posted 02-05-2009 01:29 PM            

Do current residents know that they are residing in a former astronaut's home and which one? Any speculation on how many times these homes changed hands over the years? Would these homes be on some historic places list that Houston might maintain?

posted 03-10-2009 06:49 PM               

The photo captured a neighbor's house and an impressive storm drain, which caused me to remember an amusing bit of history perhaps unrecorded by the local historians. It is the story about the ducks of Taylor Lake, hereafter to be called the Skopinski-Carpenter Ducks of Taylor Lake. Or of Timber Cove.

Let me explain. Ted Skopinski (see index of "This New Ocean") had eight children, as I recall. Teresa Skopinski (b. May 23, 1955, Newport News, Va.) was my best friend. (She died perhaps 20 years ago in an accident.) Her older brother, Randy, was both a Timber Cove Dolphin diver, one of the best on the team, and an avid hunter.

On one hunting trip Randy Skopinski happened to down a mother mallard. But he had a tender heart and brought home her duckling.

Now it so happens that the Carpenters had a pet duck named Shingebiss II (although not indexed, Shingebiss I is described in "For Spacious Skies"). On a lark, Teresa and I decided to introduce the Carpenters' large white domestic duck to the mallard in the Skopinskis' back yard.

After the two birds engaged in some pleasant quacking and Teresa and I grew bored, I lugged the sizable Shingebiss back to to the Carpenter courtyard at 202 Sleepy Hollow Court, where she had a nice pond.

A few days later, however, Shingebiss II left the Carpenter courtyard, waddled out through the Carpenter side yard, past the trampoline, through the Kinkaids' backyard, and finally (in the most perilous part of her journey) crossed Driftwood Place to the Skopinskis' house. She returned to Sleepy Hollow Court rather promptly with her new friend.

Shingebiss and her friend eventually — that summer, if I recall correctly — decamped for the Timber Cove canal and then to the vast water wonderland called Taylor Lake. The following summer, having survived gar attack and boat traffic, they returned to the canal with their ducklings: astonishing-looking hybrids with splotches of iridescent green and odd neck-bandings on large white patches of feathers.

I seem to recall the population grew quite large over time although I have no information on the 21st-century descendants of this splendid pair of visionary ducks.

Before I forget: the Glenns kept a bin filled with corn on the back patio. If any passing neighbor saw our very own family of feral pet ducks in the canal, nosing around for food, they knew where the corn was and fed the ducks accordingly.

posted 03-12-2009 10:30 PM               

If you are interested in a general introduction to Timber Cove in the 1960s, I really do recommend For Spacious Skies, the Carpenter biography. You have to wade through a lot of Project Mercury history, but the chapters at the end devote a good bit of text to Seabrook ca. 1962-1967 and to TImber Cove in particular.

The short version is that TImber Cove, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, was home to oil executives who wanted to live in Harris County for the schools. NASA was an unexpected windfall for Timber Cove. NASA astronauts, administrators, and engineers came looking for lots in about 1961.

To answer the particular question about when I was last at the Carpenter house: I was last there in 1991. I had joined my husband, Tom, on a business trip to Houston and we spent a Saturday nosing around Seabrook and TImber Cove.

I knocked on the door at 202 Sleepy Hollow and introduced myself to the owner, a retired NASA engineer whom I believe is still the current owner. He could not have been more gracious to me. I have corresponded with his very kind son.

The home was virtually unchanged. The current owner had kept the original front door, hand-carved in Mexico, in the garage. The blue paint had been changed in the girls room, for which he sweetly apologized, but virtually everything else was identical.

Is the house nice? Yes. Rene Carpenter designed it, as Annie Glenn designed her house next door, based on the knowledge of 21 previous temporary domiciles and the well-informed dreams that Navy wives dream: "if I had a perfect... kitchen/family room/living room/bedroom..." what would it look like?

Working with an eager-to-please builder-developer, Marsters Construction, and in possession of lovely waterfront lots, Rene and Annie each produced fine three-bedroom, one-study homes that had a formal dining rooms, a living room, family room, and front, side, and back yards. (The Schirras and Grissoms chose homes with backyard pools.) Oh, and a utility rooms, for the laundry, and two car garages.

The Glenn home had bedrooms and a study all extending off a long common hallway that trailed off to the right off the common rooms. The Carpenter home had the three bedrooms anchoring three of the four major corners of the house.

What they each had was a wall of floor to ceiling windows facing out toward the canal and Taylor Lake. I can't remember the direction the windows faced.

And the kitchens were wonderful.

Rene chose Thermador double ovens with a cooktop off to the right. She also had an integrated countertop blender mechanism (built in flush to the countertop), which I thought was very ~space age~. A dishwasher, of course, and a double sink.

It was a family home, a ranch house built with brick, that I recall being very comfortable. Not ostentatious. Not better than any house in the neighborhood, not worse.

I don't remember any ostentatious houses. Those came later, as I recall from my trip in 1991. Someone built unsightly two-story vaguely Norman-style manses on the once-beautiful pasture that used surround TImber Cove.

posted 07-19-2010 02:50 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by divemaster:
I wonder if it still exists?

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posted 10-06-2010 09:21 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by sch61:
Perhaps this is it

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posted 12-28-2010 09:56 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by sch61:
Perhaps this is it

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posted 02-06-2015 01:14 PM               

Later on Michael Smith moved to Timber Cove in the 80s and I remember the day Challenger broke up. I used to go to school with his son at Clear Lake High School.

Journalists would always come around our street and mistake my mom and I as one of the astronaut's wife and kid. And I grew up at the pool that everyone is mentioning but was never on the swim team.

posted 10-30-2016 12:05 PM            

I'm coming over to Houston and plan to take a trip around the old, original NASA sites before the construction of Johnson Space Center (as discussed here) and I'd also like to take a trip around the former homes of the Mercury 7 and Next Nine (plus a few other of personal interest/relevance).

However, I'm struggling with a few specific addresses and house numbers. Can anyone help fill in the gaps (or correct any inaccuracies)? This is what I have so far on my list:

• Al Shepard: Apartment at 1600 Holcombe Blvd, then 3344 Chevy Chase, River Oaks, Houston
  
• Deke Slayton: ?
  
• Gordo Cooper: ?
  
• Gus Grissom: 211 Pine Shadows Dr
  
• John Glenn: 212(?) Sleepy Hollow Ct
  
• Scott Carpenter: 202 Sleepy Hollow Ct
  
• Wally Schirra: 207(?) Pine Shadows Dr - single story house next door to Gus Grissom - number unclear
  
• Ed White: 911 Woodland Dr
  
• Elliot See: 914 Shorewood Drive
  
• Frank Borman: 423 Bayou View
  
• Jim Lovell: 118 Lazywood Lane
  
• Jim McDivitt: 1314 Antigua Lane, Nassau Bay
  
• John Young: 410 Bayou View
  
• Neil Armstrong: 1003 Woodland Drive, El Lago
  
• Pete Conrad: 115(?) Pine Shadows Drive, then 102 Whispering Oaks
  
• Tom Stafford: 435 Bayou View

• Bill Anders: 408 Lakeshore
  
• Buzz Aldrin: 206 Confederate Way
  
• Charlie Duke: 410 Lakeshore Dr
  
• Roger Chaffee: 18515 Barbuda Lane, Nassau Bay
  
• Gene Cernan, 18511 Barbuda Lane, Nassau Bay

• Jack Kinzler: 107 Pine Shadows Dr
  
• Gene Kranz: ??
  
• John Aaron: ??
  
• Steve Bales: ??