Your Expert Guide

Villa d'Este: A coveted high-rise in Uptown Park that exudes Old World charm

There are so many great places to live in Houston that it helps to have an expert on your side. The Neighborhood Guide presented by Martha Turner Sotheby's International Realty gives you insider access from the agents who live and work there, providing in-the-know info about your possible new community.

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Located in Uptown Park, the Villa d'Este condominiums are a classic example of the best Houston has to offer when it comes to luxury high-rise living.

This 27-floor local landmark opened in 2000 and rests on six acres of lush, private grounds on the banks of Buffalo Bayou amid mature oaks and pines, with scenic views of downtown Houston and Tanglewood.

These lavishly appointed residences are at the foot of Uptown Park, affording residents with a superb location next to Uptown Houston, the Galleria and a plethora of shopping, dining, and recreational venues, with easy access to the Medical Center, Galleria, and most work corridors.

"I have been working in this area for the last 10 years," says real estate agent Debbie J. Callan. "Villa d'Este is the epitome of the luxurious lock-and-leave lifestyle. The location is outstanding and the residences exude sophistication and Old World charm."

The upscale interiors at Villa d’ Este Condominium are spacious and elegant, with each of the 100 residences featuring tall ceilings, marble baths, and classic wood and stone floors throughout. All residences have large open balconies and fully operable windows to catch stunning views of the city.

One, two, and three-bedroom units range from 2,100-4,064 square feet, rounded out by four extraordinary, two-story penthouses. There are only four homes per floor.

Facilities include a resort-style pool and spa, tennis courts, entertainment rooms, fitness center, valet parking, dog park, conference room, and 24-hour concierge and security. There is an expansive party room with a full-service caterer’s kitchen, as well as a cards room for more intimate gatherings. The building also has an underground parking garage that only residents can easily access.

Callan, who divides her time between Houston and Eisenstadt, Austria, offered up a few of her personal favorites about life in Villa d'Este. Here's her guide:

Where to eat & drink
"Uptown has a large variety of bars, restaurants, and coffee shops to choose from, but one of my favorite restaurants is Etoile," says Callan. "This is a sophisticated French eatery with a modern farmhouse interior serving traditional and seasonal menus. It is a quaint place you can go where you can actually hear each other talk. My experience has been awesome quality food, with a consistent level of service and an extremely pleasant atmosphere. My recommendation is to order the escargots de bourgogne, filet de boeuf au poivre, truffle fries, assortiment de fromages, and creme brûlée a la vanille de Tahiti for dessert."

Where to play
Memorial Park is Houston’s 1,500-acre urban wilderness and the crown jewel of Uptown. It's the perfect location for community and social interaction, exercising, wildlife watching, and simply enjoying nature.

"The sport of jogging was popularized nationally in Memorial Park, which has the popular and nationally acclaimed Seymour Lieberman Trail," reveals Callan.

The Houston Arboretum and Nature Center Trails are designed for hiking only and located within walking distance to the Uptown area. They offer a Discovery Room and Nature Shop to complement the natural beauty and trails beyond.

There is a Rooftop Cinema Club Uptown offering the ultimate open-air film experience, where you can lean back, enjoy, and relax under the sky.

What to see
"In the heart of the city, the Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park is one of Houston’s most beloved, iconic landmarks and community centerpieces for visitors of all ages," says Callan. "To stand in the Waterwall’s mist and be enveloped by the gentle roar of cascading water is one of the city’s most memorable experiences."

Where to live
"I had the pleasure of assisting an elderly couple who had decided to relocate to a nearby assisted living facility," says Callan. "They were original owners, and had many beautiful treasures from their extensive travels. I was able to assist them further by procuring an estate company that conducted the inventory and sale of their valuable belongings."

Their lovely two-bedroom unit 91 at 1000 Uptown Park Boulevard had northwest views from the ninth floor. Amenities included bamboo hardwoods in the grand foyer and hallways, marble and ceramic tile flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms, plush neutral carpeting in the bedrooms, granite counters, a gourmet island kitchen with GE Monogram appliances, and abundant storage.

Other desirable features included an open floorplan with formals plus a sunroom/office, custom paint in warm tones, crown molding, and bays of windows with tremendous natural light.

"The couple who purchased the property loved the location and views, and were downsizing from a large single-family home," says Callan. "The buyers were looking forward to having less responsibility of keeping up with a single-family home and its yard, and more of a lock-and-go environment. The buyers were excited about their future residence."

