“Country
Club Estates,” they called it. A 1,100-acre piece of land three miles west of
Houston’s downtown. The Hogg brothers and Hugh Potter saw a planned residential
park, a haven for affluent homeowners in a city of 250,000 people where zoning
was a pie-in-the-sky idea.
A model of
urban planning, the new community would have wide, winding streets intersected
by only three cross-streets. There would be parks and cul-de-sacs, and all the
utility wires would be laid underground. That was in 1924!
In July,
ground was broken on River Oaks Boulevard, the first street in the new
subdivision. At the north end was, and still is--the River Oaks Country Club.
At the other end, across Westheimer, Lamar High School was built in 1937.
Jokesters were fond of saying that River Oaks Boulevard was the only street
anywhere with two country clubs--one at each end!
River Oaks,
once just a muddy road, would become Houston’s premier residential
neighborhood, home of the rich and famous.
But in
1924, property on that dirt road on the outskirts of the city was a hard sell.
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