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This week, we look at a renovation in Woodland Park, the September housing market and a frightful new development on Yale Blvd.
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The Do Over 1B · Expert Opinions 2B • Something ‘Wilde’ 3B Saturday, October 24, 2015 • Page 1B
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Bones like these help dictate an early Craftsman home towards renovation
By Cynthia Lescalleet For The Leader Having moved 18 times (so far) in their 30 years of marriage, Laura and Dan Lensgraf surely know their way around a property’s potential. They also knew they wanted to renovate something special into something more special, she says. That urge coincided with a heated up Heights-area real estate market, however, and several attempts to snag something with promise went nowhere. They put out an APB for leads, and, as happens in life, when they’d given up, an opportunity knocked. Bungalow Revival’s Gilbert Perez was showing another client properties near Woodland Park and happened upon a homeowner who said his corner lot property was not on the market but available. While the clients weren’t interested in the property, which had been in the same family for more than 60 years, when the Lensgrafs saw it that night, they made an offer. “We just knew it was for us,” she recalls. That the 1904built home had achieved protected status in the newly designated Germantown Historic District made no difference to their renovation plans.
The Woodland Park home that Laura and Dan Lensgraf purchased was built in 1904.
“We knew we had a diamond in the rough,” her account of the purchase says. “We wanted to honor the historic aesthetics but add all the modern conveniences.” Their home renovation project is believed to be the first in the neighborhood after its historic district took effect. While the permit process before the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission took a mere three months, the extensive overhaul by Bungalow Revival lasted 18 months.
GOOD BONES (AND REAL ONES) For starters, the home had great bones, with a wraparound porch, Loblolly pine flooring and a cool third-level space tucked under exposed rafters. It also had shiplap walls beneath vintage wallpaper with peeling corners, antiquated window units and some encased features only a crowbar could explain, Lensgraf recalls. Peeling back one such encasement revealed what had
Contributed photo
been a brick kitchen chimney, a space the intervening years apparently had turned into a critter cemetery given the number of skeletons. (Those were not the “great bones” Lensgraf meant.) While the initial design attempted to re-incorporate the chimney, the final design removed and repurposed the bricks – stamped “Houston” – as an accent wall behind the new stove. As if having an opinion on
Contributed photo Before and after kitchen: Bricks from the chimney were repurposed as an accent wall behind the new stove
See Home tour, P. 2B
Bond shortfall, poses no effect for Garden Oaks Montessori development By Betsy Denson betsy@theleadernews.com With the Houston Independent School District’s $1.9 billion bond program in the news lately due to concerns about a projected budget shortfall, parents in The Leader area have wondered about the effect that the shortfall may have on their area schools. With regard to upcoming work at Garden Oaks Montessori Magnet, 901 Sue Barnett, the answer is none, according to HISD General Manager of Business & Bond Communications Sylvia Wood. “The school will get a new addition and general renovations of the existing facilities to accommodate 750 to 900 students in grades K through 8,” said Wood. The budget is $26.7 million for a three story new addition and renovations to the existing facilities. The original school was built in 1979, with an addition built in 1981. The last renovation to the school was in 2005. A recent HISD handout about the project noted that the campus currently relies on eight temporary buildings, as well as temporary restrooms. Garden Oaks Elementary Principal Dr. Lindsey Pollock said she will be glad to see those temporary buildings go, including the one which currently houses the 7th and 8th grade classrooms. The new free standing building has been slotted to be built along the fence of the existing SPARK Park. It will house the early childhood classes (Pre-K and Kinder) on the first floor. Grades 4-6 will be on the second floor and grades 7 and 8
will take the third floor. First through third grade classrooms will remain in the existing building, the renovation of which will address electrical and roofing issues. When The Leader interviewed Dr. Pollock last January, she said that the Project Advisory Team was hoping that the entire school would be new construction but that they also were amendable to a renovation of the existing building with the addition of a wing. There was also discussion about relocating the school entrance to Wakefield, but instead a second entrance on Wakefield is planned with enhanced parking. It will have bus access and will hopefully alleviate a good portion of traffic at the Sue Barnett entrance, which will still be the school’s main entrance. Another hope that won’t materialize completely is having each classroom open to its own garden space – appropriate for the Montessori Magnet with a designation in Environmental Sciences – although Dr. Pollock notes that plenty of garden space will be a part of the campus. The new multipurpose space and gymnasium is still a go and now the PAT is working on plans for the new front office. When The Leader last reported on bond work at the school in January of 2015, Wood said that although the planning and design process actually began in the fourth quarter of 2014, a full year ahead of schedule, the target construction start date was scheduled for mid/late 2017. Wood now says that the target construction date is still the original schedule.
“Although the district made the decision to accelerate planning and design for all schools in Group 4 of the bond program, at this point, there hasn’t been a decision yet on whether to accelerate construction,” she said. Dr. Pollock said that there was some optimism at recent meetings about a possible groundbreaking in 2016. It can’t come soon enough. Dr. Pollock said that for the 2014-2015 school year they had over 900 applications for 60 available spots. They were able to accommodate all their zoned students from Kindergarten and up but could not do the same for every zoned pre-K 3 and 4 year old because there
isn’t space and it is not mandated by HISD. According to the 2014-2015 school profile, the total enrollment at Garden Oaks is a little over 700. When asked if Garden Oaks Montessori would never expand past middle school, Dr. Pollock said that it would not happen on the current campus. However, she said that Friends of Montessori, a non-profit group, has been looking at creating a Montessori high school at either Waltrip or Booker T. Washington. “It would be a school within a school,” said Pollock. “The principals at both schools have been receptive to the idea.”
Contributed photo Before and after third floor: The exposed rafters were a design feature that remained.
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