Inside The Woodlands’ New Luxury Living Land — All the Details Matter at 1 Riva Row And Its Prime Waterway Setting

Walking into the glass jewel box amenities center of 1 Riva Row — what Wade Scaramucci of the London-based architecture firm Allford Hall Monaghan Morris calls this level-raising building’s “front door” —  you can see all the way across the large room to The Woodlands Waterway. It’s just beyond the back glass wall, past the expansive patio and down a ridge. On the pool deck of 1 Riva Row, especially the corner perch with seating that juts out and lets you look into Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, the world class concert venue which sits just across The Waterway, everything seems even closer.

What if the best seat in the house is just outside your front door?

1 Riva Row is full of touches that surprises like this. This signature Howard Hughes project, the for-rent sister to the nearby Ritz-Carlton Residences, The Woodlands in many ways, is a chameleon. Almost shape shifting. Offering everything from a 13-story tower with the first rental penthouses in The Woodlands ever and traditional three-bedroom units to multi-story townhomes with direct street access to two-story bungalow-type dwellings that overlook the pool, this is a land where options reign.

How do you want to live? 1 Riva Row probably can make it happen.

“We want to make it feel individualist for people in terms of their own livings choices,” Jim Carman, the president of the Texas region for developer Howard Hughes, tells PaperCity. “We have units of all shapes and sizes.”

You can say that — and then some. Riva Row offers 49 different floor plans among its 268 units. Even Baskin-Robbins doesn’t have this many flavors.

It turns out that if you want to raise the ceiling on luxury living in The Woodlands, it helps to have a lot of floors. To Carman, it’s about making the most out of one of the best sites in The Woodlands, a site that developer Howard Hughes very purposefully waited to develop. Until the time was right. Until the right project presented itself.

“We’ve had this site targeted,” Carman says, maching across Riva Row’s jewel box in his long strides. “But as the planner for The Woodlands, we don’t feel any urgency to build. We wait for just the right moment. . .

“And here we are.”

In a new land of luxury. Riva Row does not just have the first for rent penthouses in The Woodlands — including showcase two-story corner penthouses that rent for $11,500 a month. It also boasts the community’s first Resident Relations & Experience Manager, a hospitality guru who’s worked at Tilman Fertitta’s posh five star Post Oak Hotel and for the Four Seasons. This in addition to the full-time concierges.

Having people who understand what first class service truly means matters. So do the details. Right down to the distinctive brick work that marks this tower. Carman points out the bricks when we step outside the main building. When the man who helps plan an entire community is this obsessed with the small details, big things can happen. That is how it all started in The Woodlands, back when there was no here here, just mud and trees, and George Mitchell created a community that is studied in college textbooks today right out of a forest. Mitchell fixated on getting every little thing right too.

“The indentation of the brick, this is super unique,” Carman says, looking up at those bricks in the sun. “It’s tricky to design and hard to find the craftsmen to build it, but I think these little details like that make it stand out. We could have easily just did this brick pattern flat. But we wanted to make it a little more interesting.”

To Scaramucci, the lead architect of 1 Riva Row, the distinctive brick work ties this new tower to Texas history. “There is a huge lineage of masonry and brick work and how it’s been used in Texas,” he says. “Brick’s a natural material. It brings a real solidness to the project. . .

“Anyone can lay bricks. It’s the way they were doing it, the craftsmanship, the detail of it that we think is really important to tie buildings into their context.”

It turns out that if you want to raise the ceiling on luxury living in The Woodlands it helps to have a lot of floors. To Carman, it’s about making the most out of one of the best sites in The Woodlands, a site that developer Howard Hughes very purposefully waited to develop. Until the time was right. Until the right project presented itself.

Wonder On The Waterway

The context of 1 Riva Row is being right on The Waterway, what Jim Carman calls “the cultural spine of The Woodlands,” within easy walking distance of not just Cynthia Woods, which is right across a pedestrian footbridge, but also The Woodlands Town Center, Market Street’s shopping and restaurant land, and The Woodlands’ extensive 220 mile network of nature trails. The much-anticipated new restaurants of Austin Simmons (Charolais) and Aaron Bludorn (Bar Bludorn) also will be just short strolls away.

“To be able to walk out the door and say, ‘Let’s go to dinner’ and not really know where you want to go, but you’ve got 25 choices — that’s pretty special,” Carman tells PaperCity. “It’s not easy to replicate anywhere in the country. Not sure there’s a whole lot of places you can do it.”

“We’ve had this site targeted. But as the planner for The Woodlands, we don’t feel any urgency to build. We wait for just the right moment. . . And here we are.” — Jim Carman

Certainly not ones where you can also stroll right into nature at the same time. 1 Riva Row offers a blending of worlds in many ways. One that even came into play during construction. The site — which Scaramucci notes is anything but a typical square site with a number of twists and elevation changes over its 3.6 acres. “there is nothing straight about it” — had the 13-story tower being built very close to some tall pine trees. Most developers would simply tear those trees down.

Howard Hughes did not really see that as an option.

“You see this tree here,” Carman says, pointing out the window of a two-bedroom apartment to a tree just a few feet beyond the glass. “It’s very complex to build this close to these size trees. But we’re in The Woodlands and we feel it’s our obligation to save those trees.

“And it also connects our residents to nature.”

That tree is still standing, still thriving, and 1 Riva Row, a brand new building, seems to fit right into this prime Waterway spot. Like it always belonged. Scaramucci lived and worked in London for 20 years before opening Allford Hall’s Oklahoma City office — and he notes how a building like this would be surrounded by all other tall towers on all sides in London. He consider those tall trees that made construction more challenging, this nature, a gift.

Both Scaramucci, the architect, and Carman, who challenged and pushed Allford Hall with the rest of the Howard Hughes project team to make sure every decision had purpose behind it, know people might not notice the bricks. Or the other countless little details that make up 1 Riva Row.

But they’re certain they will feel them. And that’s what matters.

“A lot of things you do in design are not necessarily apparent when you first see them,” Carman says, sitting at the counter of the townhome model unit now, which feels a world removed from the high-rise tower when you’re inside it, but is a quick stroll away. “You can recognize the quality and recognize the uniqueness. But you might not quantify the brick pattern as the reason.

“But that’s the mark of a great design, a great designer. Not necessarily those things that slap you in the face. Those unique details that as you look closer and you’re here longer, you start to appreciate more.”

The first residents moved in last November. They included a young influencer couple and a number of empty nesters giving up their more traditional house in The Woodlands for a more free, lock and leave lifestyle. But this building is just getting started in many ways.

1 Riva Row is built to last every bit as much the showcase Ritz-Carlton condominium high-rise. With studio apartments starting at $2,100 per month, the townhomes starting at $4,250 per month and the penthouses beginning at $4,000 per month, the quality shining through is a must.

That sure-to-be coveted (residents can reserve it) corner pool perch that looks into Cynthia Woods, the Hub co-working area, the podcast recording studio, the 75 pieces of art all around Riva Row that MaRS’ Kelie Mayfield made part of the interior design (more on this later), using an architecture firm from London (another Woodlands first), a sports simulator that goes beyond the usual golf and even includes rugby, the hospitality guru with five star hotel experience, even those bricks, all matter.

Every detail does. There has never been a building — a complex, really — quite like this in The Woodlands before. Little things adding up in a big way.

1 Riva Row is located near the northwest intersection of Six Pines Drive and Timberloch Place in The Woodlands. For more information, go here. Stay tuned for the next story in this series on 1 Riva Row’s extensive art, including new public art outside.