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Debbie J. Callan works and plays in Villa D'Este. For more information on buying and selling a home in the area, click here, email debbie.callan@sir.com, or call 713-851-5100

Photo courtesy of Martha Turner Sotheby's International Realty

The unit is a prime example of what the Villa d'Este condominiums have to offer.

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your friends and neighbors

Pioneering East End development brings cohousing to Houston

Digital image of a a finished cohousing development with people in the foreground.

Render provided by CoHousing Houston

A digital rendering of the finished CoHousing Houston.

Houston's East End neighborhood will soon welcome a bold new experiment in housing in the next couple of months, one dedicated to communal space and curing the epidemic of isolation plaguing modern America.

Called CoHousing Houston, the development occupies a property at 114 Delmar St. that consists of 33, individually-owned units built around a central courtyard. This layout isn't much different from a modern apartment complex, but there are architectural deviations and governing principles that gently nudge the residents toward in-person interactions.

One is the common house, a massive gathering space, kitchen area, and work station that serves as a community center and event hall. While the individual units do have their own kitchens and bedrooms, they are short on extra rooms. This encourages people to move their hobbies and activities to the common house or to the shared outdoor porches and balconies when the weather is nice.

The idea of communal housing is as old as humanity itself and is practiced by groups as different as hippy communes and the U.S. Army. However, few Americans live in communal housing after they reach adulthood, preferring privacy and a large space to call their own. CoHousing Houston is aiming to be the best of both worlds.

One resident is Kelli Soika, a married mother of three who lived in a similar cohousing unit in Colorado before moving to Houston in 2018. She found the cohousing model incredibly liberating, and worked to create the first one in the Bayou City.

"You have this great place to solve problems you didn’t even know you know you had," she tells CultureMap. "I would have to go to the grocery store with the three kids, and it was hard. Now, I can ask a neighbor to watch the girls for an hour. I hear it’s like living in a small town in the past, though I'm not old enough to remember that. It's the kind of place where if you leave the door open, someone will check to make sure you're okay. In a regular house, you could fall down and it might be days before someone found you."

Soika emphasized the power of community connection. Surrounded by multi-generational households that are funneled into the communal spaces by design, she can draw on the innovation of young couples or the wisdom of the elderly. With one kid starting college, it's nice for her to be able to talk to someone close by who has gone through the same thing. Her husband can drop into an evening bike riding group whenever he wants without having to arrange various schedules. In her opinion, little neighborly touches like that are worth the slight loss of privacy or space that are inherent to cohousing.

"If the power is out and you don't know what’s going on at CenterPoint, you've got a group going through it with you," she says. "These things keep happening, and when I moved into cohousing, it's just not a crisis because you've got other people to help you and be with you in it."

Isolation and loneliness is a major problem in America, studies suggest. Increased workloads and the explosion of social media have led to a sharp decline in time spent in "third places," locations that are not home or work. According to some estimates, people stopped going to third places as much as 37 percent between 2014 and 2017, and that was before COVID sent people into deeper isolation. In Houston, soaring temperatures and poor public transit keep some people out of parks and other outdoor activities even as the city invests heavily in park improvement. Some activities such as pickleball and live-action gaming centers have picked up the slack, but these still involve planning that many tired workers simply don't have the energy for.

In that world, cohousing seems like a viable alternative to increase social engagement, though it may be too big a change for Americans, who are famously individualistic.

Soika says that there are weekly meetings in the common house to deal with issues that affect the entire campus, such as parking disputes and insurance. Residents own their $300,000 to $525,000 homes, but there is still an HOA, and governance is democratic. CoHousing Houston tries to make sure that the majority of people can still attend and have their voices heard in the regular meetings. Those disinclined to group gatherings can still participate in small groups that handle specific matters, but like all democracy it involves more work than simply owning your own home. There's also the worry that such a governing structure tends to empower people who have time and resources to attend meetings, such as single income households.

"You don’t want to have the decisions dominated by people who have managed to dominate the meeting structures," says Soika. "We have rounds where we laboriously go through each person and have them talk about it. It helps the quieter ones. We want everyone to be heard."

Another concern is safety. Soika was unable to say of there was any kind of provision for what to do if a resident became a problem, such as exhibiting violent behavior against other residents.

"I guess we would call the police," she says. Having lived in cohousing since 2012, she says she's never come across such a situation.

CoHousing Houston is expected to open fully this fall. Soika already lives on site, and most of the units in the $300,000 range have been sold. Units in the $450,000-525,000 range remain available. Interested buyers can find more information at CoHousingHouston.com.

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