• Greene & Greene’s Gamble House – in Lego!

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    Grant Scholbrock lives in Portland, Oregon, and – if these photographs are any measure – is one of the greatest Lego architects of our time. His focus includes architecturally significant and unique skyscrapers in the United States, landmarks across the world (check his photostream for a terrific White House and Taj Mahal), as well as important Arts & Crafts homes.

    After his earlier (and beautiful) Robie House model, Grant decided to build a tableaux of the Greene brothers' Gamble House in Pasadena. After Three months worth of work and at least 500 blocks – which included a trip to Los Angeles to visit the real thing (Grant took numerous photographs of various details to supplement the images he found online; this was his sixth trip to visit the building), the piece is finally finished. He's had several requests for various Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, and hopes to someday complete a model of the Blacker House, especially if he's able to visit it during the 2010 Pasadena Heritage Weekend.

    See more photographs of this project – and many others – in Grant's Flickr stream. And, if you're so inclined, Grant and I would both like to know what you'd like his next project to be – do you have any favorite buildings that would lend themselves to this kind of model-making?

  • for sale: real estate update, May 2007

    A few homes that struck me as I was browsing new (to me) search engine Oodle, which lets you look at classifieds at almost every major newspaper in the US (and plenty of not-so-major papers):

  • “Shelterporn” from Houstonist: big profits in Texas

    Houstonist‘s every-Saturday Shelterporn section focused on a really pretty bungalow in last weekend’s edition:

    Longtime shelterporn readers will know that we’re most partial to two
    kinds of houses: clean, contemporary designs and traditional bungalows.
    Frankly, though, it’s the bungalow that really makes us think "home" —
    and so it’s only natural that we fell in love with this Heights beauty at first sight.

    At $599K, it’s no bargain, whatever that means, but I can’t speak to relative prices, not having much knowledge of Houston’s current real estate climate. However, based on the last selling price and the square footage price of other homes in the neighborhood, Zillow estimates the home’s value at $187,915, which certainly seems a bit more realistic.

    Adam Wells, president of Clerestory Homes, says that the upgrades and renovations were extensive:

    This project was definitely a labor of love for our company. It is
    an original 1920s bungalow that was extensively remodeled and
    renovated. We added ~1,900 sq.ft. to the original ~900 sq.ft.
    footprint.

    You can see previous sales data here; looks like a flipper or the developer bought it for $160,656 last year – so a more than 300% increase in price. It’s just too bad that people are priced out of neighborhoods they’ve lived in for years, and entire areas are ghettoized, by profiteering and personal greed. That said, the house itself is beautiful, inside and out, and apparently the buyer is very happy with her purchase.