C i I e ^ «> ii il II I f o i l 19
THE HOUSTON TOWNHOUSE
IT'S BEEN ARCHITECTS VERSUS THE MARKET SINCE THE B E G I N N I N G . TODAY, THE MARKET IS W I N N I N G .
THE "TOWNHOUSI," .1 1v.1l .-M.III ni.irki.-imn divergence in local building practice. icrm ol tin- late 1950s for tltt- house t\ pe I In- luuiih. mse dul 1101 hgun in the more accurately described as a row house, history nt I loiiston bousing until the mid- IS remaking many parts ol I louston. The tilt nl 1 he 20th century. Architectural histn construction of new townhouses, especial- rian Barrie Scardino discovered thai a sin BY S T E P H E N F O X ly in existing neighborhoods, raises ques- gle pair ot New York-San Irancisco type tions about whether this house type can he row houses was built in I louston in the integrated with such neighborhoods or 500 block of Tannin Street in the ISSOs. u bethei n portends .1 scale and spatialirj Research has not been done to determine so different thai they obliterate all that has who built these houses or how they were preceded it. Examined in a historical con- received locally. That nothing similar was text, the Houston fownhonsc reveals a attempted lor another three-quarters of a split between what ambitious architects century suggests that the brick-built row understand as the type's spatial potential house seemed to otter no advantage — and what developers and their design con- economically, environmentally, or in terms sultants understand to he its performance ol social status — to the irecstanding, as an economic instrument. These para- wood-built house in Houston. digms lead to differing, even antagonistic, Isolated projects of the 1920s and '30s approaches to cirj building and residential emerge as precursors to the imd-20lhi.cn Top ol page: Old and new in the Fourth Ward, Today, design. More so than detached bouses or tins ii Inn*,;...ii row hi HIM \nii i it in an hi lownhouses are squeezing in everywhere they can in multistory apartment buildings, the Houston — and often squeezing out Ihe row houses leers ol the 1920s delighted in scaling thai preceded them. Houston towtihouse represents ilns sharp down buildings, especially residential 70 I 0 I I I 2 0 0 0 I ( i I e A
L'Encore, 1927, Frederick Leon Webster, designer. Top: 5000 Longmont, 1961, P.M. Bolton Associates. Borkdull Townhouses, 1973, Burdetle Keelnnd Jr. Bottom: Lovetl Townhouse Apartments, 1965, James Dalrymple.
buildings, ro achieve effects of quaint Jr. designed his house of 1956 in the M i d the late 1950s. Complexes by I.M. Pei \ able to build more townhouses facing diminution. The theater director Frederick lane c o r r i d o r as a duplex ot Hals. What Partners and H a r r y Weese & Associates Chimney Rock Road, some ol which I eon Webster pursued this approach in makes Wilson's house a precursor to the for the developer Webb iv; K n a p p, and by adjoined Westbury Square and were con- his house, I I IK on . in I lydi I'.irk ol towtihouse was his use of walled court- l.udwig Mies van der Rohe for Herbert T. nected to it hy pedestrian walkways. All of 1927, It is a three-story tower, rising f r o m yards that extended out f r o m the interior Greenwaid, contrasted w i t h examples by his two-story townhouses were rental a g r o u n d plan 2(1 feel by 22 feet in area. of the house. Bailey Swenson and his architects and developers w h o were not as apartments w i t h shared driveway spaces Rather than being constructed in the cen- partner I lerbert Linnstacdter explored the high profile. The modernist townhouses adjoining their rear walled courtyards. ter of its lot, it is built at one corner, right vertical organization ol domestic space in tended to be designed as u n i f o r m blocks. Berne's architecture was not sophisti- on the sidewalk line. In LIS vertical orgam a four-story tower house of 1957 in the The market-oriented examples tended to cated. Each house front was different. zation and si reel-related orientation, 4(»tl block of Rosalie Avenue, They treat each house trout as stylistically singu- Westbury Square and its adjacent t o w n - [.'Encore embodied the urban spatial .itt.uhed this house to an existing garage lar, often w i t h house tronts stepped in plan houses bore a resemblance to the M a i n arrangements characteristic of tin- row apartment b u i l d i n g that Swenson and so that the rows did not have a u n i f o r m Street LISA sector at Disneyland. Berne house, t h o u g h l.'Kncore is freestanding, I innsreadrer adapted for their studio and front wall-plane. All were built as compo- and his architect, W i l l i a m T. W o r t h a m , rather than part ol a row. Twelve years where Swenson's wile, Kathryn, operated nents of larger subdivisions, so that they favored what llotisc & litmiv described later, I louston architects Talhott Wilson lu i Sew Arts i . a l i e n . I hi ,iu futectural did not engage the public street as 19th- as "storybook " styling, e v o k i ng N e w century r o w houses did, The builders' and S.I, M o