Living in High Style

$2 million gets your foot in the door of swank high-rise designed by architecture heavyweights

Adios traditional high-rise living, hola sculptural profiles and amenities that give those moving from terra firma a sophisticated option for living in the clouds. Thank you computer technology and new supple materials for making the transition a seamless reality.

Case in point is Philip Johnson Alan Ritchie Architects (PJAR) current Houston project — Aurora, a 16-story modernist high-rise that will soar over Tanglewood and Uptown Houston. Just as the late, great Philip Johnson's Pennzoil Place, Williams Tower and Post Oak Center redefined the city's commercial profile so Aurora and 3615 Montrose, another PJAR project, promise to ignite a new form of residental living.

Think curving glass walls, sweeping verticals, sharp-edged corners and undulating balconies.

Ritchie was in town for the grand opening of the Aurora sales office in Uptown Park where he discussed the project along with Marko Dasigenis, who heads the PJAR Houston office.

"We're excited to be back because we had such a presence for so many years," Ritchie said. This time around it's "a more modern sculptural form" that will define the firm's projects much like PJAR's design of the AT&T and Sony buildings in New York.

"So coming here, I saw that there really hasn't been anything like that and everybody has been complaining about the sort of boxes and the standard thing," Ritchie said. "So one of the things that Marko and I discussed was how we could extend that through some of the ideas that we had been developing . . . and so this is where it's given us some opportunity. We've given the clients some ideas and they have been very receptive to it."

In fact, PJAR is in the early stages of design for another project this one in the Museum District, "something that will become a signature building in the neighborhood." But the lid is on details until the developer is ready to discuss.

Sims Luxury Builders on the other hand is all about spreading the news on the Aurora. The project will have 40 residences, ranging from 3,400 to 4,000 square feet with four penthouses ranging from 5,700 to 6,400 square feet. Prices start at $2 million. Sudhoff Companies has been tasked with marketing the project.

"There's been a shift in the market," Chris Sims said at the opening. Clients for whom he built major homes are now looking to high-rises as the ideal residence. In hiring PJAR, Sims noted, “Their design concept perfectly matched our vision to create a comfortable, contemporary high-rise in a prime uptown location that we think will really resonate with people looking for a turn-key luxury lifestyle.”

Describing the Aurora, Ritchie said, "I hate the word style but it's modern architecture clean, simple modern architecture but having sort of the free form sculptural form and using materials which enable us to express that sort of thing, obviously glass, metal panels."

The 16-story Aurora brings modern sculptural architecture to high-rise living.

unspecified

gold pony club

Inside the creation of the rodeo cook-off’s most over-the-top tent

Courtesy of Cotton Holdings

The Gold Pony is the ultra-private VIP lounge behind the stage.

The Cotton Q Club is arguably the glitziest and most exclusive tent at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s annual World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest. Hosting nearly 800 invited guests-per-night, the 5,000-square-foot space includes a 50-foot bar, a new pop-up martini bar by Sophie Cocktail & Terrace Bar called “The Stirrup,” the ultra-exclusive “Gold Pony Club,” and a full stage for private concerts. This season, county music acts include Gabby Barrett, Sammy Kershaw, Josh Turner and Braxton Keith.

Aside from the obvious, what sets the club apart from the rest is the sheer magnitude of its operation. Once inside, guests are encapsulated by velvet-draped ceilings illuminated by crystal chandeliers, three-layer tartan-topped carpeting, richly-colored wooden-paneled walls, plus thousands of red roses swathed acrobatically throughout.

To coincide with the year of the horse, five enormous ponies made entirely of red roses have been suspended from the ceilings. The second additions this year hang on either side of the bar in The Gold Pony, the club’s even more exclusive VIP area. The kinetic artworks were created by Houston artist Sneha Merchant —all for a three day fête. This begs the question: how do they do it?

Cotton Holdings and its subsidiaries are well positioned to carry out the entire project themselves — so they do. Never bothered or besmirched by the possibility of running into issues with rental companies, everything at The Cotton Q Club is procured, purchased, and stored in-house. As one would expect from a company that provides disaster relief around the world.

“There is a lot of love and care put into this because we’re not in a hotel, we’re not in someone’s home,” Cotton Holdings chief marketing officer Zinat Ahmed tells CultureMap. “So for us to be able to create this entire infrastructure under a tent — down to the walls and chandeliers — it is much more than throwing a party. It’s about the details that make people feel that they are at a hotel, they are in an extravagant room, they are at The Polo Bar.”

Ahmed notes that a lot of the company’s culture is mixed into the tent, such as what Cotton does as a disaster relief company (including providing food by Cotton Culinary).

“Cotton Logistics puts up tents during a natural disaster. Seeing the Cotton team, whether it’s cleaning or moving things around, welcoming everyone, that’s part of our Cotton GDS — we restore communities after natural disasters. Our synergies in different parts of our day-to-day are here,” she says.

Ahmed’s team has complete creative control over the interior aesthetics of the club. Always sourcing anything that cannot be made in-house to local vendors is something she feels is important. Nothing is rented, not even the furniture or accessories.

“Every single thing, unless it was done by a local vendor, was done in-house: design, signage, execution — even the embroidery,” she explains

Everything is checked over during the summer months so there won’t be any surprises when the cook-off comes back around. Every item is organized, labeled, and stored either in Cotton’s warehouses, Conex boxes, or in special climate-controlled safes — down to the matchboxes.

“We are always prepared and ready to go,” explains Ahmed. “It’s not chaotic at all because we’re used to it — it’s a normal day at Cotton.”

When asked for her favorite parts of the tent this year, Ahmed readily answered that it has to be the five rose ponies in the main area of the club. Secondly, the two commissioned works by Sneha Merchant. Sprinkled in diamond dust, one is a female mallard wrapped in a boa, champagne flute in hand, while the other is a smartly-suited jackalope complete with cowboy hat and martini.

Both pieces are lit by antique sconces Ahmed sourced from Round Top, while the taxidermy Zebra heads are on loan from the Columbus, Texas ranch of Cotton Holdings’ Chairman Pete Bell.

“Every detail, down to the swatches of velvet has been thought of with a lot of love and care,” says Ahmed. “You use that mindset with something like this. So, if you have a mindset like before you deploy to a hurricane, you can do it for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.”

Courtesy of Cotton Holdings

The Gold Pony is the ultra-private VIP lounge behind the stage.

houston livestock show and rodeo home-design cotton holdings