The Greenridge Property was so vast that a single photograph could not do it justice.  However this artist's rendering of the property gives a pretty good idea of the unusual layout.   At first glance it really does look like a modern-day castle!   All it needed was a moat, a drawbridge, and some spires.

The building is still there today. It is located one mile west of the Galleria. It has three levels.  The first level is half below the ground and half above (if you look closely at the picture, you will see ground level windows on the far left and another set of windows in the structure on the right).  For security reasons, there are no door openings at ground level.  You have to access these rooms from the second story courtyard.

The sweeping Courtyard was a thing of beauty (look for the two areas with the square tiles or see sketch below).  It had the romantic atmosphere of a French sidewalk area.  The Courtyard was so totally screened off from the surrounding area that it felt like you were in your own little world. This lovely second story veranda connected the entire structure together (the picture doesn't make it clear, but you can actually walk directly under the middle structure).  All of the 16 different rooms were accessed from the courtyard.  Those courtyard tiles were beautifully laid.  They created such a smooth surface that dancing on them would be no problem.  I visualized having wonderful outdoor dances during the cooler times of the year. 

There was a third level with apartments.  I assumed I would live in one of those apartments at some point.

There are only four entrances to the courtyard... two stairs in front and one set of stairs on each side.   By limiting access to three of the entrances, I could guarantee total control of the courtyard when necessary.  For example, for public events on the Courtyard, we could take tickets at the single open entrance.  No sneaking in to my parties!   Just as important, we could defend the structure against vicious attacks from rogue dance studios.

Thanks to the unique architecture, I had all sorts of ideas.  My imagination was going wild!  I was in love.  Greenridge was going to be Rick's Castle. 

1987 was the year I went looking to buy a building to become my dance studio.  I was no longer happy at Dance Arts Unlimited. 

Dance Arts, located at 4803 Bissonnet, was not working out for a variety of reasons.  When I first started there in October 1979, I sub-leased two small rooms in the back.  For six years, it was just me and one other teacher. 

However, six years is a long time.  At this point my program had outgrown the space of the two rooms in the back. The place was a dump.  It was always dirty, the air conditioner didn’t work, and the furniture was completely worn out. 

Still, until recently, I had been happy here. 

I had thought of Dance Arts as my permanent home.  It had to take something pretty bad to make me go looking. 

I was miserable because my relationship with my one-time mentor Glen Hunsucker, owner of Dance Arts, had taken a serious turn for the worse.  For seven years I had enjoyed an excellent relationship with Glen. In the beginning, Glen had been so good to me that I literally worshipped the ground he walked on. However, in the previous year - 1986 - Glen and I had begun to quarrel.  As 1987 began, I felt taken advantage of and disrespected.  Glen was constantly hitting me up for new revenue and arbitrarily changing the rules of our working agreement.  If he had leveled with me and asked for help, that would have been one thing, but instead he had turned into a dictator.  At times, Glen would become a fire-breathing dragon.  That made no sense.  Previously Glen had been such a gentle man.  I was mystified by this change in his behavior.  What had I done to turn this man so much against me?   

What I was not aware of was that Glen had acquired a serious drug problem.  There is your explanation for his mood change right there, but I had no idea at the time.  The problem was so bad that further down the road it would put him in prison for most of the Nineties.  The drug problem poisoned our relationship in two ways.  One, he needed more money to pay for his drugs.  Two, his drug-fried brain crippled his coping skills.  Glen constantly threatened to evict me, to raise my rent, and to reduce my room usage.  Worst of all, he would literally scream at me for the slightest of reasons.  I was a nervous wreck!  Get me the heck out of here!

I had been miserable now for over a year.  I decided I had taken enough abuse.  I had to assume things weren't getting any better. It was time to look for the Exit Door.  However, I didn't want to waste money paying rent for the rest of my life.  I preferred to buy a building. 

I had enough money to buy a building in the $250,000 range.  Purchasing within this range, the monthly payments would be close to what I was paying in rent to begin with.  I was confident we could make this work.

So I got myself a realtor. Together we went looking.  Evelyn found me all sorts of buildings.  She located several buildings that were in my price range and seemed very promising.  What I didn't anticipate, however, was how hard it was to make a deal. 

At one point or another during 1987, I put down bids on seven different buildings.
But not one deal went through!

Can you imagine that?  Here was someone with enough cash to buy at that level, no credit problems, yet not one deal went through.  

Even more ridiculous, at the end of 1987, all but one of the 7 structures were still for sale.  That must be the all-time record for futility.

One by one, each deal fell through.  One building that I bid on turned out to have another bid in before mine.  It was a very attractive building just west of Chimney Rock near the Dance Place.  Okay, no problem.  One building was on Westpark, another building was just off Westpark.  I have no idea what went wrong with either of those bids.  Another building was between Alabama and Greenway Plaza.  I had really good hopes for that one, but nothing ever happened there either. 

