Henry SoRelle Mansion At 2619 Calumet St.

[JLWM8609]

The Groovey Grill Mansion was located in Riverside Terrace in a mansion on N. Calumet, and was real popular among TSU students and the local black community. It closed in 1989, but the house still operates as a banquet hall called The Groovey Grill Mansion. I'm glad to see that the place and its spirit is being preserved, it's a beautiful building. It was once in danger of being demolished, but it's been saved. I'm surprised it hasn't already been mentioned here (unless I overlooked something), so that's why I started the thread about it. Does anyone here have any memories of this place in its heyday? It was quite popular, serving people such as Muhammad Ali, LBJ, Lloyd Bentsen, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Ray Charles.

Here's what the house looks like today.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2619+Calumet,+Houston,+TX&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.527387,86.044922&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=2619+Calumet+St,+Houston,+Harris,+Texas+77004&ll=29.716236,-95.372108&spn=0.001088,0.002626&t=k&z=19&layer=c&cbll=29.716298,-95.372194&panoid=UTKaeMguuj3nMJRstXbumw&cbp=12,36.08,,0,1.51

Article from 1987 about the Groovey Grill

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1987_487277

Article from 1992 about the then uncertain fate of the Groovey Grill building

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1992_1062072

Groovey Grill Website

http://www.thegrooveygrillmansion.com/index.htm

[sevfiv]

Interesting - the 1976 listing shows the Groovey Grill, Ben H. Parker, and F.E. Prince.

The 1932 listing shows AC So Relle - SoRelle, Jr. is mentioned here:

And then came the prosperous days of the 1950s. Treasure magazines became popular and searching for lost gold became an interesting distraction. True West Magazine printed a story about the long-forgotten Hendrick's Lake silver, and treasure hunters flocked to Carthage and Tatum, says Gary Pinkerton who is writing a book about Trammel's Trace and the legend.

Dallas oilman Henry SoRelle and his brother A.C. SoRelle Jr. were part of the onslaught.

"I was about 25 then, and my brother was 10 years older," SoRelle says. In those years, the younger SoRelle was the land man for the family's Houston-based oil business. In no time, he had inked a lease from the landowners, which included former Panola County Sheriff Corbett Akins; his chief deputy, "Cush" Reeves; and Peter Walker Adams, who wore overalls, carried an impressive knife and rented fishing boats at one end of the lake.

The SoRelle brothers had a large metal detector that they hauled around the lake. "All of a sudden we got a hit," SoRelle remembers, his blue eyes shining, his fist clenched in victory. "We thought we could get a scuba diver to just dive down there and get it, but we found out the lake was very deep in silt and the water was so murky you couldn't see very far." He leans back in his office chair, smiling. "That didn't work," he says.

I wonder if the neighboring Waddell was of the store's namesake..

[Original Timmy Chan's]

I went to a wedding there about 10 years ago...I didn't realize the history at the time. Since then, I've heard lots of in-laws talk about the Groovey Grill. It was definitely the spot around TSU for a long time.