r n s Jr. designed the I billon historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock char- Orleans, Trench M a n s a r d . Georgian, magazine House 6~ lltmw emphasized the Court Apartments of [ 9 3 9 at 2101 San acterized the Swenson I louse as a San Regency, Mediterranean, and Victorian retail popularity of the new house type, I elipe R o a d , on the edge ot River Oaks. Francisco-like a p p a r i t i o n in suburbaniz- decorative themes. Westbury Square was which minimized landscape maintenance, Rather than organizing the apartments as ing I louston. I litchcock's observation I louston's first urban ensemble ot kitsch provided alternatives to tree-standing sub blocks of Hats, Wilson and M o r r i s config- condensed the Bohemian, u r b a n , m i x e d - architecture. urban houses and apartments, and could ured them us two-story maisonettes, rotat- use, "sophisticated" attributes that the By |9(,() kitsch was poised to become be built in existing cities rather than in the ed in plan so that each of the attached term "townhouse " seemed meant to the preferred architecture of residential suburbs. The earliest I louston examples ot units had outside exposure on all tour evoke at the end ot the 1950s. Hitchcock and retail construction in I louston. the towtihouse reflect the dichotomy sides, Wilson and M o r r i s aligned the noted, " I t the tide of flight to the suburbs Reference to the dense materiality and between modern architects' emphasis on apartments in a pair of rows training a ever turns, n o w that projects of urban enclosed spaces of pre-industrial cities, exploration ot planning and construction central l a w n . I his feature is no longer evi renewal are being considered in many encoded in kitsch architecture, represented alternatives and builders' emphasis on dent, since one ot the rows was demol- lilies, such private houses, developed ver- a critique of the spatial dispersion of imagery and marketing. ished in 1997 tu i.kiln,in- redevelopment tically instead of horizontally, if built in Houston in the 1960s. Kitsch architecture o) the property. D e m o l i t i o n has obscured quantity, might provide a viable snbsii Ira Berne, the developer ol the uncritically accepted the dispersed spatiali- the significance ol Chilton (. ourt, which tute for apartment l i v i n g . " 1 The emphasis Westbury subdivision in southwest ty and expedient construction practices demonstrated that it was environmentally on compactness and verticahty, and the I louston, built the first tOWnhoUSG com- that characterized postwar American sub- feasible to organize housing in rows in exploration Ol spatial strategies to extend plex I I I I louston in conjunction w i t h his urban development. Its critique, therefore, was insubstantial. Yet because kitsch Houston and implicitly proposed, as had the range ot domestic o u t d o or space suit- specialty shopping center, Westbury detached issues of architectural look and 1 T'.ncorc. that I louston could sustain a able for middle-class habitation , mark the Square, Today, Westbury Square is a near feel f r o m the construction and spatial garden-city iirh.imsin ot higher densities Swenson and Wilson I louses as t o w n - ruin, its shops abandoned and half its cen- organization of buildings, n performed and more urban spatial relationships that house forerunners. tral plaza destroyed. But f r o m 19f>0to efficiently w i t h i n the economy ot specula included landscaped green spaces. Row houses, called townhouses, began 1971 it was I he most popular specialty five development, unlike the architects' During the 1950s, when the sulmr- to be published in I'.s. architectural and shopping center in I louston. Berne was l alternative. In a market context, architects' bani/iug impulse in the United States building trade journals in the late l>sik. tarsighted in many respects. I le built insistence on formal coherence and techni- seemed to t r i u m p h over all other real In some U.S. cities, such as Philadelphia, apartments on the upper floors ot the t w o - cal and spatial integration proved rigid, estate alternatives, there were, even in row housing had continued ro be built story retail buildings that encircled and COStly, and unpredictable. It the market Houston, isolated explorations "i alterna into the postwar period. Mlow ible under radiated out from the fountain court at didn't buy it, the architects' alternative did rives. Architects were especially pronu the Federal I lousing Administration's Westbury Square. I le built a r o w of 12 uoi easily lend itsell to readjustment, nent in these explorations. The architect Section 2 2 0 , row houses were especially townhouses in the 5400 block of West Bellfort in |9f>| and made property avail which kitsch architecture did because n and interior designer Robert I I . Wilson associated w i t h urban renewal projects in Cite 4 t I 2 u (i u I l u l l 21
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Grove Court, 1980, Tott Architects.
