following nature

Luxurious beachfront master-planned community soars in Galveston with prime coastal living

Few regions in America have seen the kind of explosion in demand as Galveston. Between the post-pandemic, work-from-anywhere push for quality-of-life options and a tsunami of Californian transplants seeking waterfront living, Galveston is in the midst of a boom rivaling anything in its nearly 200-year history.

Little surprise, then, that our coastal neighbor has been besieged by investors and developers from all over the globe looking to make a quick profit on buyer demand by snatching up the best parcels of coast-facing property — a trend that rarely means good news for locals.

Fortunately for true Texans and those who treasure the Gulf Coast, a Galveston native son has swooped in and secured some of the precious few acres left of the last prime, beachfront real estate on Galveston Island.

For Galveston, by a Galvestonian

Houston-area banking CEO and real estate developer Manny Mehos has revealed plans for Roseate Beach, a master-planned community offering full time quality-of-life amenities to residents of the 172 premium homesites — 22 of those boasting coveted beachfront lots — in Galveston's West End (FM 3005, just east of 11 Mile Road).

Currently, development plans for Roseate Beach call for two phases, with Phase One slated to break ground in late fall 2023, per press materials.

Blending a modern approach to residential planning with a timeless seaside experience, Roseate Beach is a bit of an anomaly for the area. Mehos' vision incorporates the beach, but also intentionally incorporates the area's upscale living, such as Galveston Country Club, just a short jaunt away. Another anomaly: a modern aesthetic that purposely deviates from beach cliches.

“I have never seen a beach development like what we are planning, whereby the houses have modern architectural elements,” Mehos tells CultureMap. “The only one I’ve seen that is truly divergent from typical beach developments is Alys Beach which blew me away.”

Blown away by the elegant, all-white coastal community in Florida, Mehos has ensured Roseate Beach residents, like Alys Beach's, enjoy upscale lifestyle activities and options. That means a resort pool, clubhouse, pickleball courts and other gaming spaces, a fitness facility, and reservable office spaces, per press materials. A team of dedicated onsite management will oversee the development's common spaces, native landscape, and year-round access to amenities.

Speaking of urbanity, Mehos opted for Houston's preeminent urban landscape designer to execute his vision. Ironically, Thomas Woltz, owner of the acclaimed Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, couldn't help — but knew who could. “I loved the entire Memorial Park project done by Thomas Woltz. And I’ve seen Hudson Park, which he also did,” Mehos notes. “We reached out to him and, as I recall, he said they no longer do residential projects and recommended Carbo.”

Design with nature in mind

Woltz's recommendation was crucial, as Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based architectural firm Carbo quickly worked the area's natural habitat into the modern design — much like Woltz did for Memorial Park's Eastern Glades and Land Bridge. Working in the beauty of the coast and native vegetation, Roseate Beach also incorporates the site’s natural wetland and also features a connected series of boardwalks and seating areas accessible from multiple trailheads. Again, the design is meant to inspire typical coastal activities such as walking and birding.

Multiple access points lead to a broad stretch of beach expanded by the continuation of the Galveston Island Beach Nourishment Project, which aims to protect and preserve the beachfront by mitigating shoreline erosion. Carbo's designers sought to foster walkability and even cycling via a network of trails and greenways that weaves through the lush coastal ecosystem.

A central promenade, community park, and wetland preserve put residents in direct contact with the area’s native landscape and perhaps, even local wildlife lounging among the native plantings. Enviable beach access means the Gulf is always at the forefront.

“Our primary goal for Roseate Beach is to connect people with nature,” Zachary Broussard of CARBO Landscape Architecture notes in press materials. “The native marsh and dune landscape of Galveston Island is exceptionally beautiful, and Roseate Beach celebrates that natural beauty by creating an immersive pedestrian experience within the landscape. Every resident has direct access to the extensive greenway network from their home and can walk or bike to any destination within the community, all while enjoying the land’s exceptional scenery.”

Modern style meets timeless coastal living

Much like the aforementioned Alys Beach, Roseate Beach mirrors the region's surrounding environment and works in simple, clean lines to create individual homes that ultimately create a uniform, overall community aesthetic. Design and architectural firm LRK invoked seaside living themes via large porches, elevated upper-floor balconies, expansive windows, and French doors, all meant to bring the outside coast indoors.

“The use of simple building forms will allow the homes to serve as the backdrop on which the residents, community and nature take center stage,” Chris Janson, architect and principal at LRK, adds in a statement. “The clean lines of the homes will complement the native coastal landscape and natural beauty of the island, while expansive glass and outdoor living spaces allow owners the opportunity to connect with nature.”

Roseate Spoonbill Galveston A flying V of native Roseate Spoonbills inspired the project name.Photo by Stephen Mayeaux

“Honestly, I never thought about actually doing a development until I became aware that I might be able to buy the property,” recalls Mehos, a successful CEO, entrepreneur, and CPA with Goldman Sachs credentials who founded Green Bank, Coastal Banc, and his real estate firm, Green East Realty.

“That’s when the wheels started spinning and I immediately concluded that a more evolved concept was due for Galveston. It’s always more of a financial commitment to do that, but the exponential growth in island visitations and culture shifting within the island justified that kind of evolution.”

When a bird-brained idea is the best idea

But it wasn't finances, architecture, or real estate booms that ultimately sparked Mehos' decision to green light and spearhead this much-needed development. Rather, it was a bird — or specifically, a collection of birds drifting over his newly built home in 2021 — that led to the execution and even the name of his project.

“I was on my deck, it was late winter, and the wind was blowing from the north,” Mehos remembers of that crucial moment. “A perfect V formation of Roseate Spoonbills were hovering over my deck pointed into the wind and remained stationary for about 30 minutes, maintaining that perfect formation.”

“I had admired the birds for decades but had never seen them like that,” he adds. “When I decided to go forward with the development, the choice was easy — because of what I witnessed that day.”

For more information and updates on Roseate Beach, visit the official site.

Rendering courtesy of Carbo Landscape Architecture/LRK/Green East Realty

Roseate Beach boasts 172 luxe beach homesites.

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.

homes-for-sale cohousing houston cohousing