While the address of 2010 South Shepherd Drive in the River Oaks area predated its more famous use, a 1930s-era building that served as an electric appliance repair shop and later a store for Naughton Farms, a mail-order plant nursery out of Waxahachie, its more famous use was a branch store of Battelstein's, an upscale Houston-based department store that had its flagship downtown. The 60,000 square foot two-level store was the first upscale department store outside of the downtown area when it opened in August 1953 (and briefly the only one— before Sakowitz opened further out in 1956). In 1967, the chain was sold to New York-based Manhattan Industries and in 1979, the decision was made to sell the chain. (By this time, some physical expansions had been made, so it was more than 60k square feet).

Battelstein's Inc. and five of its stores were sold to Bealls (the Jacksonville, TX company, colloquially "Bealls Texas"), in spring of 1980 (including the downtown store), though I'm not sure of the conversion process (I believe they closed them before reopening them under their own name). Manhattan Industries retained two stores and put them under the Frost Brothers division (out of San Antonio), which changed out signs and did some remerchandising before officially switching over in August 1980. (They had planned to sell the entire combined chain to Garfinckel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc. of Washington D.C., but terminated the sale). In 1986, they sold the chain to Dallas-based entrepenuer Sam Wyly and his wife, Tori Steele, the latter operating European-boutiques on Rodeo Drive.

Wyly could not save Frost Bros. (not that Manhattan Industries could've done better, they disappeared not long after), abandoning plans to expand to Fort Worth, selling real estate, and closing three stores (as well as giving up the license to operate the Gucci boutique in Boston's prestigious Copley Place). In April 1988 the chain declared bankruptcy, but this store, along with an Austin store and three in San Antonio, remained as it was their most profitable operations. In December 1988, Frost Bros. seemingly found a white knight, Australia-based Hooker Corporation, which had previously purchased Sakowitz (along with New York-based Bonwit Teller and B. Altman), with the intent of building new malls with those stores (Forest Fair Mall in the Cincinnati area, though that was the only new mall to open). Hooker announced that the four stores (not including a small boutique store Frost Bros. owned) would be reflagged as Sakowitz and introducing Sakowitz to the Austin and San Antonio markets. It would also have given Sakowitz another Houston store. But at the end of January, Hooker pulled out of the deal, citing devaluation of assets if Frost Bros. continued operating under Chapter 11, and in April 1989, it was sold to Buxbaum Ginsberg, a liquidator, outbidding Irving Mathews (former CEO of the chain) and brother-in-law Stephen Lang for control of the company. Even as the stores were being liquidated, Mathews and Lang could not win a bid to save the company (at this point, it went from "keeping them open" to "reopening by October 1st") and in June 1989 the store closed for good along with the rest of the chain.

Hooker, meanwhile, filed for bankruptcy in 1989 as well, with Sakowitz closing in 1990. Within a few years, the abandoned department store was torn down and the lot was redeveloped into The Remington, a new condominium development, with the address of 2111 Welch Street, and by 2003 had the name of The Renaissance at River Oaks, a name it still has today.

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