Dunston Townhouscs, 1973, William T. Cannody & Associate]. Graustark family Townhouses, 1977, Howard Barnstone.
wasn't integral. demand, transportation accessibility, and facades of the units, emphasizing instead assumed w o u l d be built alongside it. Designed and built at the same time as concentration of populatio n typically cited an intricate weaving ol indoor and out- Barnstone built three houses in the the Westhury Square housing was a tar by urban historians ai mid-century to door spaces, I le developed a sequence of backyard of a duplex he owned in the more sophisticated project that represents account for the appearance of such new small o u t d o or spaces leading f r o m the 4900 bi„ck of Graustark Street in 1972. the developer-architect dichotomy. high-density buildings types as the sky- street through entry courts or terraces into Each is 16 feet w i d e , the w i d t h of a single Architect Preston M. Bolton planned and scraper, or the disappearance of such each unit, then to private patios and a garage stall plus an adjoining interior pas- developed 5000 l.ongmont, a townhouse established types as the row house, Bolton shared garden court. I le integrated the car sage and stair. Barnstone described this as community on the edge of Tanglewood. in articulated a linked sequence of develop- with street-facing carports that buffered a "professor-ish experiment" to test the l''M)-d|. Bolton divided Ins site, compris- ment cost calculations, "lifestyle," and each unit f r o m the street and did awav feasibility ol building on such n a r r o w ing tour lots, w i t h a private street. I louse upper-muldle-income life cycle conditions with onsite driveways and parking lots. At frontages, while incorporating the car. sites were lined up lacing tins street. All in account lor the paradoxical reappear- the I ovett Boulevard complex, emphasis Within this compressed space, Barnstone houses were designed to he sold in fee sim- ance ot a high density urban house type in was on the differentiated architecture ot used sectional differentiation to introduce ple. I hey filled their 4 5 [not wide lots. low-density, suburban settings. the facades. The townhouse units were a sense ot spatial exp.uisiveness. The rear- with facades huilt on the sidewalk line ol Until the m i d - 1 9 6 0 s , townhouscs lined uifi along the public sidewalks on facing living room is t w o stories high. It the private street. All houses were to con- tended to be built in purpose-developed, I n\i u and Stanford, i m b u i n g the c o m - overlooks a rear garden court, and is over- tain Ulterior garden courtyards rather than multi-unit enclaves in new, o u t l y i n g sec plex's Georgetown-like architectural theme looked in turn by a dining balcony on top peripheral open space. Bolton designed the tors of H o u s t o n rather than in older, cen- with more plausibility than the Westhury o l the garage. The exteriors of the four- lirsi live houses for individual clients, and ter-city neighborhoods. The M a r b l e Arch townhouses. To accommodate parking, a level houses are domestic in appearance architect I lamilton Brown designed t w o complex, a subdivision ol apartments and depressed parking garage was integrated without involving historical imagery. additional houses. Bolton's were adapta- into the complex. Provision for o u t d o or townhouses built by different developers, In 197.1, in the I 100 block of tions fit the Miesian courtyard houses he space and parked cars were practical issues and |. I., l'hilips's Briargrove T o w n - Barkdull Street, Keeland used the lull had produced d u r i n g his partnership w i t h that required resolution so that townhous- houses, designed by I a n g w i t h . Wilson ev depth of t o w n lots to design houses w i t h Howard Barnstone, "softened w i t h ... col es could be transformed f r o m rental hous- King, were completed in I464-6S along 25-foot-widc street frontages. This made ors and traditional accents," as Bolton ing to tee-simple ownership, or to a new Wcsdicinier between Fountainview and it possible to incorporate street-facing, explained in an interview w i t h Houston type ot tenure that became legally feasible llillcroft. Sagetown, ofl Sage Road, and double-car carports w i t h each m m . Post columnist Charlotte Tapley.2 in 196' . condominiu m ownership. the adjacent Del M o n t e Place, designed Rather than simply repeating unit plans, by Clovis Hcimsath in I9
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tf^^BI iBfri- Southampton Court Townhouses, 1983, Ziegler Cooper. Haddon Townhouses, 1983, Arquitedonica
Arlington Court, 1985, William F. Stern & Associates.
