Fresh on the market this week is the $16 million palazzo at 2115 River Oaks Blvd. Fans of Houston’s lurid oil-boom history know it as the former home of Baron Ricky di Portanova. In the 1960s the jet-setting Italian playboy began legal wranglings to wrest a fortune away from the less-showy heirs of his grandfather, wildcatter Hugh Roy Cullen. 

No, this is not the house where di Portanova’s racehorse groom was murdered, perhaps because the assailant mistook him for di Portanova. This is the house that di Portanova fixed up in the 1970s, for his second wife’s birthday, after he was unable to buy her New York’s 21 club.

It’s the house whose 12,000-square-foot back yard he walled in and climate-controlled, taming the Texas sky with skylights, and hanging enormous chandeliers over the turquoise pool. The second-floor bedrooms had large, wrought-iron-trimmed balconies. From those air-conditioned heights, occupants could gaze down at travertine marble floors where grass had once grown.

For awhile, the di Portanova palazzo was the showiest house on Houston's showiest street — which was really saying something in the oil-boom '70s. The couple hosted a seated dinner for Pavarotti, and their Christmas extravaganzas included gospel choirs and live camels. “From the air, flying over the city, the place loomed among the trees of River Oaks like a white whale,” Alison Cook wrote. 

These days, the house merely fits in among River Oaks' new super-sized mansions. According to the Realtor’s press release, in 2004, new owners spent $7 million on a renovation. Gone, alas, are di Portanovas’ poolside organ, their cavorting classical statuary, and the baron’s pet snake, Katharina. But who knows how many millions the next owner might pour into the place, and what new extravagances await?

📷. Want more pix? Check out the house’s listing. 

🧐  Want more juicy old-Houston scandal? Read “The Notorious Mrs. Mossler,” in the latest Texas Monthly.

📧 Got a juicy real-estate tip? Let us know!

🚂  The EPA’s top boss visited Fifth Ward: In the historically Black neighborhood, cases of childhood leukemia are five times higher than the state average. On Friday, EPA administrator Michael Regan met with a grieving mother who’s convinced that a Union Pacific rail yard contaminated with creosote is to blame for her son’s death. (CBS News)

🚁  Ballet delay: Supply-chain issues are bedeviling even the Houston Ballet. Because scenery and costumes for “Madame Butterfly” haven’t yet arrived from Australia, the performance has been pushed back from March 2022 until June. (Houston Public Media)

🏈  The Texans actually won: After nine weeks with no wins, the Texans turned around in a big way: With a 22-13 victory over the Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers, so we especially love to beat them). (Houston Chronicle)

“Here in Texas, we don’t usually think about our state flowers, bluebonnets, in the fall,” writes Laurie Hudson, exhibits manager at the Houston Arboretum. “These harbingers of spring blanket roadsides and open fields with their showy beauty in March and April. Long before that happens, though, their delicate leaves push through the soil in late fall and continue to grow throughout the winter. Late fall is the ideal time to plant seeds!”  (Photo by Laurie Hudson)

In last week's podcast about the Ion tech hub, I blamed Sears’ fear of 1960s riots for the hideous tan corrugated metal that used to cover its store on Main Street. Jim Parsons, education director of Preservation Houston, says that’s wrong.

“That’s the popular story,” he writes, “but the truth is that the big Sears remodel was completed in the early ’60s, before there was widespread civil unrest — which means the Art Deco exterior was hidden behind ugly metal panels because Sears brass thought it looked cool. Maybe they came up with the riot story later to save face.”

To see the original building – before its 1960s uglification, and before it was Ion-ized – check out this “Houston Deco” page on Preservation Houston’s site.