Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. At 1308 Richmond Ave.

[Highrise Tower]

Look at this building!! The top designs just amaze me.  Definitely wanted to share this one.

Architect?

[EspersonBuildings]

Not sure about the architect but agree, it's a beautiful structure.  Another similar looking (possibly from the same era and same architect) Southwestern Bell building is at the northwest corner of Harrisburg Blvd and Wayside, also with elaborate design.  Still another (possibly also a Southwestern Bell building) is on the north side of Bellaire Blvd at Academy Street.  I like looking at the original Southwestern Bell building (downtown at the northwest corner of Capitol Avenue and San Jacinto Street) and see how it expanded early on both in height and width (to the west).  Interesting how these buildings had most (if not all) of their windows sealed years later.

Edited September 6, 2023 by EspersonBuildings

[Ross]

Those were solidly built buildings, and were built to hold a large amount of telephone switching equipment. That one is the JAckson exchange, the 52x-xxxx numbers back in the days when all phones were connected to an exchange.

[Earlydays]

The design elements come from Aztec influences, that were popular at the time.

[strickn]

Not marked on the map in the Third Edition of the Houston Architectural Guide.

[Specwriter]

7 hours ago, strickn said:

Not marked on the map in the Third Edition of the Houston Architectural Guide.

That's too bad. It definitely belongs in the guide.