sixthwardguy

This is the same house that you posted earlier in the day,  it was remodeled in 1890 by George Dickey to take on a significant Victorian appearance.  

That was the former William Read residence (of Inman & Read Cotton Merchants).  Built in the 1890's and sold to the Cullinans in the teens.  Lived there for less than a decade until they built their permanent house at 2 Remington Lane in Shadyside. 

One of the 15 four-room houses on Sutton Street that Mr Herman built was relocated in the 1990's to the NW corner of Sabine and Lubbock Sts where it still stands today.  

That house was actually at 2210 Main St, on the corner of Hadley.  The footprint shown on the 1924 Sanborn FIre Insurance Map matches the one seen in the photograph. 

At first, I thought this was the Scanlan Mansion on Scanlan Road, located behind the Sienna Plantation subdivsion in Missouri City, since it resembles the one in the photographs in many ways, including the fountain.  After closer inspection, I realized that the Scanlan Mansion is smaller than the one in the photograph, it has fewer columns across the front and does not have a long wing in the back, along with a swimming pool instead of the fountain pool shown in the photograph.   The Scanlan Mansion can only be seen via birds eye maps due to its set-back from the road.

The Second Empire style never really took off in Houston, and there were only two or three examples that were built in Houston that I could think of.    They were all built on Main Street downtown and were already gone by the 1930's.    I read somewhere that the Second Empire style was identified with the North and Houstonians during the late 19th century still harbored a grudge against the north for winning the War Between the States, and refused to build anything with a style that indentified with the North.

I've heard the same story.  I used to do some research into the history of the Old Sixth/First Ward area and there were only two major roads leading west and northwest from downtown Houston prior to the railroad era (1870's) and they were Washington Avenue and W MontgomeryRd/North Main St.  These roads began life as stagecoach routes, there is a map at the Texas Transportation Archive showing early Texas stagecoach routes, and these two roads are on it. That map is not available online yet. Washington Avenue led from downtown to Washington on the Brazos, following pretty much of today's Hempstead Highway. W Montgomery Rd/North Main St obviously led to the town of Montgomery and beyond. The area where Oxford and I-10 was part of the Brashear farm and located a a bit too far from either one of the main routes and too close to downtown Houston to be a stop.   There are two historic markers in the Cypress/Jersey Village area that marked early stagecoach stops and they followed the stagecoach route from Houston to Washington on the Brazos.  If there indeed was a stagecoach stop at the Oxford/I-10 location, it would have been a private one serving the large Brashear farm.

Several years ago the city's historic preservation office sifted through early deeds/tax records and came up with a list of all extant structures in Houston that were built prior to 1895, and the house on Dickson wasn't on it. It does have boxcar siding which is typical of the late 1880's-early 1890's. (Several houses in Old Sixth Ward have that siding).   This means it was likely relocated from elsewhere.  The property at 5100 Dickson was originally the Brunner Addition which was first platted out in 1888 and the lots immediately put up for sale.

According to the city's research, the oldest documented privately-owned house in Houston still on its original site is at 1904 Kane in the Sixth Ward, built in 1866.  Even though it has been altered, it still retains its early Gulf Coast Colonial/Acadian style such as inset porch and flush gables.  There is a somewhat identical house around the corner at 1819 Lubbock which is nearly a decade older but was recently relocated from the First Ward.  It is believed to be the oldest surviving privately-owned residence in Houston

I've done extensive research on the history of the Old Sixth Ward and can confirm that the portion of Houston Avenue extending from Buffalo Bayou to Washington Avenue used to be called Clay Street. Quite a few streets in that particular area were renamed in the early 1890's when the city's postal delivery system became standardized. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1890 shows that portion of Houston Avenue as Clay Street, but the 1896 map shows it to be Houston Avenue. In addition, Harris County Block Maps for the blocks along that street still show Clay Street crossed over with a line and renamed as S. Houston Street (http://books.tax.hctx.net/v021/AE1997_21-22_0284.jpg)

This house was torn down right?

I used to work for MHMRA many years ago and there was an early picture (1930's era) of the building hanging on the wall in someone's office. I recall that the windows in the picture were of the multi-paned casement variety.

Have you contacted MHMRA to see if they still have the picture or anything in regards to the building?

I happen to work at MD Anderson.

