Houston 101: Neighborhood Of Astronauts
Categories: Houston 101, NASA
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Timber Cove was a development of what today would be considered smallish homes -- no McMansions here -- on small cul-de-sacs and streets, surrounded by water and trees. Astronauts flocked there.
Anyone who's watched Apollo 13 remembers Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Lovell, telling a NASA flack that reporters who want to put an antenna on her lawn "Can take it up with my husband...He'll be home on Friday!!"
That happened on Lazywood Lane, a small street in Timber Cove. As one history of the development put it (scroll down to page 48), four of the original Mercury 7 astronauts moved there, and, "Sharing a common goal at work, the neighbors became friends; friends became extended family and the subdivision evolved into a close-knit community."
Lovell's book describes how, when tragedy struck Apollo 1, when near-disaster hit on other missions, wives would hustle over to the affected family's house.
Timber Cove embraced the attention to some degree -- the community pool was built in the shape of a Mercury capsule -- but also, eventually, they had to fight off tour buses and gawkers looking for celebrity sightings.
Many NASA people still live in the area, of course. Here's Lazywood Lane today:
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A google map
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Gus Grissom and Wally Schirra lived on Pine Shadows; at the end of Sleepy Hollow Court (zoom in to find) were John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Pete Conrad also lived in the subdivision.
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