One place I thought had a lot of potential was on Rice Boulevard next to a gymnastics school.  The building wasn't much to look at, but the vast land behind it promised wonderful parking and maybe a tree-lined sand volleyball court to boot.  I offered them exactly what they asked, but I still didn't even get to First Base.  Memory tells me ownership of the building was being contested in court, so it was available and not available at the same time.  Today it is a truck rental place.

Out of these first five bids, I can't remember even one counter-offer.  I couldn't figure it out.  Were these buildings for sale or not?  In the meantime, we had just wasted another month of time.  Each time, Evelyn and I would give up and start looking at other possibilities.  One week later, she would be back with another possibility and we would start the whole stupid game over again. 

Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut, so no one at the studio had any idea what I was up to.  No point in burning my bridges ahead of time.  On the other hand, Glen was going further and further off the deep end and I was getting more and more desperate to make my escape.  My desperation explains why I had offered full price on my latest bid... I wanted to escape in the worst way!

The Pool Hall building is located on Gessner about half a mile north of I-10. When I last checked in 2009, this building was heavily fenced in with barbed wire.  It looked like it might be an office for a police narcotics unit.  If so, they picked a good spot. It is a free standing structure located in a hidden area behind a strip mall.  You would never find it unless you knew it was there.

Considering my preference for privacy, I was thrilled with this spot.

 In 1987 the building had served as a pool hall. Now it was empty.  The building had an odd alignment. The restrooms were in the very center of the building.  I anticipated building a dance floor in the shape of a racetrack oval around the restrooms!   Not exactly your traditional ballroom dance floor, but perfect for western dancing which ruled supreme in that day.

After some preliminary talk, the bank's lawyer entered the conference room.  This was a surprise to me.

The lawyer began by saying before he could sign off on this deal, he had to address the concerns of the larger property (his exact words).  I think my lifelong disgust with lawyers began at that exact moment.

I raised an eyebrow.  What was this all about?  I thought we had a 'done deal'.

The large strip mall in front of the former pool hall was 90% unoccupied.  So far, only a dry cleaning business had moved in.  The lawyer pointed out that other businesses would soon be looking to move in as well.  The lawyer was convinced that the bank needed to protect the larger property against any conceivable encroachment by my smaller enterprise.  Accordingly, he had drafted 12 provisions that restricted what I could do or I could not do with my property. 

My bank agent had not warned me of this. I had no idea this was coming.  I was completely blind-sided. 

Why was he making this deal so hard for me to accept?

He just shrugged.  He said he was sorry if I was uncomfortable, but it was a standard business principle to protect the larger interests from interference by a smaller entity (I think those were his exact words).

My mouth dropped open in astonishment at what I had just heard.  I was crestfallen.  I had come into the room prepared to make the biggest commitment of my life only to discover I was less important than a business that didn't even exist. I had always heard a bird in the hand was worth two in bush, but not this time.  Apparently his "don't let the tail wag the dog" argument trumped my "bird in the hand" wisdom.

The entire time, the bank agent who had put the deal together just started down at the floor as his deal unraveled before his very eyes.  All that time and effort down the drain.  But he never said a word in my defense.  I thought he was my friend, but the coward was clearly intimidated by the lawyer.  I bet he lost this same battle the day before. Today he was already whipped because he let the lawyer deep six all his hard work without any protest.  That's when I remembered how formal he was at the door.  That proved he knew this was coming, but hadn't bothered to warn me.  Thanks a lot, buddy. 

Furthermore, my realtor didn't stick up for me either. She said very little.  I thought I had friends in the room, but I guess not.  I was fighting this battle single-handed.  With friends like these, who needs enemies?

This meeting was supposed to be a cordial get-together, sort of like meeting for drinks on a first date.  But once the two sellers saw how eager I was to own this place, they shifted into high gear.  They could see they had a fish on the hook.  They immediately went to work hammering out a great deal for me.  Like any good salesman, they knew better than to let me walk away and think it over.  I was weak and they were coming on strong.

Over the next two couple hours, the two men worked up a proposal.  They understood I would need to do "a little remodeling", so their offer included low payments for a couple years with a huge balloon payment further down the road once I got settled in.

I was 37 years old at the time. You would think I would see what was going on, but I admit I had very little business experience.  This real estate stuff was over my head.  I was a babe in the woods and these guys were about to have their way with me.  But I wasn't worried; I had my realtor to protect me.  I knew she wouldn't let me sign a bad deal.

The next thing I knew, I had agreed to buy the place for $557,000!!!!   

Mind you, this price was about $300,000 MORE than I had money for.  But the place was so HOT I had to have it!  Greenridge was just too beautiful a property to take the chance of losing it to another man.

DAY TWO

It was now Day Two.  In addition to the Supernatural Omens, today I would learn of problems in the Material World that would give me even more to worry about.