inn houses in a r o w configuration , w i t h so that houses face the side street neous approach of H o w a r d Harnstone, stair bays shape i n t e r i or spaces w i t h i n nn side w i n d o w s , on fractions of t o w n rather than the main street. T h e y over- but they addressed similar issues. units w h i l e creating points of focus that lots that could be sold m fee simple, like ride existing setbacks and fill the l o t, Neartown Development Corporation , visually organize o u t d o o r spaces. conventional, freestanding houses. walling up the interior side lot-line of which developed and built townhouse Arquitectonica, in rhe H a d d o n Other I lotiston architects in the early the house next door. complexes, emerged as the principal tal- Townhouses of 1 9 8 1 , the first of four 1970s sought to demonstrate the adapt- During the early 1970s, the type of ent broker, emulating at smaller scale the I l o u s i ou townhouse complexes it ability of the tee-simple r o w house to the ! lotiston townhouse was formulated . practice begun by Gerald D. I lines in the designed, w o r k e d w i t h t w o corner lots existing t o w n lots. Jim I'owers, w h o It involved a rectangularly-planned r o w late 1960s of hiring w e l l - k n o w n archi- across the street f r o m each other near rhe worked lor Barnstone on the (Ir.iustark house incorporating a street-facing dou- tects (in Neartown' s instance, H o u s t o n Rivei Oaks Shopping Center. The I lad- Townhouses, designed and developed ble garage, w i t h living spaces stacked t w o architects) to give its projects a mar- don Townhouses are aligned in a terrace three townhouses at 4 4 1 ) 9 - 1 * M o u n t or three stories behind and above the ketable degree ol design distinction. formation facing H a d d o n Street, the side- Vernon thai externalized single-car, gable- garage. This enabled the house to be sold Ziegler Cooper, W i l l i a m 1. Stern cv street, rather than M c D u f f i e , which all roofed garages as Freestanding '"gatehous- in fee simple and eliminated c o m m u n a l Associates, the I louston branch ol the other a d j o i n i n g houses face. The exteriors es" in front of a r o w of two-story t o w n - spaces that required an owners' associa Miami l i n n Arquitectonica, and Alan o f the townhouses act as street walls to houses. It, I I . Donnelley T.rdman, W i n t o n tinn, regulations for use, and mainte- Hirschfieltl produced designs for channel space in a neighborhood of : Neartown as well as other investors. l . Scott, and Peter C. I'apademetriou, nance fees. As the South African-trained 1920s brick veneer cottages. Their rear three instructors at the Rice University I louston architect Alan l; . I lirschfield Zicglcr C o o p e r and Stern gave spe- elevations a n d the side elevations that School of Architecture, collaborated on ohscrved ot such arrangements, " lex.uis cial emphasis to the design of c o m m u n i - confront each other across M c D u f f i e par ticipate in tins effort to configure urban the design of a six-unit complex devel- don't like to share." Architects W i l l i a m J. ty space in their complexes. S o u t h - oped by Trdman at V>0I- 1 1 Roseland in spate, an effort not much appreciated by \nderson and I• >iIi R Wilson designed ampton C o u r t of 198.} by Ziegler Montrose. 1 his row employed concrete neighbors, however, because of rhe and developed a number of exemplary Cooper involve d the incorporatio n of a tilt-wall construction, interior steel joists change in scale and house type that row house projects in the lare 1960s and private street " i i a series ot residential and decking, and stepped-section interior Arquitectonica s townhouses aggressively early 1970s in the Hissonnct and Virginia- lots in w h i c h townhouses were stacked planning to lest the feasibility o) applying imposed. Arquitectonica's exterior Ferndale corridor s that adapted the two deep. Ziegler Cooper had collabo- warehouse construction practices to the designs were as formall y extroverted as I louston r o w house type to various rated w i t h harnstone on the site p l a n - any developers', but their recesses, projec- townhouse. W i l l i a m T. Cannady, w h o also site configurations. ning of the Institute l a n e Townhouses taught at Rice, designed a number of row tions, and color combination s code In the period ot intense construction nearby; they absorbed ba rust one's a b i l i - houses m