July/August 1990 GHPA Newsletter

FOR PRESERVATION NEWSLETTER OF THE GREATER HOUSTON PRESERVATION ALLIANCE

PRESIDENT'S COLUMN Whether Houston establishes itself as a "world class city" as a result of this summer's Economic Summit will remain a topic of debate_ One thing not debatable is that Houston's image is enhanced by the architectural treasures selected to serve as backdrops for this event: the John H. Kirby House, the only surviving great house in the central business district; the campus of Rice University, perhaps the best example of urban planning in Houston and a model of the harmonious integration of new construction with historic architecture; and Bayou Bend, home of Houston's beloved Ima Hogg.

These selections embody our history and attest to the pride and assurance we derive from presenting our city to the world in the context of our historic, architecturally notable places. Their symbolic impact is a consideration I daresay that had much to do with their selection. So, when the hoopla is done, let's remember where the city leaders gravitated when we sought to make a favorable impression on the world stage.

Consequently, one certain result of the Summit should be to underscore the significance of our city's architectural heritage and the importance of preserving it. I can't imagine that any "world class city" does not place a high priority on the preservation of its historic buildings and neighborhoods.

That priority is not manifested simply by making use of historic properties when it is expedient to do so, but entails a commitment and dedication of resources. I hope all Houstonians will acknowledge the meaning in the choice of these sites and commit our collective resources toward preservation of all those places which, by their distinctiveness, give Houston its special character.

Charles D. Maynard, Ir.

HOUSTON CITY COUNCIL DESIGNATES FIRST LOCAL HISTORIC DISTRICT On June 6,1990, Houston City Council unanimously approved Resolution No. 90-81 designating the Main Street-Market Square Historic District of the City of Houston. This resolution confers no special rights or privileges to owners of properties within the district and provides no protective restrictions against demolition or unsympathetic alterations. The city district, which is somewhat larger than the Main Street-Market Square National Register District, encompasses approximately 28 city blocks located between Louisiana and San Jacinto and extending from Texas Avenue to the north side of Buffalo BayolL

MAGNOLIA GROVE NEIGHBORHOOD SEEKING NATIONAL REGISTER LISTING The Magnolia Grove Civic Club is actively pursuing National Register status for the community.

Three districts are in the planning stages, one in each of Magnolia Grove's three historic additions.

The three proposed districts contain 53 structures, 34 to 38 of which are expected to be identified as "contributing" structures.

The contemporary Magnolia Grove neighborhood consists of all or portions of three historic additions to the City of Houston: the Magnolia Addition, platted in 1888; the Bruner Addition, platted in 1888; and the Magnolia Grove Addition, platted in 1895. This neighborhood is located 2 1/2 miles west of downtown Houston and is bounded by Washington Avenue, Memorial Drive, Shephard Drive, and Jackson Hill. Magnolia Grove is remarkable chiefly because so little in it has changed, having remained a small, residential community composed of houses dating from the 1890s to the 1920s.

The impetus for development in this area was most likely the extension of the Houston City Street Railway Company's newly electrified car line in the early 1890s. The trolley ran down Washington Avenue, turning around at what is now the comer of Washington and Durham.

Two distinct architectural styles predominate in Magnolia Grove. Approximately one third of the houses are simple one-story Victorian style buildings, some with unomamented Tuscan columns and some with turned columns and "gingerbread" ornamentation. The remaining structures are Craftsman bungalows built during the 1920s. The streets are narrow and lined with overhanging trees.

The area has never been a neighborhood of grand homes. The most notable building is the house built by Conrad Schwarz, at the comer of Snover and Gibson. Schwarz platted the Magnolia Grove Addition out of what had been his farmland. A few other two-story Victorian houses are present in the area, but the character of the neighborhood befits its origins as a Germanic working-class community.

Continued on page 4

HOUSTON'S NATIONAL REGISTER HISTORIC DISTRICTS Part Ill. San Felipe Courts

San Felipe Courts (now called Allen Parkway Village), the largest low-income public housing complex in Houston, was listed as a historic district in the National Register of Historic Places on 16 February 1988. Among Texas properties listed in the National Register, it is unusual for two reasons: (1) as the first loW" income public housing complex in the state to be listed, and (2) as only the second property in the state to be listed before it attained 'fifty years of age.

The National Park Service allows properties younger than 50 years to be listed in the Na' tional Register of Historic Places if exceptional significance can be demonstrated. San Felipe Courts met the test of exceptional significance in two ways. First, it exhibits an unusual degree of integrity. There have been very few additions or alterations to the 82-building complex and its 37-acre grounds since its completion in two stages in 1942 and 1944.

Second, its architectural design is exceptional.

San Felipe Courts was one of the most architecturally advanced public housing complexes built under the auspices of the U. S. Housing Authority, a New Deal agency created by Congress in 1937 to finance the construction of communities for low-income American families.

At the time of its completion, it was the largest USHA housing complex in the South. The

architects responsible for the design--MacKie & Kamrath, Claude E. Hooten, and Eugene Werlin--all went on to prominent careers in Houston.

MacKie & Kamrath, who designed the buildings' exteriors, are best known as the architects of Temple Emanu El, the Schlumberger Well Services building on the Gulf Freeway, the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department Building, St. John The Divine Church, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, and a series of houses on Tiel Way in River Oaks. Karl Kamrath, the firm's designer, was an avowed follower of Frank Lloyd Wright. The emphatic horizontality of the apar~ent blocks at San Felipe Courts, the imaginative architectural expression of its reinforced concrete frame construction, and the sensitive combination of ordinary building materials to produce striking contrasts of color and texture were all hallmarks of Kamrath's distinctive Wrightian style.

These architectural attributes distinguish San Felipe Courts from the two earliest USHA complexes in Houston, Cuney Homes and Kelly Courts, which were planned by other architects for the Housing Authority of the City of Houston. In their austere, institutional appearance, Cuney Homes and Kelly Courts are much more representative of the architectural standard of USHA housing complexes.

CALENDAR July 9-11

Houston Economic Summit

July 15

GHPA WaJkjng Tour, Main StreeVMarket Sq. Historic

July 16

Program Committee, Brown Bag Lunch, 12 noon, 712 Main

July 18

GHPA Walking Tour, Main StreeVMarket Sq. Historic District, 12:00 noon, caU1J6.,5()()().

July:l5

General Meeting. Tejano Assn. lor Historical Preservation, Rio Posada Restaurant, :1503 Fulton, 7:00 p.m.

Speaker, Ms. (noceneia P. Chairez, "The Spanish Families 01 Early Texas". Ca11926-44.18 lor information.

August 15

GHPA Walking Tour, Main StreeVMarket Sq. Historic District, 12:00 noon, call1J6.,5()()().

August 19

GHPA Walking Tour, Main StreeVMarket Sq. Historic District, 2:00 p.m., caU 1J6.,5()()().

August 20

Executive Committee meeting.

August Zl

Board Meeting

Distric~

2:00 p.m., call1J6.,5()()().

Stree~

Suite 110.

One reason that San Felipe Courts was given such careful architectural treatment was its visibility. The complex lies along the Buffalo Bayou Parkway, laid out along the course of Buffalo Bayou in 1926 to link the Civic Center downtown to River Oaks and Memorial Park.

San Felipe Courts joined other New Deal public works projects--Jefferson Davis Hospital of 1937, the De Pelchin Faith Home of 1938, and Houston City Hall of 1939--along the parkway. Prior to the Housing Authority's acquisition of the property by condemnation, it had comprised the poorest part of the adjoining Fourth Ward neighborhood. This was the site of the original Freedmantown and, from 1908 until 1917, the location of the Reservation, Houston's legal vice district, precisely the type of "slum" neighborhood whose redevelopment was championed by housing advocates of the New Deal era. Construction of San Felipe Courts on this site makes it, historically, a prototypical example of a "slum-clearance" community, a model of the highest ideals and standards of New Deal community building: safe, sanitary, well-planned, solidly constructed dwelling units, set in expansive greenspace and provided with public community facilities.

However, none of the residents of the cleared section of Fourth Ward, who were black, were permitted to settle in San Felipe Courts. The complex was restricted to whi te occupancy only, and remained so until 1964. Because it was built during World War II, its 1,000 units initially housed families of laborers engaged in critical defense-related work.

In 1977 the Housing Authority embarked on a project to close San Felipe Courts, demolish its buildings, and sell the property to private parties for redevelopment. Since the early 1980s, no new tenants have been settled in the complex. Today, fewer than lOO of its 1,000 units are occupied.

Opposition to the Housing Authority's plan to destroy San Felipe Courts has been led since the early 1980s by Lenwood E. Johnson, president of the Allen Parkway Village Resident Council and a resident of San Felipe Courts.

Johnson has put together an impressive citywide coalition of organizations and individuals opposed to the demolition of the complex and Historic sale of its site to developers. preservation is a strategy that the Resident Council elected to pursue after the successful listing of the Freedmen's Town Historic District on the National Register in 1985.

