Contemporary makeover
Seabrook house sheds its dated look
For months, the primary bedroom suite in Brett and Jessica Callier’s Seabrook home may as well have been Grand Central Station.
The kitchen, living room, dining room, laundry room, powder bathroom and an office were undergoing an extensive renovation, stripped to the studs.
“We had the refrigerator and microwave in the bedroom, and it was super cramped,” said Jessica, a native of Pearland. “I would get up in the morning to make my daughter’s lunch for school, and my husband would still be sleeping nearby. On Christmas morning, the girls came in to open their presents. We lived in the master bedroom.”
The Calliers don’t mind being stuck at home so much anymore since the project finished in March, just as the coronavirus pandemic was shutting down much of the country. Once dark and full of obstacles — pillars, arched doorways, a bulky fireplace and pass-through wall — their house is now a model of sparkling contemporary design.
Built in 2005, the house had a floor plan that had soured by today’s standard — which now embraces open-concept main living areas. Dark interior trim, stained-wood cabinets and plantation-style shutters all contributed to the cavelike feel of the original interior.
The Calliers — who bought the 3,335-square-foot home nine years ago around the time they married — waited a year for their contractor to take them on; then, as Jessica waded through selecting finishes, she hit a wall.
“When it came down to picking light fixtures, that’s when I got very overwhelmed,” said Jessica, who worked in accounting at Houston Pilots before staying home with their daughters. “I was ordering stuff and sending it back because it didn’t look right. I just didn’t feel qualified to pick it all out.”
Brett Callier, a native of La Marque, is a ship captain at Houston Pilots. They’re a blended family, with daughter Tori, 14; Quinn, 20, a student at Southern Methodist University; and Kiley, 27, a doctor in her medical residency in Chicago.
Jessica found interior designer Missy Stewart of Missy Stewart Designs online and connected with photographs of work she’s done for others.
“People do get decision fatigue when they’re building or remodeling. It’s a lot of decisions, and they’re expensive decisions or mistakes,” Stewart said.
Stewart gave her blessing on flooring (porcelain tile that looks like wood), paint (light gray) and Cambria quartz counters that Jessica had already chosen and got busy finding the right lighting and furniture.
Inside their front door, there’s now a bar where the dining room used to be. A wide, double-sided fireplace separated the dining room from the kitchen and living room, and an elevated hearth made the room feel even more cramped. With the fireplace and hearth gone, they gained a cozy spot to sit, with four black leather armchairs beneath a modern chandelier that looks like a chic jumble of bars and bulbs.
“You want comfortable chairs that you are not in a hurry to get out of, but instead sit back and enjoy,” Stewart said. “Brett was all about that — hanging out and not being in a rush to leave.”
Behind the bar’s back wall is their laundry room, now larger and more functional with a long row of cabinets with mesh-front doors that serve as kennels for their three dogs. Its white cabinets with gold hardware, glassy subway-tile backsplash and white quartz counters make everything feel fresh.
The living room is anchored by an Instagram-worthy statement wall with a black background and gold abstract stripes painted by the artists at Decorative and Faux Finishes.
“When you have a house that is so white, white, white, and then you put this black TV on a wall, you ruined the space,” Stewart said of her abstractstatement-wall idea. “If you make it part of the design, the TV goes away. If we’re going to do it,
though, let’s make it look very intentional.”
Jessica remembers when she and her family were on a ski trip in Colorado and her contractor saw the statement wall and texted a picture to her before it was done.
“He was like, ‘Is this supposed to look like this?’ ” Jessica said, now laughing at her initial shock at the project when it still had painter’s tape running every which way. “I like bold statements and doing things other people won’t. We had a graduation party here, and it looks really good in pictures.”
A pair of tables with a gold finish sit in front of the wall and the rest of the space is filled with white sofas, a curvy, faux marble coffee table and a pair of trendy swivel chairs covered in a blue doeskin pattern.
An oversized crystal chandelier ring hangs over everything, a fixture that sets the tone for the high-glam lighting in the Calliers’ home.
Originally, the kitchen had a slim island and then another counter with a partial wall — what designers call a “pass-through” — and barstool seating that extended into part of the living room. There weren’t full walls separating the two spaces, but there were enough columns, doorways and partial walls to feel like two separate spaces.
White painted cabinets that reach to the ceiling replaced wood-stained cabinets, quartz counters — white with light-gray veining — replaced reddish granite, and gold hardware and plumbing fixtures replaced brushed nickel.
Instead of a room lit only by canned ceiling lights, Stewart found a pair of chandeliers in crystal and brass. The new oversized island has an overhang where they can tuck in four barstools, making this the main place where the Calliers sit for meals.
Stewart noted that many clients do a double-take on lighting size — getting the scale right can be difficult. Many designers are opting for larger chandeliers and pendants now that ceiling heights are getting taller in general, and right-sized lights can look giant when they’re right out of a box, before they’ve been hung in a room.
“Sometimes I have a hard time convincing people that something is doable. It’s so fun to show before-and-after photos like this because people see a house like that and think that could never be their house,” Stewart said. “It’s fun when you can totally transform a space.”
Senior pastor Enid Henderson had gone days without phone service because of the winter storm that walloped Houston. It was restored on Feb. 18, just in time to receive the news that her Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Independence Heights had been devastated by freezing weather.
“There was just water everywhere,” Henderson said. “All the pipes burst.”
Around the same time, she received a call from Councilwoman Karla Cisneros’ office, asking if the church would become a water-distribution site. Immediately.
Henderson needed to decide quickly: Focus on the damaged sanctuary or distribute water to the community.
It didn’t take her long to come up with an answer. She stood outside and handed out bottles.
“I had to focus on what God’s calling us to do and not be distracted,” Henderson said.
“You’ve got turmoil inside the church, but you have people who are suffering outside who need help. It’s a reminder from God that church is not the building.”
She was only recently appointed to serve the congregation and is unsure how the church will be able to recover from the damage, or even whether the church is covered by insurance. One thing she knows for sure: A renovation is not in the budget.
Instead of getting lost in worry, Henderson conjures up Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
“That’s what gives me hope, knowing God is with us,” Henderson said.
She has plans for the weeks to come — on-site food giveaways, COVID testing and COVID vaccinations.
“There’s a need, and I’m going to stay focused on the call,” Henderson said. “That’s what I love about Houston. We will pull together.”
Henderson is not the only faith leader who has vowed to concentrate on helping others in the midst of their own hardships.
Food, warmth, shelter during storm
A number of congregations have served as warming shelters for neighbors who lost power during the storm.
“There’s been no power all around us, but we never lost power,” said Theresa Fauser, executive pastor at the Foundry United Methodist in Jersey Village, which sheltered the area’s homeless population. “That’s been an amazing blessing.”
Volunteers offered each guest cots or air mattresses and a sleeping bag, snacks and fresh-brewed coffee around the clock. Restaurants also delivered meals to the church.
Church Space, a business that allows congregations to share facilities, partnered with Cullen Missionary Baptist Church to distribute water and food to Houston’s Sunnyside neighborhood.
The Islamic Society of Greater Houston distributed food at a number of mosques throughout the area, including Masjid AsSabireen in Stafford, Masjid Taqwa in Sugar Land, Masjid Hamza in Mission Bend and Masjid Bilal in north Houston.
“This is part and parcel of our faith, to serve others in our community,” president Ayman Kabire said.
Cars lined up around the block to pick up lunch, dinner, water and even blankets.
ISGH partnered with An-Nisa Hope Center, a faith-based nonprofit that focuses year-round on helping survivors of domestic violence. The organization also takes a lead in disaster relief.
“We figure out what needs to be done,” An-Nisa president and founder Bibi Khan said. “Then, we make a plan.”
The first priority was alleviating the biting cold, she explained.
“People were calling us, worrying their children would freeze to death,” Khan said.
Before long, she assembled hundreds of volunteers to distribute blankets, water and food. On the first day, An-Nisa Hope Center distributed 520 blankets. The next day, the nonprofit provided 600 hot meals. By the end of the week, volunteers delivered 1,500 meals a day.