I spent the morning on the phone to my stock broker.  I would have to cash in my entire life savings to raise the down payment of $70,000.

My stock broker asked me to explain the deal to him.  I said the earnest money and the down payment added up to $77,000, leaving a balance of nearly half a million. With renovations and increased rent, I would have to count on finding some tenants.

After I finished, the guy had the nerve to suggest I was out of my mind.  He said if one major thing went wrong, I would be in big trouble.  There was no margin for error!  That didn't help much; I had begun to wonder the same thing.

I called the investor guy; no answer.  Hmm.

That afternoon, I asked my carpenter to drive over to the building to look things over.  When we got there, he was appalled at what he saw!  As pretty as it was, upon closer look, it needed a great deal of repair.  He couldn't believe I had signed a contract without checking with him first!

The only air conditioner in the entire complex that worked was in the seller's office.  The other ten units were dead.  Could they be fixed or would I have to buy new ones?   He found an upstairs room that was mysteriously full of trash, cigarette butts, and beer bottles plus some filthy clothes as well.  My carpenter said it looked like some bum had once lived up there.  There was evidence of termite damage in the some of the walls.  There was a thin sheet of water all over the cement floor in the basement plus signs of water damage.  My carpenter was very negative about my building, but then he wasn't in love.  I was able to see that once the placed was fixed up, it would be beautiful beyond my wildest dreams.  Still, his criticism weighed heavily on my ever-darkening spirits.  I swallowed hard. 

When I got home, I tried calling the mysterious investor for the second time that day.  Like the first time, there was no answer.  I frowned.  This had been a terrible day.  My stock broker's negativity in the morning shook me up. My carpenter's negativity in the afternoon shook me up even more.  However, what bothered me the most of all was my inability to reach this key investor by phone.  Answer the phone, damn it! 

DAY THREE

I spent most of Day Three at home.  I must have called the security guy four or five times.  Never a single answer!   Not even an answering machine! I was growing sick with worry.  I couldn't eat.  Late that afternoon I called Information in Austin and gave them his name.  They had no listing for him.  The woman asked if I knew where he worked; maybe she could find the number for his business.  It dawned on me I had no idea what his company's name was.  I thanked the woman and hung up the phone. This was getting serious.

At that exact moment it started to rain very hard.  Yet another bad omen.  The wrong number and the rain complete with thunder and lightning combined to put me in a very bad mood.  I was starting to get a terrible feeling about this place.  I was physically nauseous with worry.  However, but bad mood or not, it was time to go to dance class. As I drove to the studio in the torrential rain, I obsessed over the bad phone number. This was a much worse omen than the falling drain spout. I don't recall ever feeling gloomier in my life.

It was a dark and stormy night indeed.  The heaviest rain had stopped, but there was drizzle and dense mist in the air.  I knew there were no lights that worked, so we got a couple flashlights out of our glove compartments and climbed the stone steps.  When my friends saw the Courtyard, they were instantly impressed.  Wow!  That cheered me up a bit. 

Sad to say, that happy feeling didn't last very long.  As we walked around, one of the men poked his head into a downstairs room.  Thanks to the night's heavy rainfall, he discovered that this subterranean room was now covered with 4 feet of water.  That quieted the group a bit.  Me too.

As we wandered through the gloom and the mist, a girl pointed out that in the dark, the Courtyard reminded her of a graveyard.  It was true.  It was so dark, I could barely see the walls.  The same girl asked what was upstairs.  Let's go have a look.  We climbed the stairs and opened the door.  That is when we walked in on some homeless guy drinking a bottle of beer to candlelight.  When he saw us, he threw his arms up and cackled maniacally with fear!

The women could not have been more scared if this was a ghost.  They screamed like banshees.  They turned and ran for their lives screaming all the way down the stairs.  I was pretty close on their heels.  I don't know who was more scared - him or us - but I do remember my friends were badly shaken. 

That was the end of the Tour.  All six were more than ready to depart. They politely agreed this was a gorgeous place, but added it was kind of creepy too.  No kidding!  I smiled wanly.  I assured them that once we got the lights working, the building would be much safer and friendlier.

But I had a hard time believing my own words.  I was really spooked.  In the dark mist, my eyes saw danger in every nook and cranny. My imagination went wild.  I saw gargoyles hiding in the shadows.  It took every ounce of courage to stay there by myself. 

DETECTIVE RICK

It took me a long time to steel my nerves.  Finally I forced myself to snoop around some more.  What other horrors lurked in this place at night?  Using my flashlight, I took another look at the sunken chamber with the swimming pool.  My gosh, the water was deep enough to swim in!  I wondered if this building was in a flood zone or something.  I glumly noted that filling the moat would obviously not be a problem.

