See what Montrose's AvantGarden looked like in 1995

PHOTOS: AvantGarden in Montrose

Recently Mariana Lemesoff, the longtime owner of the Avant Garden in Montrose, shared a photo of what the bar and performing arts venue looked like before she took it over in the '90s. Avant Garden at 411 Westheimer was known first as The Mausoleum in 1996 but in 2000 it was rechristened as Helios. Later in 2007 the name changed to Avant Garden.

See more photos from Montrose's old days... less PHOTOS: AvantGarden in Montrose

Recently Mariana Lemesoff, the longtime owner of the Avant Garden in Montrose, shared a photo of what the bar and performing arts venue looked like before she took it over in ... more Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 120 Caption Close See what Montrose's AvantGarden looked like in 1995 1 / 120 Back to Gallery

Click through the slideshow above to see how much Montrose has changed through the years...

Recently Mariana Lemesoff, the longtime owner of the AvantGarden in Montrose, shared a photo of what the bar and performing arts venue looked like before she took it over in the '90s.

AvantGarden at 411 Westheimer was known first as The Mausoleum in 1996, but in 2000 it was rechristened as Helios. Later in 2007, the name changed to Avant Garden.

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In the photo, the dilapidated mansion looks like a bombed-out, dingy mess. She tells Chron.com she found the circa-1995 photo almost by accident while moving some books around. She converted its two stories and attic into the venue people know these days.

Owned by the Davis family from the 30s until just before Lemesoff purchased it, there used to be a scale repair shop where the front bar is now. According to lore, at one time, legendary Houstonian Howard Hughes spent time visiting friends in the house as a kid.

Photo: Mariana Lemesoff Recently Mariana Lemesoff, the longtime owner of the Avant Garden...

"When I bought the house in 1995, the house had been abandoned for many years. Many of the windows were broken, inhabited by hundreds of pigeons," she says.

The photo in question looks to have taken from next door at what was then called The Oven, a noted punk rock and pizza dive bar. It spent some time as indie-rock venue Mango's before morphing into Biskit Junkie these days.

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"It was dark, yet beautiful. I thought of the past lives hidden in the house, the promise of resuscitation, that sort of proposition, and idea similar to the Taj Mahal."

The first name, The Mausoleum, excited Houston's goths, although Lemesoff says that it was not intended to be a goth-specific club even though the walls were painted black. Probably being so close to Numbers didn't help either.

"The evening I opened the doors for the first time I saw a line of paper-white, velvet-clad young vampires walk in and take over my little bar. Apparently they had all been waiting for a few months for the Mausoleum to open," she laughs. "It was very amusing for a while, I went with the flow."

She even booked a few goth-friendly bands in the interim. By 2000, she was thinking the name limited the concept she had in mind.

"I though it had to grow and turn to the light side, so I renamed it Helio's," she says. A contentious lawsuit with a neighbor behind her in some swank new condos would lead to the AvantGarden name change in 2007.

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Any given week, Montrosians can duck into AvantGarden and take in a comedy show, burlesque, a jazz jam, an earnest singer-songwriter, or a poetry slam. On Wednesday nights, the volume turns up for a popular hip-hop house party. Resident taco truck Taqueria El Palomo keeps everybody full of tacos and other treats.

AvantGarden has also been known as a wedding venue for many couples, young and old, with the back patio providing a picturesque backdrop. Years of vines and vegetation give the back patio some privacy from prying eyes.

Lemesoff said that the Montrose she knew in 1997 when the club first opened is nearly all gone. The house is a spiritual survivor of the many changes that the neighborhood has gone through over the years.

"The property value has gone up, the neighbors have changed along with the types of businesses," she says. "It's lost the free-thinking, artist style it used to have."

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.