Style in Steel Townhouse Historic Renovation

4158 Meyerwood is the central two-story middle unit of the The Style in Steel Townhouses built in 1968 as demonstration houses for the 1969 National Association for Home Builders (NAHB) show at the Astrodome Astrohall. Sponsored by the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI), Houston Lighting and Power (HL&P), and General Electric (GE), the houses were a promotional development intended to show the practicality and advantages of steel in residential construction. The townhouses were advertised as ‘Doomsday Construction with Total Electric Convenience,’ ‘all-steel, all-electric,’ unusual for residential construction at the time. Steel is used throughout the house, not only in the structure itself, but in the furniture, equipment, and fittings. In 1969, they were selected as an outstanding example of residential design by Architectural Record magazine in its annual ‘Record Houses’ issue. The townhouses were also featured in the Summer 1969 edition of Architectural Digest, as well as the March 1969 issue of Professional Builder (as the cover story) and Brides magazines. In 2007, the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission designated the townhouses as protected landmarks.

The three townhouses are unusually effective and elegant examples of the spaciousness and livability that can be achieved on a small urban lot. The clean floor plans, high ceilings, spacious rooms, and abundance of natural light and private outdoor spaces make these homes as livable and comfortable as the day they were built. Located in one of Houston's first planned townhouse communities, they stand out among the surrounding developer/builder townhouses as timeless and elegant examples of contemporary residential design. In 1998, they received a Twenty-Five-Year Award from the Houston Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.). Architects Talbott Wilson and Hal Weatherford, of the firm Wilson, Morris, Crain & Anderson, designed the townhouses, and the builder was a well-known Houston builder, Sam Johnson.

Prior to being landmark protected, the structure was subject to several alterations by prior owners. Upon being alerted by the Houston preservation community that plans were made to make additional renovations that would cause irreversible structural impacts, we approached the previous owners while the property was off the market and purchased the townhouse. We made the investment to restore it to its initial beauty as a place to live and work.

Alterations to the original building included the enclosure of the cantilevered carport in the form of a garage with a large industrial door. A peaked standing seam roof was also added over the original flat roof with guttering that was unbecoming to the minimal character of the architecture, interrupting the repetition of the steel ‘star columns’ with their thin-lined elegance. A prior owner enclosed the forecourt with a roof and installed a sliding glass window storefront in an attempt to control the climate and gain interior space. The two-story forecourt was air conditioned but would not cool the space adequately because of poorly designed supply and return registers placed directly above and below one another and the sheer size of the south-facing space.

Among the major renovations included the restoration of the forecourt cedar sunscreen and stucco walls, the original landscape privacy walls and brick pavers, the carport was restored to its original design, the sliding glass doors were repaired and now operate, the drywall and reveals were resurfaced and painted, and the elevator installed in the 2000’s was removed. Every detail of the entire building was touched during the renovation to restore its dynamic presence.