A custom home designed for A.J. Foyt 50 years ago by renowned architect Clovis Heimsath is up for sale for $6.4 million, featuring a sunken living room with 26-foot ceilings, a walnut-walled library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and cabinets and a pool house that dates back to the 1950s.
Foyt, 89, a four-time Indianapolis 500 winner, commissioned Heimsath in 1974 to design the 7,300-square-foot, 5-bedroom, 7 bath property, which is “part of the fabric of Houston” and “a piece of a bygone era of Houston,” Charlie Bingham, a real estate agent with Nan & Co. Properties, says of the listing.
Located in the Sherwood Forest neighborhood of Houston’s Memorial Drive corridor, about one mile west of Memorial Park, the home is situated on two separate lots that make up more than two acres.
The rooms of the home are a patchwork of geometric shapes, a signature of Heimsath who “designed the home during his ‘secular’ phase and came up with a floor plan that resembles the shape of a crucifix, according to the property listing.
There is “a magnificent entrance with 22-foot ceilings, a gorgeous half-moon window seat and a hidden bar. The main bar is in a remarkable room adorned with windows and the light (and) views pour in,” the listing says.
“We are thrilled to add this stunning Memorial home to our active listings in Houston,” said Nancy Almodovar, CEO and co-founder of Nan & Co. Properties, in a statement. “Our team loves to sell homes with a unique history — whether it be a famous athlete who previously owned it or an iconic architect that built it — and this home has both of those elements.”
While Foyt was the original owner, the home has had several owners since. Other notable features include downstairs walls that are clad in brick, which incorporates design elements that give a nod to designs by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as a sunroom that opens onto the backyard and is adorned with friezes and clerestory windows, which are placed above eye level to bring in more natural light.
Outside, there is a four-car garage with an attached workshop and a driveway that can park 25 cars. A separate 1,542 square foot guesthouse with three bedrooms and three baths, has a cedar-lined living room with a fireplace and a midcentury kitchen with original appliances.
The home’s large, rectangular pool still has its original diving board.
While Foyt no longer lived in the home, weeks after it went on the market, Foyt talked to IndyStar about moving his team’s racing operations from the Houston area to Indianapolis.
For years, the team had built and prepared its cars in Waller, Texas, a suburb of Houston. But with other teams’ headquarters in the Indianapolis area (including Rahal Letterman Lanigan, Andretti, and Prema), A.J. Foyt Racing moved the preparation of its cars to its Main Street location in Speedway.
For Foyt, it came down to the number of race-minded people in the area.
“I shut down the shop in Houston about a month ago, and I moved everything up here,” Foyt said at his book signing event in Speedway earlier this month. “When I was down there driving, it wasn’t hard, but it’s so hard to get people. And up here you’ve got a lot of race people. And I felt like since I had my shop up here, I’d do all my operations up here.”
Foyt is the only driver in history to win the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona.