Few past pictures of an almost gone Westbury Square located in Houston which was designed by William Wortham.
Below some related links:
Houston architecture forum
Westbury neighborhood (Wikipedia)
Architects of Houston (Wikipedia)
Westbury Civic Club, Inc.
and Houston Press has it listed as
Below some related links:Houston architecture forum
Westbury neighborhood (Wikipedia)
Architects of Houston (Wikipedia)
Westbury Civic Club, Inc.
and Houston Press has it listed as
Best Ruins
Westbury Square
5425 W. Bellfort
Houston
Houston
This 48-year-old outdoor mall looked old when it opened and was full of life. Designed by architect William J. Wortham, Jr., a man with a fixation on all things Italian Renaissance, Westbury Square was supposed to evoke a village in Tuscany, and for a decade or so it thrived as a hotbed of the counterculture outside the Loop, far from Montrose. Today it looks more like Pompeii. Almost half of it was pulled down about ten years ago to make way for a Home Depot, while the other half molders and crumbles in the sun, rain, wind and mold. And yet there's life there — people still live on the upper floors of some of the buildings, and a cigar shop there claims to have Houston's largest humidor. So grab a stogie, fire it up and remember the way things were.
27 comments:
Wow, that was in Houston? That looks really fun! There used to be a local band called the Westbury Squares; I never understood their name before now.
It's really hard to believe that there was ever anything noteworthy here:
http://tinyurl.com/nrnro6
My wife says: "why do people break things to build Home Depots? It seems ironic at best"
I thought that was funny :)
Wished we could renovate it - have some good memories there - maybe home depot would help us renovate it they have all the stuff.
It does have lots of potential and the location is great.
i agree!! i would love to help renovate!! many great memories there!
Especially on a Saturday evening in the early 70's, Westbury Square was the place to be! I have so many fond memories of shopping there and enjoying the ambiance. Does anyone remember having ice cream at that parlor with that crazy striped red wallpaper? Frank Allison
Especially on a Saturday evening in the early 70's, Westbury Square was the place to be! I have so many fond memories of shopping there and enjoying the ambiance. Does anyone remember having ice cream at that parlor with that crazy striped red wallpaper? Frank Allison
Hi Frank. Regretfully I was not in Houston in the 70s but surely back then Westbury Square was a destination. Is it possible for you to compare it to a current location in Houston?
In the late 60s, my crowd was finishing up high school. Loop 610 was still in the works between what is now the Hobby Airport area and Southwest Houston. I remember one year in particular, probably 1967, going to Westbury Square during the Christmas season. It was a cold night and our crowd was excited to have left our little common area to venture into the energy that was Westbury Square in those days. It was charming and romantic. Yes, I remember the ice cream parlor with the red striped walls.
Kathy Gail
The ice cream parlor was called Rumpleheimer's, I believe. My parents used to always take our out-of-town visitors to the candle shop in Westbury Square. It was a big deal back then.
Jeff
The ice cream parlor was called Rumpleheimer's, I believe. My parents always took our out-of-town visitors to the candleshop in Westbury Square. It was a big deal back then.
Jeff
The ice cream/candy store was called, I believe, "Rumplehimer's" (not sure of the spelling). They always had ragtime music playing and the clerks were dressed in outfits appropriate to the period.
There was a great burger place there in the late 60s called Britian's Broiler Burger which had a carousel seating area for the kids. It's been many years, but I think when it closed it became a Shakey's Pizza Parlor which featured a large stage in the center of the restaurant for local bands.
In the mid- to late-70s, the head shops moved in and you could buy drugs from some of the slime that lived in the apartments above some of the shops.
If you are interested there is a facebook group about Westbury Square. You can find it at this link
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67579610630
For those of you who might be interested in participating in preserving the history of Westbury Square, Dr. Valdez from the UH Center for Public History is interested in gathering the histories told by folks who lived during the time and were part of the Westbury Square moment.
http://vi.uh.edu/public_history/center_for_public_history.html
You might be able to leave your contact info at UH Department of History | Office: 524 Agnes Arnold Hall, Houston, TX 77204-3303 | (713) 743-3083
I remember the first time I went there it must've been around 1965 and the Square was in full-swing.
I was only about 4 yrs. old and my Mother and Aunt took me there. I remember walking in to the China shop and saying out loud; "Mom, this place smells funny." It was my first experience with incense! My Mother teased me about that throughout the years. I think the China shop (I don't recall the exact name) was in the rounded turret-stype structure near one of the entrances. I had a blast!
Later, I went back there in about 1988-1989 for a visit. I remembered the Holland House being there but the whole place seemed sort of in a decline then, although it was still all there.
I stopped by there today and was horrified. I haven't been there in years and most of it was gone. I stood in the middle of what is left there in looked around in sadness. Another one of Houston's great attractions gone with time. At least I have the memories !!!
I'm from Canada and I remember the beauty of Westbury Square. I managed to walk inside the ruins on January 3, 2010. It was sad to see what was left.
The good bit is that a gentleman from New York, who came out of no where, is set up in one of the small buildings inside. He and another person are trying to revive the square, tear down what is unsafe, and revitalize it with say artists and shops. He is looking for the City of Houston to contribute $1.5 million and he will put of $1.5 million. Anyway, there seems to be hope it will live again.
It is a crime that it will never be as glorious as it was.
I was allowed to walk around inside Westbury Square on January 4, 2010. It is mostly prohibited, as the some buildings are crumbling. Two gentlemen let us go inside for a brief period.