the early 1970s. In a subdivision changes of use and volume inside each activity that occurred between the expan- ty to c o n f i g u re o u t d o o r and i n d o o r that permitted duplexes, he designed a house, as they do in Ziegler Cooper's and sion of the international oil market at the spaces in intricate ways to create layers pair ol freestanding houses on a single lot Stern's designs. end of the 1970s and its collapse in I9N2- that made the complex's public thor- at 2.166-68 Dunstan Road in 1973 that oughfare seem more like a compact 83, a number of more complexly con- The Housto n real estate depression were, in effect, elongations ot their street- street fronted w i t h houses than a drive- ceived townhouse developments were that lasted f r o m the m i d - 1980s through facing, double-car garages. The stained way bordered by garage doors. Stern's built. These complexes were arcbitectui.il the mid-1990s sharply reduced the market wood siding reflects the emerging ecologi- Arlington C o u r t of 1985 in the Heights ly predicated on an attribute of Preston for new speculatively-built townhouses. cal look of rhe 1970s, typically essayed also involve d the redevelopment of a line Bolton's and 1 towar d liarnstone's row I oiisequeiuly, the practice of commission- with a formal restraint and lack of e u r o ot I. inner single f a m i l y lots. H e , t o o , house designs of the 1960s: the townhouse ing w e l l - k n o w n architects, as opposed to version that set them apart f r o m developer stacked r o w houses t w o deep on the as urban design. They also relied on archi- architects specializing in r o w house design housing. Each of these complexes resobed lots, w h i l e maintainin g the f r o n t setback tectural design as a marketing tool. for developers, was curtailed. An excep- the issue ot the garage. The I'owers and along A r l i n g t o n Street. Stern's c o m m u - Taft Architects designed the six-unit tional project from ibis period, the nal space is not an i n t e r i or street but a Cannady complexes had die advantage of (irovi i i m i l 11 pwnhouses of I 9K0 at Wroxton Townhouses of 1992 by Albert central greensward thai begins w i t h a full lor depths, which enabled them to 4,1 IS-4320 Floyd Street in the West End Pope and W i l l i a m Sherman, t w o young street-facing gatehouse — identifyin g the maintain existing front yard setbacks. as ,\\\ exploration in layering o u t d o o r and instructors at Rice, reaffirmed the issues complex as a c o m m u n i t y — a n d c u l m i - The T r d m a n c o m p l e x , like liarnstonc's indoor space I" create staged degrees ol that ambitious architects typically consid- nates in a walled s w i m m i n g pool c o u r t . ered critical in new row house design. Craustark Townhouses, was built astride community and privacy. I heir analytical In each c o m p l e x , rounded w i n d o w and Rather than stressing exterior imagery, the n a r r o w e r d i m e n s i on ot a corner lot. aesthetic differed front the more sponta- fife ^ *• I i n II n I l o l l 23
West End townhouses, 1999, MC2 Architects.
West End Lofls, Deleting Avenue, 1999, Lorry S. Davis & Associates.
WroKlon Townhouse!, 1992, Albert Pope and William Sherman.
Pope and Sherman layered exterior space in 1995. 1 lis architect on the project, extroverted but poorly integrated eclectic distinct local type, as is the k i n d of with simply composed Iront wall planes. Natalye A p p e l , absorbed the lessons of designs. Davis is especially proud that a urbanism it presupposes: opportunistic, built on a row of lots in a neighborhood the 1970s and 'SOs in her design. As w i t h significant percentage of the buyers w h o aggressive, fragmented. I louslon's civic o f single-family houses, the townhouses Stem's A r l i n g t o n C o u r t , she t o o k advan- purchase his townhouses are architects culture of " a n y t h i n g goes" tolerates respected the prevailing Iront setback so tage of a rear alley to provide garages on and other design professionals. architectural exceptions that are more as not to overwhelm die next-door neigh- the hack ot each house. She and Burnett In t w o inner-city neighborhoods , rigorously and respousiblv executed than bors. Pope and Sherman reconsidered the provided a double layer of gardens Midtown m the old South laid and the the n o r m . But the very traits that ensure spatial sequence of entry to produce a between the street