Decorative Block That Steve Found In Francisco Park

Well, here's to living downtown & truly being a part of things! I found a decorative block pattern that Jack actually hadn't yet! It was located on the border of Francisco Park and Paradise Palms North. We were touring w/ our new friend Bryan Brey yesterday, looking for mid-mod housing that would be prime for 'green' restoration & functionality when i told Mr. LeVine, our tour guide to throw it in reverse. My 15/20 vision comes through again, we discovered an interesting 4 block composition that I could best describe as a 'honey bee-clover leaf' pattern.

I look forward to bringing you more VVV relevant blogging soon, I apologize for the lag in my personal posting, I'm still unpacking my new digs at L'Octaine on Vegas & Gass (I freakin' love it there.. but g-d I've got a lot of 'stuff')! On top of business as usual, there are some very cool projects I & now VVV are deeply involved with. I'll be bringing you more information on those projects shortly.

Finally, FRAN PARK (group 4)

Group 4 of Fran Park is East of Eastern Ave, between Sahara and Desert Inn. The furtherst east houses, are in a pocket on the east side of Mcleod.

Pardee totally changed course in 1969 when they crossed over Eastern Ave. It was the end of Mid-Mod for them, just as it was for just about every other builder in America.

Now we get ranches with garages, and 2 stories. They kept the name of Fran Park, but it didn't look like anything previous. The first 5 houses on the south side of Vegas Valley, east of Eastern Ave were their models.

For the 2 story homes, they stayed with the concrete block foundations and first floor walls, and built the second story with frame and stucco. The Single story homes started being built as frame and stucco, with trussed pitched roofs, in contrast to the flat roofs of their previous mid-mod homes.

One thing that happened a lot is Garage Conversions. I've never been a fan and never recommend it, but it was all the rage to create more living area in the 70's and 80's. Some were done very nicely, were permitted, centrally heated and cooled etc, but many were just slapped together, look awful, still have their cheap panelling, no insulation, window air conditioners etc. Of course the seller still want to count the BAD garage conversion as square footage and still give it the same value as properly done and nice looking conversions. I think I'll do a whole post on the subject sometime. (Someone remind me!)

Group 4 has stood up pretty well, and there's lots and lots of very nice and pretty nice homes clustered together, with a few "rough around the edges" but not trashy homes scattered about.

And of course, we have a terrific listing in Fran Park 4 at 2594 Capistrano Ave. It has one of the best pools with multiple waterfalls, and beautiful woodwork on the fireplace and bar. There's more pictures in the left column, with our other listings and featured properties.

FRAN PARK #3 (A currently unloved Vintage Vegas neighborhood)

Fran Park Group #3 is between Maryland Parkway and Eastern Ave. on the east and west and from Karen Ave. on the north to Golden Arrow on the south where it bumps into Paradise Palms. Pardee started on this group of about 600 homes in 1960, and by 1969 had bumped up to the dirt road that was Eastern Ave.

Going south from Downtown, it's also the first neighborhood in Vintage Vegas that's in the COUNTY instead of the City.



Originally, I had divided what I'm now calling group 3 into groups 3 and 4, but I've had a change of mind. So from now on what we'll call Group 4, which we'll discuss tomorrow, is east of Eastern, and I've eliminated group 5 from my thought pattern about Fran Park.





These homes in group 3 are basically similar to group 2, in that they're "mini-mods" but the lots were a little smaller, averageing 6000-7000 sf. The streets were curved and wide, and they got a little more creative on the pop-outs and sunscreens and other architectural detailings.



Lake Elementary which sits in the middle of of group 3, has nice colorful playgrounds. There's a Mormon Church, and Sunrise hospital and some of the other taller buildings from Maryland Parkway can often be seen over the rooftops.



If my memory serves me right, they also started drywalling over the concrete block on the interiors, which made the homes more comfortable and easy to live in, as you could now hang pictures on the walls without drilling into cement blocks.