My thoughts returned to the Ghost on the Third Floor.  Once I got my wits about me, I realized this guy was the reason for all the trash my carpenter had discovered - the bum had made that room his home!   It gave me the willies to know the bum was still around here somewhere.  What if he had a weapon?  I tried to brush the bum out of my mind.  He was probably more afraid of me than I was of him.  Still, I looked over my shoulder at every opportunity to see if he was sneaking up behind me.  I shivered with cold and fear.

There was a reason I had stayed behind.  Sam and Dave had given me a master key to the building as some sort of prize after I handed them my $7,000 check.  I decided to take advantage of the situation and try a little trick. Testing the master key on the office door, sure enough, it worked!  Using my flashlight, I entered their office and went straight for the rolodex. I found the number easily enough. Aha!  I noted that I had been given the wrong number. The number I had been given was one card removed from the correct phone number. Plus the man had given me the wrong area code as well. They had said my security guy lived in Austin, but as I studied the correct 713 number, it was apparent he lived right here in Houston.

Every dark suspicion I had about these guys had been proven true. They had deliberately deceived me.

I made a beeline for home.  As I drove, I could not help but think how lucky these shysters were to give me a working number that no one ever answered.  What are the odds of that?  Or did they know ahead of time this number would just ring and ring?  I wouldn't put it past them.  My paranoia had reached a fever pitch.

I could not wait to test this new number!  It was midnight, but I didn't care. My butt was on the firing line and I wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.  I felt my heart in my throat as I dialed the new number.  This time a man answered.  Once I explained to him who I was, he quickly confirmed my worst fears.

According to this man, the whole sales pitch was a hoax.    These two guys had tried the same routine on him, but he had decided to do some checking. The Castle had flood problems, foundation problems, the owner was being sued, it had once been condemned by the city of Houston…a total nightmare!  He said these guys were complete crooks.  He added he had no intention of buying the place or renting it.  No way he would invest in that place. His parting words - get out of the deal if I could.

Now totally scared out of my wits, I called Evelyn at 1 am.  She told me I could cancel an earnest money contract any time within 72 hours after signing.  After a sleepless night, the next morning (June 13, 1987), I sent Sam and Dave a telegram canceling the deal. I beat the deadline by one hour.  This was a close call.  Later that day, after a great deal of arguing, I was able to get my $7,000 earnest money check back.

The ordeal was over.  I had escaped by the skin of my teeth.  On the surface, of course, I was deeply relieved.   But deep down, I was very shaken.  How did I ever let myself get into a fix like this?

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  When you want something too much, you do everything in your power to convince yourself the person or opportunity before you is the right one.  I believed I had one chance to wrap up the building of a lifetime.  If I hesitated, there seemed to be someone right behind me ready to scoop it up. 

Like Lee at Gettysburg, I was seduced by the magnitude of the reward.  This Castle would help my small but growing dance studio become something very special indeed.

In regards to this amazing building, I was right about one thing - I have never seen anything like it since.  It would have been the perfect place for my studio.  In my case, this building was so special that it seduced me in the same manner a beautiful woman could hold sway over a lonely man.

Desperation fuels rash behavior. Previously, I had the sense to walk away from a bad deal - the Pool Hall - but not this time.  I was desperate because my situation with Glen had badly deteriorated and because the Pool Hall incident had robbed me of any remaining patience. 

A Leap of Faith.  Wanting something to be true despite clues to the contrary, I threw caution to the winds.  I didn't trust these guys, but my caution was overcome by my hopes and dreams.  With my judgment impaired, I let myself be fooled by some smooth talking crooks into making a very risky deal.   When they said this was my only chance, I believed them.  In my defense, I had no previous experience with con men.  These guys talked a very good game.  Their clever 'investor story' worked wonders on me.  Then I learned to my dismay what a big gullible fool I had been.

What still bothers me to this day is not these con men, but rather my own realtor.  I was suspicious about these men from the start.  However, my realtor didn't offer a single word of caution.   She just sat back and let me make a fool of myself.  So the question is:  Was she fooled too?  Maybe.  I have another explanation.  My gut tells me that after all the time she had invested in this project - twenty buildings that had no chance and six previous contract disappointments, she was so anxious to make some money that she swallowed her whistle.  It wasn't her butt on the line.  So what?

After this deal fell through, I never trusted Evelyn again.  It was obvious she had some integrity issues.  She called from time to time with exciting new places to see, but I always begged off. 

Two months after the deal fell through, by magic I suddenly found myself with the option to lease the 4803 Bissonnet property all by myself.  Glen had been evicted.  I would be my own man and I wouldn't even have to move.  That put an immediate end to this chapter.  I was already home.

Greenridge remains to this day the most beautiful building I ever saw.  For an instant, all my dreams and hopes seemed ready to come true.  Add in the sweet talk and I was lost.  That is when I took total leave of my senses.   Just remember this - if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.