From what I understand, both MD Anderson and a museum in New Mexico finally found a donor who is willing to pay to have the mural removed and delivered to the museum in a single piece. Specially trained workers arrived at the building several weeks ago to detach the mural from the ceiling and floor, and encapsulate the entire mural in a gigantic crate that is 20 ft tall and 50 ft wide. The entire front doorway, vestibule, and porte cohere will have to be dismantled to make way for the crate. They will have to go down to the basement to reinforce the floor underneath the lobby to support the load of the crate as it departs the building. A crane will be brought to lift the crate onto a specially commissioned tractor trailer. The trailer will transport the mural to New Mexico with a convoy of bucket trucks to raise any obstructing power lines between here and there. Once the mural has been removed, the demolition of the building will begin immediately.

Thanks! As suspected the majority are the Sixth Ward homes.

And welcome to the (posting side) of the forum!

What a great spreadsheet! My house is listed in there (built in 1883), and I can vouch for the homes in my Sixth Ward neighborhood. Few years ago, several of us did a similar survey of pre-1900 houses in Harris County and came up with a list similar to yours. I would would like to point out that there are a few houses on your list that are nowhere as old (the first two were built in the 1970's, I believe), and I know they were errors on HCAD's behalf.

Actually I do know of at least 15 pre-1900 houses that aren't listed on your Excel spreadsheet. There are three antebellum houses in the Second Ward and two 1880's era houses on Budde Cemetery Road up north near Westfield. There are a few pre-1900 houses in the Klein/Louetta area that were relocated by the school district(s), which I imagine threw off the HCAD assessors. In addition there are quite a few houses that were moved from the Sixth Ward to the northern suburbs in the 1970's when Knapp Chevrolet expanded its storage lot. Furthermore, there is a late 1830's house overlooking the bay at Red Bluff (Oleander Rd) and HCAD has the date wrong at 1854.

I'm not sure why my comments didn't show with the photos I downloaded, but I found these in the HUGE Life Magazine photo archives under McCarthy. These were the only ones I could find of the family at home but I knew I had seen at least one photo of them inside, in addition to the ginormous covered porch.

I found a better photo of the house from the Life Magazine photo archives. It wasn't labeled with the McCarthy name but I remembered the photo from the magazine article.

Interesting...IIRC, one of the later real estate transactions was with Mobil Pipeline.

One was also from Carrie Neiman (his aunt, I believe)..

I just remembered to look at HistoricAerials.com and found that there weren't any structures on that location in the 1957 and 1964 aerial maps. It wasn't until the 1973 map that showed a new bridge and driveway in the immediate area. That may bolster the theory that the house was built with salvaged historic materials, or perhaps brought in pieces from various places. My preservationist friend who saw the house up close said it had a large chimney that went up through the center of the house. All early/true examples of that house style (Gulf Coast Cottage/Colonial) featured a central hallway (dog-trot) that ran all the way from the front to the back, and this house didn't have that.

Thanks for the additional information - and I saw Blusky but totally dismissed it!

That part of the road was Addicks Satsuma I thought, but there is a listing for 6219 FM 1960 from 1976 that shows the Lawrence Marcus Polo Farm..(Lawrence Marcus of Neiman Marcus?).

And here are a couple of block book images of the Matzke survey:

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v047/AE1997_47_0071.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v047/AE1997_47_0178.jpg

Three years ago a preservationist friend of mine actually went up to the door of the house and knocked on it. He said that up close the house looked like a hodgepodge of old and new architecture. A gentleman answered the door and clearly wasn't pleased. My friend asked for information about the house and the guy was noncommittal but would only volunteer that it was used as a hunting lodge for a large corporation back in the 60s and 70's, and that it was built with parts salvaged from houses in the Bear Creek area that had been dismantled to make way for the Addicks Reservoir.

I've searched quite a bit and have come up with little to nothing on the former estate of Glenn McCarthy - it sat where the Brentwood and 7575 Kirby condominiums currently are (northeast corner of Kirby and North Braeswood, right across from Jenkins' 2530 Underwood house). It was designed by Milton McGinty and completed by 1938. McCarthy bought the land from Rice Institute in 1935 and later sold it to Harold Farb in 1972. It was demolished some time between 1972 and 1977.

