Late Cohen House featured in Architectural Record

The Cohen House in Meyerland has drawn national attention once again - it was featured in the National Trust's Preservation Online in early December and now has been picked up by Architectural Record. It was also the subject of Lisa Gray's mid-November column in the Houston Chronicle, and our own building watch and obituary.

The article sums up the history of the house and its ownership - how Bob Cohen built his dream home, moved from the home after forty years because of declining health, the subsequent buy out (and saga) from lawyer John O'Quinn, then its demise at the hands of Marvin Granit.

Granit did provide some comments for the article, which is more than the usual builder/developer schtick of having the PR department come up with a vague and stale one-liner for the public. He expressed his shock at how commonfolk would care what he did with his newly purchased property and threw in a dig relating it to socialism. According to the article, the home would have been exempt from a flood regulation if renovated:

...because the house sits in a floodplain, city regulations would have required the structure to be elevated, a costly and difficult procedure. Only listed historic properties are exempt from this regulation, but Granit refused to seek landmark designation for the house and went ahead with demolition.

He would have been eligible for tax breaks from the city as well. So Granit contemptuously bought a one of a kind house that was definitely a candidate for landmark designation in a quotidien neighborhood, but keep an eye on the empty corner lot - it will be interesting to see what Granit's own dream home looks like in the next year or so.

Special thanks to Ben Hill