photos (top to bottom): samstreet, russell.hancock, russell.hancock, scullarledford, samstreet, samstreet, samstreet, North of East, North of East, North of East, North of East, samstreet, samstreet, samstreet, and russell.hancock. Graphic: Mr. Kimberly [license]

Lauren Meyers, archivist of would-be Houston, digs up an earlier plan for a building at 4500 Bissonnet, on the corner of Mulberry St. in Bellaire. That’s the vacant property long in the possession of legendarily delinquent Wilshire Village landlord Jay H. Cohen, where Matt Dilick, the man who now apparently controls it, is planning to build a 2ish-story stucco mild-West meets retail-Tuscan strip center and sell off the rest of the land.

Back in 1946, Cohen’s father, who had developed the Wilshire Village Apartments on West Alabama and Dunlavy 6 years earlier, planned a 122-home subdivision on the 30-acre strip between Avenue A (now Newcastle St.) and Mulberry St. with a partner. And at the southern end of the property, facing Richmond Rd. (now Bissonnet St.), a sweeping, low-slung modern structure spanning Howard St.: the Mulberry Manor Community Center, designed by Houston architects Lloyd & Morgan.

Meyers quotes a Houston Chronicle report from September 1, 1946:

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The proposed community center, which would cost $250,000, will be constructed provided the city of Bellaire adopts a zoning ordinance which would allow commercial construction in the area. The fight over the zoning plan recently provoked widespread strife within Bellaire’s city council. The ordinance will be voted upon September 7. . . .

The proposed community center would include spaces for a super market, general store, auto agency, beauty shop, electrical appliance store, and other stores. It has been designed as a Western modern type, and the over-all design resembles an airplane with one wing clipped off - that is, the bird’s eye view of it. Planners of the project say they are hopeful of completion of the entire project in about seven months.

• Mulberry Manor [arch-ive]
• On Bissonnet near Newcastle: More Pieces of the Wilshire Village Package [Swamplot]
• Wilshire Village coverage [Swamplot]

Lloyd & Morgan rendering of Mulberry Manor Community Center and map: Arch-ive.org [license]

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Commercial Structures

• Nutri Vitamin, 821 E. Tidwell Rd. 77022
• Nava’s Ornamental Iron Works, 2219 Elysian St. 77026

Residences

• 2812 Dennis St. 77004 (Dreyling Gustave)
• 217 W. 28th St. 77008
• 13443 Peoria St. 77015 (Home Owned Estates)
• 5014 Wiley Rd. 77016
• 5017 Nichols St. 77020
• 7518 Gainesville St. 77020 (Houston Harbor)
• 3402 Ozark St. 77021 (Riverside Terrace; garage)

Where was that home that was featured in this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game? And did anyone win that RDA membership?

First, let’s run through the locations you guessed: Braes Heights, Highland Village, on Brogden Rd. in Memorial, Southampton, Rice Village, Midtown (2 guesses), “somewhere off Washington Ave.,” St. George Place, Hyde Park (also 2 guesses), Cottage Grove, “north of Fairview, east of Dunlavy, near Wilson Elementary,” “between Shepherd and Waugh, just south of Washington, maybe around Feagan St.,” Timbergrove Manor (2), Montrose, the Museum District, Camp Logan, the Heights (2), “just east of Memorial Park, south of Washington, north of Memorial, near Westcott,” Rice Military (3), near Memorial Park, in the “River Oaks” area, “in the upper west Washington Ave/Rice Military vicinity,” near Winter and Houston Streets (2), Sunset Heightsish, Upper Kirby, Shady Acres (2), “north Heights,” Sunset Heights, “within a mile of the north Loop,” off Quitman, East Downtown, Fifth Ward, Downtown, the Caceres development, “between Montrose and the Museum District” (2), Jackson Hill, the West End, and near the Menil.

The winner of that one-year individual membership in the Rice Design Alliance? Longtime NGG player justguessin, who just guessed this guess:

First, I’ll go with somewhere off Washington Ave. Second, St. George’s Place, so many townhomes over there.

One of those new modern townhomes with all of the slate tiles on the exterior.

