A hundred-year-old mansion in the museum district was Houston’s most expensive September sale.
The 1926 home at 1 Longfellow Lane in the Museum District was asking $10.6 million when it sold, or about $1,000 per square foot. The final sales price isn’t disclosed.
The four-bed, seven-bath home on two acres was designed by William Ward Watkin, a Houston architect who designed much of Rice University and served on the faculty in the early 20th century. The property includes a 9,900-square-foot, three-story main house and an 1,800-square-foot garage apartment over a three-car carriage house.
The sellers are Kenneth and Cara Moczulski, whom Preservation Houston recognized in 2021 for restoring the home. Kenneth Moczulski leads MM Properties, a real estate investment trust. Rancher and political donor Ashley Watt is the buyer, according to county records.
Notably, the home beat out others in the River Oaks and Memorial neighborhoods, which typically dominate Houston luxury sales. No other neighborhood cracked the top 11 listings of 2024. In 2022, the Memorial neighborhood had Houston’s first single-family sale above $20 million. The country club-anchored River Oaks neighborhood had Houston’s most expensive sale of 2024, and it’s taken the top monthly spot more than once this year.
The other nine top September sales included three River Oaks homes and four Memorial Villages homes, according to HAR.
Victoria Minton with Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty listed the home.
It took some time to sell. The owners listed the home at $11.8 million in April 2023, cut the price slightly that September and then removed the listing in January 2024, according to Zillow. The home listed again in February for $11.25 million, left the market in April, then relisted again for $10.6 million last October, remaining on the market for almost a year until the parties closed on September 2.
Although the luxury market is softening in many metros, Houston luxury homes had the lowest median days on market of any city in Texas in August, according to Redfin. The median sale price of Houston luxury homes, categorized as the top 5 percent of the market, rose 5 percent year over year to $1.3 million.
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