The Houston area, increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan, has changed so much in that time. For starters, its population has grown from 5.2 million to nearly 6.9 million. It blows my mind that I landed smack in the middle of what I’ve long called “the most fascinating city in America,” just as it evolved from a sprawling, un-zoned and largely misunderstood hodgepodge of urban and suburban influences into a widely revered cultural and commercial mecca, soon to overtake Chicago as America’s third largest city.
Space City, with its renowned arts and culinary and pro-sports scenes, has become a world city, finally fully reflecting its long-held status as the capital of the global energy business, and home of the world’s biggest and finest medical center. I’ve had a front-row seat to all of it.
Now, reflecting on all those great years, it’s time to flip the script a bit. My business partners and I have decided to suspend the publication of Houston CityBook magazine after nearly nine wonderful years in print. As we assess what’s next for the CityBook brand, our digital platforms continue to operate.
I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve built. For so long, many magazines came and went in Houston. Most of them operated for a year or so and faded away. CityBook, on the other hand, survived in print for the better part of a decade. To my knowledge, we’re the only independently published, large-circulation title to have accomplished anything like that since the 1980s or ’90s.
We’ve been a must-read in many quarters, with engaging, beautiful content — including the only full-on fashion spreads regularly produced in Houston with top-notch photographers and Houston-based models, many of whom have gone on to big careers in New York and beyond after gracing our pages. And we’ve presented unique long-form content, such as our “Day in the Life of the Arts” photo-documentary projects, exhaustively reported annual best-restaurants features, the reliably racy and instantly infamous annual “Sexy Issue,” the prestigious “Leaders & Legends” portrait collections, and, more recently, the “Cool 100” features counting down the hippest Houstonians with vivid portraits and surprising characters.
They were labors of love, loved reciprocally by 120,000 readers, and celebrated with bring-the-content-to-life parties and smart marketing events that became some of the hottest tickets going.
It hasn’t always been easy. As a startup, we had to overcome an energy-biz downturn and then Hurricane Harvey. Just about the time we found our feet, Covid hit. And all along, we’ve faced valiant competition from other fine magazines, including one I happened to have helped launch years ago.
No whining though! It’s all been a thrill. And an honor. And I’ll forever be grateful that, of all places, this amazing city is where my childhood dream to launch my own magazine one day — yeah, I know it’s weird — came true. Bigger and better than ever, Houston still holds that same kind of promise for all of us who call it home.
To what shall we aspire next? I can’t wait to see.
Jeff Gremillion is the editor-in-chief of Houston CityBook magazine and HoustonCityBook.com, and the CEO of CityBook Media, LLC. He can be reached at jeff@houstoncitybook.com.
Kathryn Lott; photo by Julie Soefer
