Houston, we have just what you need to keep up your classy image in these dire economic days: A large story in The New York Times about a home here so lavishly decorated that "it's hard not to gape at a gilt and mirrored hall so boisterously
baroque that you half expect Marie Antoinette to appear and offer you
cake."Take that, unemployed and bitter America.Houston surgeon Anthony Walter, we're told, built the house in Southampton ("where several jailed Enron executives have impressive homes," th
Photo courtesy GHCVBThe massive battle over the proposed Ashby high-rise is one that leaves us not very interested.On the one side, you have a developer trying to force a 23-story complex onto the shady streets near Rice; on the other, you have the well-heeled residents of that neighborhood marshalling lawyers and graphics artists to make sure no luxury SUV is without a bumper sticker declaring their refusal to bow to The Man.The fact that Houston's lack of zoning regularly screws people is o
