Announcement

Effective immediately, The Houston Files will be closed to new content.

This is for several reasons. 

1. The original intention was contingent on me living in Houston, which I no longer do.

2. The single-building setup made it difficult to add related buildings. The whole way the site was categorized was to basically be "another Arch-Ive" which by that time had largely ceased updating regularly. 

3. The Houston Files was built to be more "professional" than what Brazos Buildings & Businesses was, but with the 2024 retool that did change. Either way, the site never gained a following. 

Future Houston-related posts will appear on Numbered Exits though nothing is currently planned at the moment (at least not for a few weeks). Carbon-izer will also publish Houston-specific content as well.

Window Magic

The building's only non-food use. (Street View 2011). I tried to update the fate of 8910 Westheimer in another page I wasn't happy with.

This is believed to have been built as a Church's Chicken in the mid-1960s and became a Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1982 (many Church's in Houston became KFC for some reason around this time). In the early 1990s it closed and became Window Magic in 1992 (curtains and draperies) before closing in 2011, though the window treatment shop still resembled a former KFC. In March 2012 it was renovated and reopened as Del Taco, which was supposed to bring dozens of Del Taco stores back to the Houston (and greater Texas) area (for this previous attempt, please see this link), but it closed in May 2015, with the Dallas (and Austin area) stores going soon after. This was the only Houston-area store they ever opened.

The restaurant was renovated and reopened as Golden Chick (fried chicken once more, but resembling less of the KFC) in 2016, but it closed in 2019. 2020 brought the opening of 7 Leaves Cafe, a milk tea shop out of the California area, but by the end of 2021, it had also shut down. In October 2023 it reopened as a new location of Tim Hortons but removed the 1980s-style roofing that KFC added but the subsequent restaurants kept in one form or another. As you can see it looks quite different than is shown above.

Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza at Park 10

This now-defunct hotel got back its Crowne Plaza name, if briefly. (Street View, 2011)
Located at 14703 Park Row, the 19-floor 349-room Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza at Park 10 was one of the first Crowne Plaza hotels in the chain (then known as "Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza", I believe it was the fourth after the third, at 2222 W. Loop South, with the first being in Maryland) opening in February 1984. A 1986 article mentions the restaurants here were "Park Cafe" and "Le Regale". In late 1987, however, it was converted to a large (regular) Holiday Inn, "Holiday Inn Houston West". It still was a nice hotel and advertised the "Holidome" as a feature. In 1995 it was rebranded again to "Holiday Inn Select" (a now-defunct brand angled toward business travelers) and by 2008 was rebranded back to Crowne Plaza, as InterContinental Hotel Group had decided to eliminate Holiday Inn Select as a brand.

In 2012 it switched hotel groups entirely, switching to a Wyndham and closed in 2020 permanently, mirroring so many other large hotels that closed over thirty years prior.

Around 2023 it reopened as Teak, a luxury apartment building.

My 2002 directory for Holiday Inn mentions that the hotel had "Tavern at the Park" (bar), Park Cafe (buffets for weekday lunch and breakfast, Friday seafood buffet, and champagne brunch for Sunday).

Sherwin-Williams Paint on Northwest Freeway

This Sherwin-Williams paint store at 14640 Northwest Freeway opened here in December 2014 (in a new building). This was taken on Northwest Freeway in January 2018 when traffic ground to a halt on US-290 in the evening, as it often does.

Soapsuds Sawdust & Scents

Soapsuds Sawdust & Scents is the featured tenant of what is now (as of June 2024) Lankamex, at 9531 Westheimer Road.

Piecing together the history of this tenant has been a bit difficult. This was constructed as Stop N Go around the late 1960s (open by 1967) but changed hands to rival UtoteM by 1970. By 1979 it was Soapsuds Sawdust & Scents.

Soapsuds Sawdust & Scents was short-lived, though. Sometime around 1980 or 1981, SS&S closed and by September 1981 it was 74 Ranch Beef, a specialty meat market.

In 1985, 74 Ranch Beef closed this location and it briefly became Window Tint U.S.A. before ABC Video, an "adult video movie" store (as in, pornos) opened.

Sometime around 2013, ABC Video was replaced with another store, High "N" Dress, which was more of the same, a "smoke shop" selling everything from vaping products to sex toys, as well as body piercings and tattoos.

In 2018, Street View showed the "lingerie" part of the sign was removed, with the store advertising tacos through interior signage, but still with "Smoke Shop" and "Piercing" on the outside, and while the High "N" Dress signage remained, a smaller banner for Lanka-Mex was added near the ground, featuring Mexican and Sri Lankan grocery products.

The banner for Lanka-Mex read that they had the usual convenience store fixings (lotto, beer) while also advertised being a smoke shop, and the facade on the store removed "Lingerie" but left "Smoke Shop" and "Piercing". By 2021, all pretenses of it being a "smoke shop" were dropped, and the windows reflected this (check Google Maps Street View). This indicates that High "N" Dress was bought as-is and then slowly legitimized.

  This post is adapted from the Westheimer Road page at Carbon-izer.com.