A colossal mansion in Manvel, Texas, has sat vacant for more than 20 years — but it finally has occupants.
In 2001, Ulysses Watkins, a physician, and his wife started building a 63,000-square-foot house in Manvel, a town 30 minutes south of Houston. Construction stopped about 80% through when the couple decided the house was too big, according to the current owner of the property, Jim Youngblood.
It sat in an empty field like a behemoth. No one ever moved in.
In 2007, Youngblood, a partner at a local leasing and property management company, bought the abandoned mansion for $525,000. He then tried to get rid of it over and over again, for prices as high as $3.6 million.
Every buyer fell through. ("Everybody has these grand ideas," Youngblood told Realtor.com in 2016, "but they don't have any money.")
"I held onto it for several years and had it under contract over 20 times," Youngblood told the Houston Chronicle, "but nobody could get it closed."
In 2019, he at last decided to change his approach. If no one wanted to live there, maybe a small business or an organization would want to rent an affordably priced office.
He rezoned the property for commercial use and started remodeling, adding 180 parking spaces and fixing up the still-unfinished interior.
So far, it's working: Youngblood has been able to find a church and a daycare to occupy 10,000 square feet each. Two insurance companies are also listed as tenants on the listing advertising the additional space for rent at $20.40 per square foot per year.
Here's a look photos of the enormous and maligned building through the years, as well as a glimpse into its long, intriguing history.