This house must have been built recently. There are a few too many textures in this place….cement floors, granite and marble counters, and the ubiquitous “tumble stone” backsplashes. Also, the rug in the bedroom seems to keep showing up in the NGG houses. You would also have to sell the dining room table with the house…what else could work there?

Congratulations, justguessin!

This week we also recognize the considerable efforts of reader mojo jojo, who already knew the answer (and wrote in to let us know that), but went ahead and posted this remarkable entry anyway, just to throw the rest of you off track:

Just from my initial peruse through the photos, two things immediately caught my eye; the window placement and the curved walls in the dining room and just past the kitchen. Noticing these items, I am certain that this is a recently constructed contemporary/modern home. On closer inspection, I noticed that through the four windows in the living room, I can see that the property has been landscaped with an abundance of tropical plantings, consisting of large green leafy foliage. From the size of the landscaping, I would estimate that this home was built somewhere around 2005 or 2006. Although I don’t see any, I would bet my first Gin & Tonic of the morning that the property has its fair share of palm trees.

From the photo of the master bedroom, again looking out the windows, this photo also gives two clues to location! Out these windows, you see mature trees both on this property as well as across the street. This indicates that the home is located in an established neighborhood, maybe from the 30’s to the 50’s. The second, and most important clue, is the slope of the street running in front of the home (bottom of the middle window). I can tell that the road slopes down to the left! Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

This home is located in Braes Heights, what should be Section 9. I am sure it is located on one of the streets that run North or Northwest from N Braeswood Blvd, between Stella Link and Buffalo Speedway. My guess would be that the home is within five to 10 lots North of N. Braeswood Blvd. Another clue, which I almost missed, is the framed diplomas located in the open cabinets in the study. These diplomas look just like those that hang behind my Dr’s desk. My theory is that the owner is a Dr who does ER work, thus the close proximity of Braes Heights to the Med Center is perfect.

Did it work?

So where is this place, really?

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Location: 5534 Navarro St., St. George Place
Details: 4 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half baths; 4,269 sq. ft. on a 7,000-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $975,000
The Scoop: Three-year-old, 2-story custom steel-framed stucco and stick-on stone structure in Houston’s own little zoning experiment, St. George Place (formerly known as Lamar Terrace). 12-ft. ceilings; 11-ft.-tall garage doors; flat modified-bitumen roof. Gas-log fireplace in Living Room mounted at eye height; Dining Room has built-in Lucite table. Balcony has winter view of Williams Tower. On the market for more than 6 months. Price cut 7 times already, a total of $150K. Open house this Sunday, 3-5 pm.

Liked this round? You know you’ll want to play the NGG again next week. Check back on Tuesday!

• This week’s prize sponsor: Rice Design Alliance
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Gone Fisheye [Swamplot]

Communications director Vance Muse tells the River Oaks Examiner’s Michael Reed that the foundation’s board won’t replace the bargain-rent Richmont Square Apartments in a way that’ll change the character of the Menil campus:

“It’s on our mind that we could, in a low-key Menil way, build a (residential) property along Richmond Avenue,” he said.

Apartments at Richmont Square range from $650 for one-bedroom, one-bath units of 575 square feet to $955 for two-bedroom, two-bath units of 1,064 square feet. Deposits are between $250 and $300.

Asked about the possibility of the Menil plan including dwellings that are priced similarly to what would be replaced, Muse said specifics have not been discussed yet.

“We’d like to keep it bohemian, if at all possible,” he said. “There has always been a commitment (by Menil) to offering a break.”

• Moderately priced rentals a thing of the past? [River Oaks Examiner]
• Previously on Swamplot: Chipperfield Sculpts the New Menil: Goodbye, Richmont Square

Photo of Richmont Square parking lot, 1400 Richmond Ave.: River Oaks Examiner

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Commercial Structures

• Apartments, 3614 Dowling St. 77004 (3 buildings)

Residences

• 7004 Glass St. 77016 (Trinity Gardens)
• 7611 Amarillo St. 77020
• 1526 Glourie Dr. 77055 (Glenmore Forest)
• 11122 Midhurst Dr. 77072 (swimming pool; photos)