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Houston 101: That Weird Building Out On The West Side

By John Nova Lomax in Houston 101, Spaced City

Friday, Jul. 10 2009 @ 6:58AM

Houston 101 is a new running feature seeking to educate the ignorant masses on some of the more offbeat bits of our town, whether it's long-gone music places, bizarre murders, political trivia or odd bits of construction.

Rising out of the strip mall-studded, boundless and bare scrub prairie suburbia of far Southwest Houston, the Chong Hua Sheng Mu Holy Palace (12800 Ashford Point) presents us with one the city's more surreal tableau: something that looks like a Mayan Epcot Center with touches of the Far East, crumbling and forlorn, amid a huge empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere.

It was originally slated to have been the centerpiece of the headquarters for the Wu-Wei Tien Tao Association, an East Asian universalist religion. Under the leadership of the aging Master Cheung, the Tien Tao faithful had grand plans: alongside this grandly bizarre edifice, there were to have been homes, shops and daycares scattered about the eleven-acre site, much to the chagrin of many of the workaday neighbors.

Photo by Nothing to See Here

But such was not to be. In 1999, local sect leader Kwai Fun Yong was deported when she returned to her native Hong Kong to attend the funeral of sect patriarch Master Cheung, and the plans were halted in their tracks.

The six-million-dollar "Palace of the God" was the only building constructed, and today the deserted temple with the 40-foot geodesic dome lords over the Kingsbridge subdivision with the haughty grandeur of King Ozymandias. This most imposing of Alief-area architectural follies now seems destined for one of two fates: it will either be demolished, or a Hank Scorpio-esque villain will purchase it and repurpose it as his World Domination Headquarters.

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4 comment(s) / Post a Comment

chris says:

Drive out the Hardy Toll Road, as you go northbound, on the right hand side of the road there are several very interesting follies.

Posted On: Friday, Jul. 10 2009 @ 9:39AM

autumn says:

thanks for the information. i've always wondered what the hell that was.

Posted On: Friday, Jul. 10 2009 @ 9:43AM

Jason says:

I always remembered seeing it when I was at the bus stop for school.

Posted On: Friday, Jul. 10 2009 @ 7:41PM

Sandra Lozes says:

Wow, thanks for the history of this mysterious building. My husband and just happened to drive down the street it is located on, and took several photos of it back in 2000. This is the first time I have ever heard the story behind the building. We came up with all sorts of stories, our favorite being it was certainly a religious group and most likely a cult that was into astronomy. Abandoned because they were either beamed up, or they all took their lives because thats what sun cult worshippers did! In our imaginations anyhow.

Thanks again!
Sandra Lozes

Posted On: Saturday, Jul. 11 2009 @ 11:12AM