Kabire said that the response from the community was humbling. Businesses, restaurants and volunteers stepped up to provide pallets of water, blankets and other relief items.
“They came in the middle of the storm just to bring blankets,” he said. “Many of our volunteers’ own homes and families were impacted, but they braved the storm to help others.”
The next need, Kabire said, will be fixing houses. “This relief will continue for weeks, if not months. We’ll continue to help as much as we can.”
Shifting to mucking and gutting
Several faith-based organizations and churches are already answering the call to muck and gut homes flooded by burst pipes.
At Sewa International Houston, a Hindu nonprofit dedicated to volunteerism, one volunteer created a spreadsheet of contractors to share with the community; another volunteer worked with a plumber to temporarily fix 13 homes.
Sewa was able to use its fans and dehumidifiers left over from Hurricane Harvey to help. The organization has also distributed 4,3000 pounds of food and hundreds of gallons of water.
At Champion Forest Baptist Church, its community ministry center transformed into a team dispatch site, sending out dozens of volunteers each day to remove wet sheetrock, insulation and carpet. The congregation created a “get help and give help” section on its web page, where individuals can alert the team to their needs and volunteers can sign up to serve.
Houston Responds, a nonprofit that unites and empowers Houston-area churches for disaster relief, has also started mobilizing to repair flooded homes. The organization formed after Hurricane Harvey, and executive director Tommy Rosson said the flood damage from the winter storm will be similarly massive.
“When there’s a disaster, churches are going to respond, we know that,” he said. “Our goal is to create easy on-ramps to help.”
More volunteers and funding will be needed to fix houses, Rosson said. Houston Responds is also calling on skilled plumbers and contractors to sign up.
Tammi Scott, a coordinator for the Houston Responds coalition for East Harris County, said concerns about food insecurity are also increasing in her area, after families lost refrigerators and freezers full of what food they had, creating an even greater need.
Then, as the weather warmed, many faced flooded homes.
“We have Harvey and Imelda survivors who are still not in their homes,” Scott said. “We become their life preserver.”
Pastor Chris Alston, a member of Houston Responds, loaded up ladders in his vehicle last week to start repairing homes.
“Burst water pipes — when we hear something like that, we begin to mobilize our volunteers,” said Alston, who serves the west campus of Clear Creek Community Church in League City. “It’s a little like Hurricane Harvey. You’ve got to clean out sheetrock and take out flooring.”
It’s all about the church being a good neighbor, he explained.
“We want to offer some hope,” Alston said. “That’s one of the things that drives us, to provide hope in the midst of a crisis. We want people to know that they’re not alone. We’re here to help.”
Alison Pollard, missions and outreach director at Crosspoint Church in Pearland, is a coalition leader for Houston Responds in Brazoria County.
Before the storm, the church brought coats and blankets to homeless individuals in downtown Houston. By Feb. 16, Crosspoint Church was serving as a warming shelter. Now, Pollard said, the coalition is focused on recovery and repair of waterdamaged homes. Member churches are partnering with Craftsmen for Christ, a nonprofit that provides handymen specializing in disaster relief.
“You’re never more like Jesus than when you are serving others,” Pollard said. “He put serving others in front of everything. We believe that’s how you show the love of God.”
Normal suffering for some
Serving the homeless is a yearround priority for Galveston Central Church. The congregation transforms into a kitchen, bicycle-repair shop, laundromat and shower facility every week.
On Feb. 14, the congregation opened, as it always does, to provide meals and showers. Then, the church extended its service to accommodate overnight guests.
Even when the church lost power and water, volunteers continued to serve. The gas stove became a godsend, allowing volunteers to serve hot meals.
Pastor Michael Gienger said that in many ways, the winter storm has been worse than a hurricane.
For many, he explained, the experience has been a discomfort or a trial. For the unhoused population, however, this is commonplace.
“For many folks, this is their common experience every day,” Gienger said. “How do we care for the most marginalized and vulnerable among us? Hopefully, this will be eye opening.”
Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston delivered kits, which included a blanket, mittens, socks and food, for homeless individuals before the storm hit Houston.
Outreach in the Barrio, an Islamic grassroots nonprofit, mobilized to help Houston’s homeless as soon as forecasts warned of the winter storm.
“We knew this was going to be really tough,” said co-founder Noor Morales, who rented a U-Haul the Friday before the storm, filling it with blankets, jackets, sleeping bags, mittens and scarves.
“It was anything and everything we could get,” Morales said.
The following day, about 50 volunteers distributed the items to those in need.
“I’m a native of Houston, and in a time of crisis, we join hands and come together,” Morales said. “The work is not done yet. We’re still on the ground. People have lost lives. People out there are suffering. We’re just trying to do our part.”
“It’s a reminder from God that church is not the building.”
Enid Henderson, Ebenezer United Methodist Church senior pastor
Like most Texans, I spent the week of the winter storm huddled at home and creatively raiding my pantry, refrigerator and freezer for sustenance while avoiding the icy roads and bare supermarket shelves.
Bags of beans, cans of tomatoes and corn, and thawed-out chicken breasts came in handy for an impromptu soup or stew.
Though Texas barbecue does not have a soup or stew tradition beyond gumbo or chili, the barbecue of the southern United States has a long tradition going back to the earliest days of our country.
Stews, in particular, have played a central role in early American barbecue history.
In addition to creative cooking, the winter blast provided the opportunity to catch up on a nightstand pile of books, the first of which was a revised edition of the magisterial “Barbecue: The History of an American Institution” by Robert F. Moss (University Alabama Press).
Moss documents three of the most prominent stews of the southern U.S.: Brunswick stew of Virginia and North Carolina, hash of South Carolina and burgoo of Kentucky. To this day, these stews are the cornerstone of dishes served alongside the pork-based barbecue of the region.
Brunswick is perhaps the oldest and most legendary of barbecue stews, originating in Virginia in the early 1800s, according to Moss. It is derived from a classic hunter’s stew in which ingredients at hand were thrown into a pot with water and seasonings and stewed for many hours.
The classic recipe for Brunswick stew is chicken or squirrel, tomatoes, corn, butter beans, potatoes, salt and cayenne pepper stewed in water. Nowadays, of course, chicken is the exclusive protein.
Several years ago I sampled Brunswick stew at Stamey’s in Greensboro, N.C. Chunks of chicken mingled with peas, beans and corn in a thin tomato broth. For a Texan used to the flavor-blasts of chili and gumbo, this stew was subtle though soulful and hearty.
Hash is a tradition of South Carolina and arguably more of an acquired taste. The traditional recipe is a coarse paste or gravy made from the leftovers of slaughtered pigs — think liver and brains — that are mashed together with water and seasonings and then stewed.
Today, hash is usually made from friendlier cuts of the pig, such as shoulder, and served over rice. I tasted hash at Bessinger’s Bar-B-Q in Charleston, S.C., and can confirm it is indeed an acquired taste.
Burgoo is a third pillar of the southern U.S. barbecue-stew canon. Though I have yet to taste it, it sounds more like something a Texan might find familiar, as beef is often a main ingredient.
The Nov. 22, 1897, issue of the Kansas City Times described a grand Kentucky barbecue and provided a recipe for burgoo. M. Gustave Jaubert, known at the time as the “King of Burgoo,” described the process:
“For this barbecue I made 1,000 gallons of burgoo. Its ingredients are 400 pounds of beef, six dozen chickens, four dozen rabbits, 30 cans of tomatoes, 20 dozen cans of corn, 15 bushels of potatoes, and five bushels of onions. It takes burgoo 10 or 12 hours to cook, and it requires constant stirring. I was up all of last night.”
Jaubert continues: “It was originally a Welsh product and for many years after its introduction into Kentucky was a watery soup made of beef, chicken, corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables.”
Sound familiar? Indeed, Brunswick stew and burgoo were often mistaken for each other in the earliest days of American barbecue. Today they are distinctive dishes of their corresponding regions, and worth seeking out when you are traveling in the Deep South.