Friends in High Places

18 CITE G3 SPRING 2005 Let high-rise apartments really catch on and same imaginative entrepreneur will rent the San Jacinto Monument and have it converted by Christmas. - Larry McMuriry, t968 WITH ITS MINUSCULE population density and predilection for a diffuse form of urbanism that distributes itself over a vast metropolitan region, Houston never developed much ot a need lor high-rise living. This is a city where the single-fam- U " II ily house on a suburban lot reigns as the prime marker of domestic aspirations. When high-rise living was thought about at all, it was framed by a bias that such substandard forms of habitation probably belonged to overcrowded cities up east or in other parts of the world; either that or as a temporary living arrangement. But Houston has been changing. People no longer see the suburban com- mute as a necessary price to pay for the good life. In a graph prepared by Stephen Klinebcrg for his annual Houston Survey, the rising trend of suburbanites interested in mm mg into the a t i <.n issed tin I.ill ing trend of city-dwellers interested in somed.i) moving to the suburbs ai around Iti percent. It's not so much the com- mute that explains these trends, Klinebcrg notes, but that many people in the suburbs are eager to live near urban amenities, cultural and recreational venues, and to feel a sense of solidarity with the ethnic diversity of the urban scene. In other IIP • words, Houston's population is becoming more urbane, and at the same time the city itself is solidifying its identification with images of a more urbanized setting and lifestyle. As the market for insidc-the-Loop housing has increased, so too has the value of scarce inner-city land in premium Mercer Condominiums (EDI Architects, 2003] in ihe Gollorio area: Apoilmenl a; campanile, parking lol oi piozzo. locations, making traditional, low-density development patterns less of an afford- able option. And while Houston's high- rise buildings haven't reached the 70- or 80-story heights of super-tall residential projects in some parrs of Asia and North Friends in High Places America, 20- to .i()-story residential row- ers—the height of the classical modern apartment block—have become a more Locals are discovering a new way to look down on Houston prominent part of the skyline. Density and land values don't entirely explain the lascination wnh tower lin- ing. This is exemplified by the case of the Price Tower (1952), the most romantic tall building ot them all, which rises 220 teet over the nearly empty prairie in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Frank Lloyd BY BRUCE C. W E B B Wright designed this 19-story mixed-use "needle on the prairie" for oilman H.C Price—a testament to Wright's prodigious talent for romancing clients like Price, who had approached the architect with a modest proposal to build something CITE 63 : SPRING 2005 19 like n t w o - or three-story office structure, Beaconsfield and The Savoy Apartments with parking for ten or 15 vehicles. W r i g h t (which architectural historian Stephen pronounced the proposal "inefficient " Fox calls the first high-rise apartment and countered w i t h a design for a 3 7 , 0 0 0 - building in H o u s t o n ) , date f r o m the first square-foot tower that included apart- decades of the 2 0 th century and were on ments on each floor in one quadrant of an the southern fringe of the central busi- intricate pinwheel p l a n . (The Price T o w e r ness district. H o u s t o n House (Charles is a pint-si/.ed version of the three-tower Goodman Associates w i t h Irving R. Klein St. M a r k s ' in the Bowery, an unbuilt proj- and Associates!, a 1,1-story slab l o w e r ect W r i g h t designed in 192'' lor N e w York atop a parking garage and ground-level ( lis., and similar to the lowers he liberally retail, has been a prominent part of the dropped into plans f o r Broadacre City, freeway landscape |iisl south ol d o w n - as punctuation points in the undifferenti- town since I96<S. M o r e recently, as an ated suburban landscape he envisioned for emphatic signal of progress in achieving America.| W r i g l i i , w h o called the Price "a downtown revival, the Rice H o t e l , heart tree that had escaped f r o m a c r o w d e d for- o f the city's social life for most of the 2 l h h est," seemed to fully understand the power century but shuttered since 1977, was Price Towei (Fionk Lloyd Wright. 1952) on the Oklahoma ptaiiie neat Batllcwlle of the t o t e m k gesture on the landscape, transformed info the Rice Lofts by devel- and the oneiric experience ol being able oper Randall Davis and is n o w a h i g h- to w o r k and live high above the relent- profile success story. Capitalizing on the lessly flat and nearly featureless landscape growing p o p u l a r i ty of living in the central below—an experience available to tourists business district. Commerce Towers, a now that the towei has been converted chunky d o w n t o w n office b u i l d i n g recently into a 2 1 - r o o m boutique hotel. was redeveloped into 12.5 condominium s Talk to an agent for a I louston with p a r k i n g , retail space, a n d connec- !Mi:: ban : residential high-rise b u i l d i n g and you w i l l tions to the d o w n t o w n tunnel system. ::::[Mil;l run hear plenty of other reasons w h y people And across f r o m the Rice Lofts, on a full trail siff mi.; might want to make their home in the sky: block at M a i n and Texas, construction is IIUBTIf mi Hffffttn expected to begin soon on the 12-story UIIBM nu Shamrock Tower, heir to the name of Duma Convenience: "It's like living full time in in ,i hotel. You have someone here to do Houston's largest hotel, now demolished, •^Tl;..; everything for y o u . Park your car. C a r r y where Frank L l o y d W r i g h t received his your groceries. Take care of your pels and (Sold M e d a l f r o m the A I A . The Shamrock waier your plants w h e n you go a w a y . " will be the first residential high-rise to be "It's a w a y tor busy people to simplify constructed f r o m scratch in d o w n t o w n their lives." Houston in 25 years. Both Commerce Towers and the new Shamrock relish the Amenities: S w i m m i n g p o o l , g y m , television hemmed-m feeling ol a dense d o w n t o w n theater, party r o o m , wine storage—all of environment, where views are often ga/.es Museum Tower [Jackson i Ryan Arthitecb, 2003), pari of ihe (hanging stale of ttonlrose Boulevard. it an elevator ride away. "It's like living into neighboring buildings or o n t o reflec- inside your o w n private c l u b . " tions of the one you're in. Bui in H o u s t o n , d o w n t o w n tsu'l I'rendiness: "People ire |iisi getting m o n always where the action is, and indeed, sophisticated today. They've been lo other the residential tower, as Wright proffered, cities and they k n o w h o w people live works best in less encumbered settings there. T h e n they come to H o u s t o n and like H e r m a n n Park, where the Park Lane they say, ' W h y not h e r e ? " (19H6) and the Spires (1983) enjoy the city's grandest park .is theii front yard. Cachet: T h e baby boomers equate high- Montrose Boulevard, Houston's most rise living w i t h success. It's like having sophisticated urban street, w h i c h tails into a mansion in the sky. High-rise living Hermann Park, has been fertile g r o u n d symbolizes a busy life and people on the for high-rise living. The Park IV and way u p . " Park V apartments (now condominiums ) designed by Jenkins I [off O h e r g and S.isr. "Location, l o c a t i o n , l o c a t i o n " is the m a n - ,t re In te a s, provide .i death packaged, tra of the real estate business, and high- congenially scaled example dating f r o m rise living, unlike its proletarian, w a l k - u p the early 1960s that reflects the economies cousins, rends to nearly always show up and austerity of the modern movement's in places of high desirability.

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