Author
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Topic: Astronauts' Houston homes of the 1960s
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SBIV-B Member Posts: 50 From: Dacula, GA USA Registered: Aug 2008
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posted 02-05-2009 01:29 PM
I could not help but wondering, Nassau Bay and El Lago, suburbs of Houston, Texas, were two of the first subdivisions built that were primarily occupied by the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts. Are these homes still there, and in good condition as far as upkeep is concerned?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? I cannot imagine living in one of the homes that one of my astronaut heroes lived in during the heyday of the program. I would literally be in awe walking those halls... |
FFrench Member Posts: 3258 From: San Diego Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-05-2009 01:50 PM
For some of the homes originally built by Apollo-era astronauts, conveniently close to Johnson Space Center, they were subsequently owned by two or three shuttle-era astronauts. So history upon history.And Owen Garriott's home is of course an interesting one, as a very young boy also lived there who one day would fly in space too... |
Delta7 Member Posts: 1677 From: Bluffton IN USA Registered: Oct 2007
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posted 02-05-2009 02:31 PM
It would be interesting to find out how many astronauts lived in the same home over the years.One thing to keep in mind is that today's standards for houses is quite a bit different from that of 40 years ago, as far as size, square footage, and amenities go. Unless they've been extensively re-modeled and added on to, I suspect a lot of the old Gemini-era houses are occupied by families a fair amount lower on the income scale than today's average astronaut. |
kr4mula Member Posts: 642 From: Cinci, OH Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 02-06-2009 11:11 AM
We interviewed for the Oral History project an old NASA engineer who lived in Scott Carpenter's house and John Glenn's was next door (or maybe it was the other way around). It was cool to visit him there and he told a story about seeing his very first microwave oven in Glenn's house. Point is, astronaut provenance is very much known by current residents and I also heard it is often used as a selling point. |
KC Stoever Member Posts: 1014 From: Denver, CO USA Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 03-10-2009 06:49 PM
A good friend just sent me a nice photograph of Sleepy Hollow Court in Timber Cove, Texas, where the Glenns and Carpenters lived side by side at the end of the cul-de-sac that also had a corresponding cul-de-sac for boats in the canal behind the Sleepy Hollow houses. 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. And the storm drain? That's another duck story, perhaps for another post. |
SBIV-B Member Posts: 50 From: Dacula, GA USA Registered: Aug 2008
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posted 03-12-2009 02:59 PM
Ms. Stoever, when is the last time you have been in your old neighborhood and seen your house?Is it (and the other homes there) still in good condition? Do they look the same or radically different? |
Brock Member Posts: 31 From: Orlando, Florida Registered: Oct 2005
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posted 03-12-2009 07:25 PM
I google mapped Sleepy Hollow Court, in Seabrook, Texas as I don't think Timber Cove is an actual town. If that is the right street you can look at the street view and it looks like a very nice neighborhood today. Some of the homes are very 60s but it looks like a very nice street with big yards. I can imagine kids would have enjoyed growing up there. |
KC Stoever Member Posts: 1014 From: Denver, CO USA Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 03-12-2009 10:30 PM
Thank you for asking about Timber Cove and the Carpenter and Glenn homes on Sleepy Hollow Court.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. Cattle used to graze there and all the Timber Cove children, age 5 to 16, used to play among the hay bales stacked, unused, in the fields. |
SBIV-B Member Posts: 50 From: Dacula, GA USA Registered: Aug 2008
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posted 03-13-2009 08:34 AM
Thanks Ms. Stoever for relaying that story. Sounds like the older homes of the original 7 and Gemini, Apollo guys are being taken care of. |
pokey Member Posts: 361 From: Houston, TX, USA Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 05-04-2009 08:39 AM
I arrived in Clear Lake back in 1985. In the late 80's I would occasionally ride a friend's horse in a large pasture across the street from the Timber Cove entrance. The stable and pasture are now houses like KC said. I very much miss the way it used to be. |
divemaster Member Posts: 1376 From: ridgefield, ct Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-19-2010 08:46 AM
I was just rereading "For Spacious Skies" and came upon the part where Rene Carpenter put together a group to build a community pool in the shape of a Mercury spacecraft. A Google Earth search didn't show anything — but I could be looking for a needle in a haystack. I wonder if it still exists? |
sch61 Member Posts: 17 From: Ramona, CA, USA Registered: Dec 2001
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posted 07-19-2010 02:50 PM
quote: Originally posted by divemaster: I wonder if it still exists?
Perhaps this is it (29º 34' 43.67" N 95º 02' 55.00" W).
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divemaster Member Posts: 1376 From: ridgefield, ct Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-19-2010 04:50 PM
Yup - that's it.It must be an interesting site after all of these years. |
golddog Member Posts: 210 From: australia Registered: Feb 2008
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posted 10-05-2010 09:39 PM
I was wondering if anyone knows some of the former addresses that astronauts lived in Timber Cove, El Lago etc. I am visiting that area in January next year and would like to take the opportunity to drive past any addresses - perhaps to try and envisage what is must have been like back in the glory days of the space program.Editor's note: Threads merged. |
jasonelam Member Posts: 694 From: Monticello, KY USA Registered: Mar 2007
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posted 10-06-2010 09:21 AM
quote: Originally posted by sch61: Perhaps this is it
When I saw the picture of the Mercury Pool, it reminded me of one I saw (and swam in) when I was a kid visiting my grandparents in Central Texas (30.311128, -96.64543). Perhaps the same designer or construction company? |
Michael Davis Member Posts: 545 From: Houston, Texas Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 10-06-2010 11:13 AM
When Alan Shepard became a millionaire during the 1960’s, he moved into the River Oaks section of Houston. I live close to that neighborhood and have always been curious about just which house he lived in. Does anyone have records of Shepard’s exact address in River Oaks? |
golddog Member Posts: 210 From: australia Registered: Feb 2008
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posted 12-28-2010 06:49 PM
I have just finished my much anticipated visit to Houston and the JSC and whilst there I did a trip through Timber Cove and El Lago, felt very surreal to visit Sleepy Hollow and the Space Center after reading about the area all these years - Australia is a long way away!!! I took some photos of the Mercury Capsule shaped swimming pool, which I'll share soon. |
Henry Heatherbank Member Posts: 291 From: Adelaide, South Australia Registered: Apr 2005
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posted 12-28-2010 09:56 PM
quote: Originally posted by sch61: Perhaps this is it
This Google Earth shot also shows another Mercury spacecraft-structure in the same yard as the swimming pool, closer to the canal. It seems to have a raised edge that is casting a shadow. Any ideas what it is? Sandpit maybe? Does anybody know if that is/was original, or constructed after the pool? |
golddog Member Posts: 210 From: australia Registered: Feb 2008
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posted 12-29-2010 07:36 AM
These are some of the photos I took at Timber Cove. The pool is still there, quite unique, and the swimming team is still called the Timber Cove Dolphins. It looks like a really nice place to live.![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/golddog/timbercove01.jpg) ![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/golddog/timbercove02.jpg)
![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/golddog/timbercove03.jpg)
![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/golddog/timbercove04.jpg)
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dabolton Member Posts: 419 From: Seneca, IL, US Registered: Jan 2009
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posted 02-07-2011 06:15 PM
I lived in Clear Lake Forest (across the street from Timber Cove) in the 80's. I used to hang out in Timber Cove all time. I only learned of its role in history in the late 90's. I was quite surprised. I wonder how many of those former astronaut homes I was in. Its now surrounded by some GIANT multi-million dollar houses on the east side. |
ZeroG Member Posts: 27 From: St. Louis, MO., USA Registered: Apr 2013
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posted 06-24-2013 11:29 AM
Map of astronaut homes in El Lago, from vacation back home to Clear Lake.![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/zerog/ellargo_astronauthomes01.jpg) |
YankeeClipper Member Posts: 632 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Mar 2011
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posted 06-24-2013 12:53 PM
Awesome map - thanks for posting it! ![](http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/smile.gif) |
Braveland New Member Posts: 1 From: Pasadena, CA usa Registered: Feb 2015
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posted 02-06-2015 01:14 PM
I grew up in Timber Cove on Sleepy Hollow Court on the cul-de-sac that Glenn and Carpenter lived. We were neighbors. A street over was Shepard and Lovell and I use to hang out with their kids in the 70s. 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. My dad still lives at 206 Sleepy Hollow. Great area to grow up in during the 70s and 80s. |
Paul78zephyr Member Posts: 739 From: Hudson, MA Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 07-10-2016 03:36 PM
The map above lists both Aldrin and Lovell homes as "206 Confederate Way" (irony in street name?). Does anyone know if they were next door neighbors and what the actual addresses were? |
mmcmurrey Member Posts: 182 From: Austin, TX, USA Registered: Jun 2012
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posted 07-10-2016 04:34 PM
I don't know if Aldrin moved out but the address of the Lovells was 118 Lazywood Lane, Timber Cove.
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Paul78zephyr Member Posts: 739 From: Hudson, MA Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 07-11-2016 07:24 PM
So the map is incorrect? Was the map a hoax? Does anyone know who made that map and if it is at all accurate? |
Robert Pearlman Editor Posts: 47731 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 07-11-2016 07:57 PM
The Oct. 30, 1963 issue of the Space Round Up, the newsletter of the Manned Spacecraft Center, lists "206 Confederate Way" as the home of the Aldrins.It would appear the Lovells' listing was an error. |
c670cj Member Posts: 20 From: Renton, Washington Registered: Jul 2016
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posted 07-18-2016 05:04 PM
Having grown up in El Lago in the heart of the Golden Era (1964 to 1978), the discussion brings back many, many fond memories... and a few sad ones. A fascinating time that caught me just at the right time of being young enough to be amazed by what was going on and old enough to understand and savor it all. So sad to hear of Teresa Skopinski though. Was she ever a sweetheart of a girl. Shocking... |
drscoop Member Posts: 54 From: Macclesfield, UK Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-30-2016 12:05 PM
This has been a great read. I'm wondering if anyone on this thread can help me fill in a few further details ahead of an upcoming visit to the area next year? 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: ??
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mmcmurrey Member Posts: 182 From: Austin, TX, USA Registered: Jun 2012
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posted 10-30-2016 01:43 PM
![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/mmcmurrey/astronautshomes01.jpg) ![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/mmcmurrey/astronautshomes02.jpg)
![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/mmcmurrey/astronautshomes03.jpg)
![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/mmcmurrey/astronautshomes04.jpg)
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drscoop Member Posts: 54 From: Macclesfield, UK Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 10-30-2016 04:07 PM
That's a fabulous resource - I will update the list above with these details.... Thanks so much for posting these! |
4allmankind Member Posts: 1077 From: Dallas Registered: Jan 2004
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posted 10-30-2016 04:27 PM
I recently found myself near the Johnson Space Center with an hour to kill, so I found a map of the Apollo astronaut homes and just drove around the neighborhood taking photos. What history on those streets! Amazing to think that regular folks live in those homes today with space history literally built into their walls. |
Gordon Eliot Reade Member Posts: 97 From: Palo Alto, Calif. Registered: Jun 2015
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posted 01-20-2022 08:47 AM
I wouldn't think of bothering the residence of any private home but just for historic interest is there a listing the addresses of where astronauts lived during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions? Thank you. Editor's note: Threads merged. |