Grady School On Westheimer Rd.

[plumber2]

Here is a link to all of the photos that I had posted on old Houston and Harris County Schools:

Old Houston and Harris County Schools

This is a great link. I've scrolded through it quickly and I think I see the old Grady School house in there. It was a single story and located on the corner of Westheimer and Post Oak Rd. were Neiman Marcus now stands. For years before the Galleria was built it was used as a Purina Feed Store (that's the part I remember). The new Grady School on Sage Rd. was built in the 50's. All the snooty Tanglewood kids went there.

[Highrise Tower]

Splitting this 17-year old thread to bring further information.

I believe this building/parcel has been through a lot of changes!

In the 1900s - 1910s the HISD school was called Post Oak School (or Post Oak School House.) In the 1920s the building was renamed to Grady School.  There might have been a building demolition and rebuild a long with the school name change?  Or the financial institution that came decades later had rebuilt?

If I did my research right, we can see the building in Google Maps in a aerial photo dated in 1944. It's the only building situation on the corner of Post Oak Road at Westheimer Road that resembles an old school house.

From the book publication; Raising The Bar - The Life and Work of Gerald D. Hines.

Parallel Tracks

By the time he receive the letter from Shell, Hines was already plotting the future Houston's southwest suburbs. In 1964, having built the Joske's store on Westheimer Road and Post Oak Boulevard, he started to envision the beginnings of yet another urban center – an office complex connected to a shopping center- even though he had never built a shopping center before. Directly across the street from Sakowitz, a suburban branch of what was then Houston's premier hometown specialty store, stood thirteen acres of mostly empty land.  The site was located on a prime corner of Westheimer Road and Post Oak Boulevard, but the vast acreage held only a single small building known as “the little red schoolhouse.”

The 1929 red-roofed building had housed the Grady School until 1950. When Hines first became aware of the property, it has been serving as a branch of Houston First Savings Association for the past seven years. But it wasn't the building that transfixed the builder: it was the land. “I just knew the location was great,” said Hines of the freeway-adjacent site,”Eddie Dyche, president of Houston First Savings, owned the land. They wanted to sell it, but they wanted to get their own facility at that location. They had bought the land for the location. So we worked it out where Eddie Dyche could have a lease for his bank and a savings and loan, and we could buy the land for a multi-use center in the same location.”

The first public announcement of Hines' purchase of what would become the home of his shopping center and office complex came in the Houston Chronicle on September 15, 1964, in a story headlined, “13 Acres on South Post Oak Purchased”:

Hines said his group plans to develop the property with construction of a store and office buildings at an estimated expenditure of from $5 million to $20 million over the next ten years. He said he hopes construction on the first of the buildings will--

Google Earth aerial photograph of Post Oak at Westheimer Road in 1944:

It appears the smaller building to the immediate left of the school house could be a second building for the Post Oak School.

[Highrise Tower]

More information:

From the newspaper The Houston Post. dated June 11, 1918:

Lost and Found.

Lost- $20 reward, black mare, about 8 years old. 2 white feet, good condition. Branded J (reserved) on right hip; also red mule colt. 2 years old, branded MO (with inverted V over) on the right hip; last seen at Post Oak School, Westheimer road. Notify Ciro Martino, Box 52, Route 4. San Felipe road. Houston, Texas.

The Houston Post. dated January 6, 1924:

Upper left- Picnic grounds on Westheimer road, with Superior model Chevrolet in foreground. Lower left- an automobile buried hub deep on Westheimer street in city limits, with a Superior model Chevrolet in the foreground. Upper right- Showing the Superior touring with the country hothouse of Kerr Floral Company in the background. Center right- Post Oak School building on Westheimer road and a three-quarter front view of Superior model Chevrolet. Lower right- Mose covered trees near picnic ground on Westheimer road and the Superior Chevrolet touring in the foreground.

Post Oak School Building:

[Highrise Tower]

The iconic intersection of Westheimer & Post Oak.  I would only assume that is the Post Oak School / Grady School.

Awesome photo!!

Edit: At this time period this could have been remodeled to the Houston First Savings building? It doesn't look like the above Post Oak School building with the unique topping?