The Star

The Star is the former Texas Company headquarters, Texaco’s home office, converted to apartments. Warren & Wetmore, the New York firm behind Grand Central Terminal, designed the original wing, completed in 1913 and occupied by 1915, with additions in 1936 and 1958. Provident Realty Advisors bought the building in 2013, worked with HBG Design on the conversion and reopened it in 2017 with 286 apartments; the Urban Land Institute gave the project a Development of Distinction award.

The conversion kept the brick, terra cotta and Bedford limestone facade and the arcade of Tuscan columns along Rusk Street. Inside are a heated pool, fitness center, private theater, a club room with a golf simulator, a rooftop terrace with a fireplace, 24-hour concierge and an on-site restaurant, plus a pet spa and what the building calls Downtown’s only indoor dog park and run. Morgan Group manages it today.

Rusk Street sits in the middle of Downtown Houston’s Central Business District with direct access to two METRORail lines, about as transit-connected as Houston rental housing gets. The trade-off in a converted building is that floor plans vary more than in purpose-built towers.