In judging the size of the cluster of nicely kept homes and terribly maintained ones, I think I found about 8 bad ones clumped together on average before I got to another good one. Definately a neighborhood ready to transition, but one of the people I talked to had a for sale sign on his dead lawn, hadn't painted the trim or the house in 20 years, and told me he was selling because the neighborhood was "too run down" for him. I asked him why he didn't clean up his own house, and encourage the neighbors to do the same. He actually told me that it hadn't occured to him the HE was part of the problem! Hopefully, I got him to thinkin'! Who's next?



There's 19 homes for sale in Fran Park Group 3. The lowest is a 3/1/875 sf for 199k, and the most expensive is a 4/2/1870 sf for 270k. For the first ever, I think, I found a neighborhood where there's not a single home under contract. There were however, 30 homes sold in the last 12 months with a low sales price of 146,000 and a HI price of 320,000.



I showed some of the very nice ones above, and below are some of the worst.

Dump of the week

It's been a while since I ran into anything worthy of being called "the dump of the week". (click on the label buttons below the post to see some of the other "winners" of this prestigious honor.)

This is the singlemost WORST property in all of Fran Park, which means it's also the one I'd MOST LIKE TO GET MY HANDS ON.

It's one of the Duplexes from group 1, and both sides appear to be vacant, and have been for a very long time.

junk yards

Since a reader asked in the comments for us to also show the worst homes when we cover a neighborhood.......

I present to you the worst of the Fran Park disasters. Most of the homes need some landscape and paint to make them presentable from the curb, but these, on the other hand, need the county or city to intervene.

FOR BOTH THE COUNTY (455-4191) and the CITY OF LV (229-6615) THE CODE ENFORCEMENT SYSTEM IS COMPLAINT DRIVEN. They'll drive right by these properties, and not say or do a thing until a neighbor complains.

For both the county and the city, you can make a complaint anonymously (HINT HINT)



2, 3, 5, and especially 10 years ago, there were messes like these all over John S. Park, Huntridge, Marycrest, Paradise Palms, and many of the other neighborhoods that we now brag about.

FRANCISCO PARK #2

We continue to explore the undiscovered neighborhoods of "Francisco Park". By undiscovered, I mean they haven't started to turn desirable YET. Undiscovered requires that they be adjacent to neighborhoods that are well on their way to gentrification. Neighborhoods change. It's a fact of real estate. Location almost always drives the transition. Unique, charming, architecturally significant and other factors can drive it as well.



In the case of "Fran Park", ALL of the above mentioned elements are in play. All of the 5 groupings we'll be discussing are no further from the strip or downtown or airport or UNLV and most of the jobs than any of the other "cool, hip, close, vintage, desirable, hot, neighborhoods that we've been reporting on and promoting for all these many years. The architecture is MID-CENTURY MODERN. The yards are big! The potential is huge!



Group 2 in Fran Park look a lot like the duplexes but are single family homes. Group 2 is also between St. Louis and Sahara, going east from 15th Street to the east side of 17th street. There's a very few really nice homes scattered thru out, but mostly it's clusters of run down, poorly maintained, and often butchered properties. For some reason, Pardee skipped 1955 and all the Group 2 homes we're talking about today show as having been built in 1956. There were 127 homes altogether. Construction was cinderblock, with exposed block both inside and out. Roofs were flat or slightly pitched flat roofs. Ceilings were vaulted in the living rooms and kitchens. The smallest homes were 1 bathroom starting at 975 sf, and the largest was 4 bedroom, 2 bath up to about 1400 sf. Many of them have had bad additions added, some have really out of character second stories, but there's some great originals left also.

These last 2 pictures are from one of the "for sale homes. It's bank owned, and listed for 225,000. It's a 3/2 with carport and a 7200 sf lot. There's been some remodelling done, but theres PLENTY of room for improvement.


Currently there are 4 homes for sale between 225k and 260k, and the 2 that are under contract were priced at 210k and 230k.



Take a drive and take a look. Great location, and great potential.

What NOT TO DO to a Fran Park mid-mod

(or any other for that matter) The first picture is the original window configuration on a home that's begging for a buyer who "gets it". The second picture is an abomination of the whole concept of mid-mod.