1600 Holcombe Blvd. – Houston TX (built 1959; demolished 1991; also Anderson Mayfair; currently site of Rotary House International)
From Houston Magazine, September 1955:
On a two-acre park-like site in the 1600 block of Holcombe Boulevard, Dan Moody and Howard Tellepsen will construct a 14-story $4.5-million luxury apartment building – The Mayfair – with 148 apartments offering a choice of five floor plans (smallest with 1,000 square feet; two-bedroom suites with 1,450 square feet; three-bedroom apartments with 2,000 square feet). Each apartment will have an entrance foyer; each bedroom will have individual bath and roomy closet space. Architects Lloyd & Morgan studied the finest facilities here and abroad in preparing the design.
A three-story garage accommodating two-car families and sound-proofed 8-inch walls are among practical features for the graceful building which will – front and back – glisten with vast glass expanses between aluminum panels separated by glazed turquoise tile; east and west walls will be pink brick.
From Houston Magazine, April 1957:
From its basement (with U-Tote-‘M Pantry plus bottlery and bakery serving the first-floor restaurant) to the 15th-floor $1,000-a-month penthouse, this ultra-modern concept of apartment residence has been purposely planned to permit residents (once established) to live in luxury the rest of their lives without ever having to step outside the door – unless they just want to see how the other 99.9% live.
Assuring complete seclusion, doormen attending the distinguished address entrances (round the clock) use house telephones to call residents who can switch on a closed-circuit television channel and identify visitors before deciding whether to be “in” by answering the telephone or to be “out” by letting it ring. Each room’s TV-antenna connection is also compatible to color as well as black and white.
The sheer 15-floor silver-blue-glass front of the Mayfair faces Hermann Park and looks across the Texas Medical Center (with Rice Institute on one side and the University of Houston on the other) toward downtown Houston.
This bulking but beautiful building backs up against the Texas prairies – where this city’s suburban spread already ripples around drilling rigs seeking (and finding) oil – with Fort Bend County’s Sugarland only a long look away.
[…]And the Mayfair’s penthouse is the best buy for the money – even at $1,000 a month. An enormous living room with two glass walls opens, through sliding glass doors, onto a terrazzo-tile terrace (seemingly an acre in size) with planter-boxed trees and a brick barbecue grill plus open-air fireplace – looking west toward the Prudential Building and Shamrock Hilton Hotel and north toward Houston’s skyline.
