Saturday was a typical Glenbrook Valley Saturday. While we all love to wax nostalgic for our houses and stuff and everything mid-century, what happens right now, on a regular basis, is what I love best.
I’ve heard that buying a home in GBV is buying a project. So we’re typical GBV homeowners. I got up, all too early, and began dissembling one of the back bedrooms, so we could remove the carpet for soon-to-be bamboo floors. Naturally, I posted on Facebook that I was beginning destruction, and indeed, a couple hours later, we’re down to sub-floor. Just in time to go pick up our new purchase from the nearby estate sale, and to get lots of FB feedback from the ‘hood.
Three things bring GBV-ers together: estate sales, open houses, and bingo with Jello shots. This estate sale was teeming with the GBV A list, all of whom rolled up their sleeves and helped us load up our loot (a FABULOUS bedroom set). It was a perfect event: exquisite house with terrazzo floors, beautiful furniture, the cutest little blue glass ashtray (which I returned for on Sunday.). All that was missing was the champagne.
Sunday, some of us gathered again at an open house (WITH champagne) to meet some young folks and encourage them to think about buying in GBV. Yes, we recruit. You know our type.
And Sunday night, we got to have dinner and a swim with Carter Peeler, the night before his first day of kindergarten. Last evening, we saw Carter returning home from his first day, Elvis lunch box in tow. He was all smiles. His mom was right: he DID have a great day.
We live in community, a new millennium version of “Leave it to Beaver,” for sure, but community nonetheless.
In the background, Seething Republican and his non-resident minions were passing propaganda around the neighborhood (as well as to some homes that aren’t in the neighborhood). Those actions seem so contrary to the rest of the weekend.
I have a question for Seething. Why do YOU live in Glenbrook Valley?
Why I live in Glenbrook Valley. It already sounds like a book report, and I only write book reports on books I love. When my wife and I returned from honeymoon in early March of 2009, we set out to find what our parents called “a grown up house”. My idea of a house at the time was of course within 10 minutes of my business, industrial open setting, high ceilings and an allocation of about 2500 square feet just for the kitchen. ←yeah 2500. She had an idea of some new construction, suburbia, blablabla, I don’t really remember, I was not paying that close of attention. So with HAR.com at the ready I set out with a specific radius from the office that was not going to be open to interpretation. Already we lived in Eastwood, but going to sleep on a Saturday night to the sounds of gunfire and waking up on Sunday morning to the ear gouging sounds of car stereos blasting from cars parked in the yard next door was getting old for us. With limited zip codes, limited inventory and over-priced plots in the area, I was “encouraged” to broaden my search a smidge. I obliged. Just on the other side of the loop, we discovered an interesting property, good shaped home, room to expand and lots of property. Too bad it backed up to the bayou and high traffic Telephone Rd. My darling wife turned to the listing agent, Robert Searcy, and with a twinkle in her eye said “This is nice, but what else do you have? “ Robert, raising his eyebrow and index finger to make the point, “ I have just the thing” he said.
Off we went, down Telephone Rd., up Boadway and then turning onto Santa Elena. As we turned the corner and passed a large, brick two story of more recent design, I told my wife the nickname I had given the house I speak of and that I pass every time I fly out of Hobby Airport. That’s all I knew about the area and that had been about as far as I had ventured in. We continued, deliberately, slowly as to absorb what realm we had entered. Where had all this undulating topography been in flat Houston? WOW! Look at that one! That one is striking! Hey a Swiss ski lodge and a Mediterranean villa tucked in to hundred year old oak trees and a Palm Springs swinging pad with a pool! Further down, That roof line is killer! You get my point. As we rounded a curve and went over the dell (pun intended), we came to a home on a hill…in Houston, Texas! Are you kidding me? We had both of our sets of parents in tow, so up the hill we walked, taking it step by step, pausing every few steps. A hill? Really?
As we entered the foyer we were met with walls of diamond matched teak. A few steps more in a lounge with adjacent dining room with scalloped cove lighting like none I had ever seen before in a home. My wife’s mother turned to us and said, “This is a grown up house.” After the rest of the tour we looked out from the house into the cul-de-sac and back up to the house again. Yes this was definitely a grown up home.
We loved it and we loved the neighborhood’s character and vibe. We loved that the house and the rest of the neighborhood seemed as if it was tucked away from the rest of the world. The area felt like a place to make a home and still be within reach of the city without donating 2 hours of my life every day to my driver’s seat while going to and from work.
More why we live in Glenbrook Valley. The people we have met. The “A” team as it has been said. The core folks that keep the vibe pumping. Those who are into the neighborhood and are passionate about its history and its future. People who refer to their homes by the names of the first family to build the home because it matters. It matters because the homes have history and were all for the most part, custom and unique to the family’s that had them built. That is pride. A pride that you just don’t get in most areas of town. Where builders make “add water architecture” and where and why the house came about really never came to mind. This bunch of easy going, approachable, friendly people have come together to make us feel a part of something special.
That is why we live in Fabulous, Glenbrook Valley.
It just doesn’t get much better than Glenbrook Valley, does it? LOVE this post, Jason. Just love it.
Dang. I am glad to have y’all as neighbors. Really. Oh, and Carter’s Elvis lunchbox is the bomb!
Why I live in Glenbrook Valley
Growing up in Houston I was often taken to Glenbrook Valley to see the Christmas light displays. I remember driving through the winding streets and gawking at, what seemed at the time, mansions on acres of land. I think that my desire to live in Glenbrook Valley started the first year my aunt drove me through it. Funny thing is that I had no idea what the neighborhood name was nor where it was located.
Later, in my high school years I remember having a friend who lived in GBV. My friends and I often drove him home and always took a tour around the sections that ran along Sims Bayou. My love for the beautiful homes in GBV grew stronger.
While in the Air Force I lived all over America, Japan, Europe, central and South America and I always had the desire to move into GBV one day. Immediately upon exiting the Air Force me and my new bride began shopping for a place to live. I won the honor of showing my prospective neighborhood first and to my surprise she also wanted to live here! We bought our home on the very street that I first noticed how wonderful GBV was and still is.
When we talk about GBV, we not only mention how wonderful and well built our homes are but we also like to talk about the people who have inhabited them. People like the Hunts and the Carrabas who built their wealth through hard work and perseverance. These people built their homes incorporating the latest in architectural trends and technology at that time. I think they would have scoffed at anyone who desired to limit what they could do to their homes. That’s the GBV that I love. The “I am going to express myself” spirit that our neighborhood was based on. This neighborhood was born in the decade of Elvis, Chuck Conners, John Wayne, Clint Eatswood (Rawhide- WOO HOO!). It wasn’t the decade of “let’s make sure our homes look like they were fifty years old”.
That spirit of innovation, and one could say, flamboyance, is in serious jeopardy now.
My home looks mostly like it did when it was built in 1955. I plan to keep it that way not because some silly, overreaching city ordinance forced me to do so. I have not lived under such an ordinance in the almost 11 years in GBV. No McMansion on my lot. None of the people that we associate with here in the neighborhood have torn down their homes and built new ones. I applaud them for it, but I recognize that it is their choice and it makes them that much more special.
For those that seek preservation by force you have to know that such a thing could not last as long or do as much good as preservation by education and real love for the the structures in GBV.
While I respectfully disagree with your thoughts on historic preservation, I applaud your love of the neighborhood. Thank you for sharing that.