Saturday shelterporn

Houstonist reader Ben called our attention to a piece of modern architectural history for sale: John Zemanek's award-winning Japanese modern home off Richmond and Dunlavy. Zemanek, an architect who teaches at UH, built the house in 1968; it has received the Texas Society of Architects Honor Award, was featured in the Harvard Design Magazine and is listed in Stephen Fox's Houston Architectural Guide. Not bad.

The interior of the house is minimalist and amazing, with shoji screens, exposed rafters and book-matched fir plywood floors. High ceilings and an open floor plan give the house a great sense of space, and walls of glass admit a lot of natural light, which makes the whole effect even better. Outside, the front yard features persimmon, pine and plum trees, while the back yard has a Japanese garden with a 150-year-old live oak.

The design of the house is interesting, needless to say, and so are the reasons behind it. As Fox wrote, "Zemanek ... demonstrated the possibility of intensifying, particularizing — or in Houston terminology, 'developing' — urban space in Houston to invest it with the sense of cultural depth and specificity that the city seems to lack." Zemanek also felt a strong loyalty to Montrose, where the house is located: In 1973, he told Texas Monthly that the neighborhood "provides a humanistic element at its core, like the Left Bank in Paris. If the Montrose as it is now was wiped out by high-rises and commercialization, the city would become sterile and materialistic to the point where culturally stimulating people would move out, and everyone would lose in the long run." Uh-oh. Bedrooms: two. Bathrooms: two. Square feet: 1,435. Price: $385,000.