While inside, another gentleman from New York approached us. He has an office set up in one of the only secure little buildings within. He and the person he works for, are attempting to revive Westbury Square. They are prepared to ingest $1.5 million and are attempting to get another $1.5 million from the City of Houston. Their plan is to tear down what is crumbling and restore and add on to the remains. Their vision is a square where artists will set up, along with shops.
Hope is works as I remember it very fondly and was shocked at what remains and what was.
Lucy
Thanks for the posting Lucy. Looks like that gentleman is in need of a partner. I doubt very much the city will help fund the restoration of Westbury Square due to current financial constrains.
Also looking from the outside I got the impression most of the buildings are in pretty bad shape. Perhaps the quality of the construction might not have been that good or it is in pretty bad shape.
Regretfully maybe the better option is not to restore it but build a new shopping center. I would certainly encourage the gentleman wanting to restore the place to contact the city historian and/or other local historic organizations to get a better understanding whether the place is historically significant.
As kids we would play in and around Westbury Square in the 70's. There was a pizza parlor there where I bought my first pack of cigarettes. Does anyone remember the name of it? And a bookstore was there as well. What was it's name? I had a friend who lived in the townhouses there ... and new some other kids who lived in apartments that surrounded a pool but maybe that wasn't in the WS but nearby ... I am really forgetting.
I remember going there in the late 60's. I bought patchouli incense and a wooden hand with the middle finger extended. Being young and stupid I thought my purchases were cool. My Mom fussed at me when I returned home to Corpus Christi with my purchases. I kept that wooden hand for years but finally threw it away after a few moves and storage in boxes.
My family were early and frequent visitors to Westbury Square back in the early 1960's when it first opened. I remember going to Shakey's Pizza Parlor (the one referenced as having the red striped walls) which sat to the left, just before the main entrance. They had wonderful brick-oven(?) pizza and sold beverages in GLASS mugs! They also had a great old-timey player piano, and on Fri and Sat nights had live musicians (banjo, tuba, etc.) that played and dressed in barber-shop quartet style music which everyone sang along to because they had the songs on a flier sheet at every table ("Ja-da" was a favorite)!
As you entered the square proper, you saw Wilderness Equipment which was the first location for the store that eventually moved to River Oaks shopping center. I remember it always being populated by cool hippie dudes & chicks. There were a few glass blowers that had shops in which you could sit and watch them practice their art blowing glass figurines or whatever you wanted. Further inside the center portion was a large european fountain and just to the right was one of my favorite stores, PASHA IMPORTS! They had everything one could imagine from the orient, including numerous fine cloths dyed in an array of beautiful and exotic colors, great hand-tooled brass trinkets and things like stringed bells on fine woven satin cords (I still collect bells of this type today when I can find them), as well as some of the best incense (Swagat) made in the world & certainly the best in Houston! I remember the owners were always so nice to everyone, they even gave me an old wooden shipping crate, decoratively marked "Kwong Cheong Swallows Nest" with a really cool swallow bird in mid flight depicted in the middle of it. I took it home, waxed it and made a make-shift bedside table from it (not bad for a 7 year-old). There was also a really good book shop, though one would have to look at a Polk directory to get the name of it (as well as all the other shops located there); easy enough to do, just go to the downtown library and ask to look at the 1960's-1970's directories and search under the street names. Still miss those days, great music, pretty good television for kids (Jonny Quest, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Green Acres, The Monkees, etc.) A great time now gone, but I have wonderful memories of it that make me smile when I think about those days!
...they even gave me an old wooden shipping crate, decoratively marked "Kwong Cheong Swallows Nest" with a really cool swallow bird in mid flight depicted in the middle of it. I took it home, waxed it and made a make-shift bedside table from it (not bad for a 7 year-old). There was also a really good book shop, though one would have to look at a Polk directory to get the name of it (as well as all the other shops located there); easy enough to do, just go to the downtown library and ask to look at the 1960's-1970's directories and search under the street names. Still miss those days, great music, pretty good television for kids (Jonny Quest, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Green Acres, The Monkees, etc.) A great time now gone, but I have wonderful memories of it that make me smile when I think about those days!
Does anyone recall the name of the bakery at Westbury Square (1960's)?
I lived blocks from the Westbury Square and used to walk there often. There was Rumpleheimer's Ice Cream Parlor which had little white wrought iron tables and sold candies like those old timey buttons on paper and licorice whips...the central fountain which was charming in those days, the glass blower's shop where you could watch things being created through the picture window which was FASCINATING, the bookstore...candle shop...Cromwell? mens' clothing shop, the Four Seasons dress shop for ladies, the Holland shop, the basket one on the corner, the China shop (Pier 1?) the shop that sold things made of seashells, a marvelous home decor shop called The Gallery and a shop that sold beautiful baby clothes...The Gay Dot ( a greeting card shop!), that pizza restaurant...it was really so delightful back then and totally unique! I have photos taken at my 13th birthday party at the Westbury Square and years later my son had his second birthday party at Rumpleheimer's. I imagine it went down soon after - we moved away...come to think of it, I have photos taken of me at the fountain in high school! Ha!
FYI: I have a very interesting story re: Westbury Square on my blog "contemplating the abstruse," as well as Second Office Club, Goofy's Game Room. There's even a story about the gorilla in River Oaks. Liked the pics.
S. WR. Varner
http://youtu.be/yvMY9ijvvrE
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