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Floyd De La Fosse House - Arthur Moss


BenH

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Some of you may have caught Lisa Gray's article in the Chronicle on Sunday morning about the Penguin Arms Apartments. While researching her topic, she was able to get in touch with Arthur Moss' brother Phil, who finally shed some light on Arthur's career. He also told her about a house in San Leon,TX built for the De La Fosse family, that he believed was Arthur's most important building. He didn't know the address, but was heading down to Galveston the weekend before last and would drop by and see if it was still standing.

Personally, I just couldn't wait that long. I started checking the Bing and Google maps and after a while, found this:

DeLaFosseHouse3.jpg?t=1248815304

ROAD TRIP! My brother and I headed down there on Saturday and found the house. It is still standing, in pretty good shape and HUGE! Some of the neighbors saw me taking pictures and invited us in to tell us about it and it's former occupants. They had watched the house go up in the 50's (1955-56 was probably about when it was built). The framing is made from recycled oil piping, with brick and concrete being the primary materials. The only changes made have been the removal of square windows on the front facade (the never could figure out how to keep them from leaking). The De La Fosse family moved out many years ago. This is it's second owner. I was also assured that I was definitely not the first person to stop and take pictures.

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Lisa Gray's Article, on Googie, Moss and the Penguin Arms:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/arts/gray/6544056.html

"It's the Jetsons!" ~ James May

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I did my pilgrimmage to the Penguin Arms yesterday. Very cool building, looks like it's in very poor condition, especially the window glass that's all patched up at the corners. Assuming the carport area behind it goes with the apartment building, I'd have to say it's probably a goner. With all the new construction around there the land is probably worth much more than operating a viable small apartment complex. Then again, if someone wanted to make say four very cool condos out of it, it might work.

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