Other than some newspaper articles about its construction and a mention of it in the Anchorage Foundation's Braeswood: An Architectural History, there doesn't seem to be much else out there. Anyone have any information or memories?

I remember reading an article in an older magazine somewhere many years ago that prominently featured a photograph of the McCarthy family sitting in front of their house. I believe the article was published around the time of the opening of the Shamrock Hotel. I wish I could remember the name of the magazine, I would love to see the photograph again.

http://www.houstontx.gov/parks/macgregor.html

a little about Mr. MacGregor...does anyone know where his house was located? May not have even been in Riverside Terrace.

At the time of Mr MacGregor's death he lived at 3530 Fannin Street at the corner of Berry St, directly across from the Marie Boswell Flake Home of the Women (now Adkin's Architectural Antiques). Ensemble Theater currently stands at that site. The 1924 Sanborn Map shows the MacGregor House to be a large 2-story affair with a portico in front and a 3rd floor cupola on top.

Thanks for the info. I'd love to see that photograph! Painted brick and a balcony makes sense with the style of the house, though I'd argue that the house might look better without the balcony. Do you remember what the entry looked like in the photo? There's a ghost outline of an arch over the front door. Also, do you remember if the windows had shutters on them? I'm thinking they did, given the wide space between the decorative brick cornice and the second story windows.

I do recall the photos showing thick fluted pilasters on each side of the doorway but cannot remember seeing an arch on top for the pilasters went up pretty much all the way to the faux balcony above. There were potted topiaries on both sides of the front door, giving the house a distinct "Hollywood Regency" look.

I also remember seeing dark-colored shutters on the first floor windows but not if the 2nd floor windows had them. What I thought was interesting was that the house prominently displayed a railing matching the fake balcony along the roof ridge between the chimneys.

There is another house nearby that still has the faux balcony similar to this house but I cannot recall its exact location.

It's been painted as long as I can remember. I think I remember it used to be white at one point. I wouldn't be surprised if it has been painted its whole life.

Several years ago at an estate sale in Meyerland I saw a small stack of 1940's photographs of that house. The house was already painted by then and it displayed a faux wrought iron balcony across underneath the 2nd floor windows where the 'scar' stands. What made it poignant is that the house looked so impeccable in the background with a beaming young family standing proudly on the beautifully landscaped front yard. The pictures screamed "we found the American Dream". I wanted to buy these pictures but the dealer wanted far too much for them.

There's a lot of that going on in the Brenham area. It sure is going to be odd to compare the 2000 and 2010 Censuses and see that there was a substantial increase in the number of older homes.

I can vouch for that, since the 1970's over 25 houses from the Heights area, including the Old Sixth Ward, have been moved to the Chappell Hill/Brenham area. While my country house in Chappell Hill came from Fayette County, the house around the corner was hauled from the River Oaks area, and the one across the hill from the Sixth Ward. I know of two Victorian cottages from the Heights that were brought in to become guest houses on a ranch in Hempstead.

It's a painted white standalone buildling on Washington, with "Le Marche" in script on the front, and two glass doors.

Anyone know what it is? It looks like it could be a bar since it has no windows, but it could be something else.

I drove by this weekend and it looks like there are a bunch of yellow permits(?) on the door.

I THINK this is it on google maps.

Word has it on the street that it will be an antique mall.

I have an investment property two blocks from this house, and have wondered about the history. Thanks for the enlightenment.

When I drove by this weekend I noticed it now has a Realtor's "For Sale" sign out front, but it is not listed in HAR.

It would be a real chalenge to restore the beast, and the location sux being sandwiched in between the concrete walls of two rather shabby businesses.

Here is another house that (now Pending) was advertized as "Possibly the oldest privately owned home in Houston in need of complete renovation. " Built in 1856 it is located at 1518 Weber.

There's a thread about this house in the Historic Houston category of this forum: http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...showtopic=13756

She said,

"There is many homes in the neighborhood that are dilapitated (sic)" while wearing a leopard print dress and claiming she was a supporter of preservation.

LOL.

Yeah, a woman who parks a Winnebago behind a chain link fence is certainly showing her concern with dangerous buildings and unsafe habitats.

What a tool.

It appears that Maria Isabel has moved on to spreading her joy to a national audience. She is the staffer described in this blog and many others:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/...a_flag_scandal/