Nomination of the district by the National Register Board of Review of the Texas Historical Commission in 1987 and its subsequent listing in the register in 1988 highlighted the outstanding architecturalhistorical status of San Felipe Courts. It has led both the Texas Historical Commission and the National Trust for Historic Preservation into actively advocating the preservation of San Felipe Courts and its appropriate rehabilitation for continued use as a public housing community for low-income families.

The struggle to save the San Felipe Courts Historic District demonstrates the strong positive role that preservationists can play in conserving low-income communities, an objective to which the Preservation Alliance has committed itself in supporting the Allen Parkway Village Resident Council, as well as community-based efforts in the Freedmen's Town Historic District, the Sixth Ward Historic District, and the Houston Heights Historic Resources area.

STATE CAPITOL RESTORATION FUNDS SAVED AT TIlE LAST MINUTE Preservationists throughout the state can breathe a collective sigh of relief at the outcome of the last special legislative session on education financing. In each of the first three special sessions on this difficult issue, legislators had voted to divert money from the $149 million appropriated last year for the four-year Texas Capitol restoration and expansion project. The Texas State Capitol Building, built in 1888, is a National Historic Landmark and is considered the finest state capitol building in the country. In its current

condition, however, the building is badly overcrowded and constitutes a serious fire hazard to legislators, staff, and visitors.

Different special-session plans would have had different effects on the Capitol restoration project, but in two sessions the Legislature passed bills that would have taken back $57 million of the $149 million appropriation. In the end, however, the education, tax and appropriation package that was agreed upon by the House and Senate and approved by the governor left out the proposed transfer of Capitol money.

Thanks go to Houston Representatives Ralph Wallace, Chairman of the Committee on Cultural and Historical Resources, and Debra Danburg, Chairman for Budget and Oversight on the Cultural and Historical Resources Committee for their efforts in helping to save the restoration funds.

DANBURG HONORED Houston State Representative Debra Danburg, one of the Preservation Alliance's 1990 Good Brick Award recipients, was recently chosen by the Symphony League of Ft. Worth to receive its first Outstanding Legislator Award. The award is bestowed upon the legislator who has most benefitted the arts throughout Texas.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative Danburg was instrumental in obtaining an increase of $1.4 million in state funding for the arts in 1989.

As Vice-chair of the Cultural and Historical Resources Committee, she was influential in obtaining legislative approval for a fifty percent increase in funding for the Texas Commission on the Arts in 1987. Also during the 1989 legislative session Danburg was responsible for the expansion of the Main Street revitalization program and corresponding funding increases for cities with populations of over 50,000. She supported the historical preservation and restoration of the Capitol and the enactment of legislation to encourage care and maintenance of historic cemeteries.

FROM TIlE DIRECTOR

I

f you are looking for a way to help promote historic preservation, we would like to invite you to volunteer for one of one of the Preservation Alliance's committees.

There are a variety of activities to become involved in. Some of the opportunities are listed below.

The Program Committee plans our annual calendar of membership events, including the annual December Holiday Party and the Annual Meeting. A lot of great ideas for wonderful events are generated in this committee, but we're always in the market for new suggestions. Bring a brown-bag lunch and join us at our next meeting (see calendar).

The Fundraising and Development Committee helps other committees write grant applications for specific projects and establishes contact with foundations, corporations, and private donors regarding support for local preservation activities. If you have experience or are willing to "learn on the job," you will be welcomed warmly on this committee.

The Endangered Buildings Committee needs volunteers to update information on the list of endangered buildings and to meet with owners, public officials, or other interested parties when threats to historic buildings, sites, and structures arise.

The Publications Committee needs volunteers to help with the bi-monthly newsletter and other publications, and especially to help with mailings.

This short list doesn't begin to exhaust all the possibilities for volunteer involvement in local preservation activities. You may have some other ideas. We'd like to hear them. Please give me a call at 236-5000.

Margie Elliott

MAGNOLIA GROVE,

cont'd [rom p. 1

According to a representative from the Texas Historical Commission who has visited Magnolia Grove, an area of almost seven square blocks may have potential for National Register district status. However, the initial districts have been narrowly drawn, a decision resulting more from unsympathetic remodeling of some of the older building stock than from the intrusion of modem buildings. It is hoped that growing awareness of the historic nature of the area will encourage preservationsensitive renovations, and that the districts can then be enlarged.

The Sixth Ward/Sabine Committee, chaired by Roberta Burroughs, is working to develop an informational brochure about the Sixth Ward/Sabine National Register Historic District. The targeted completion date is October.

*** The Heritage Education Committee, chaired by Pam Wheat, is continuing its work on educational materials about the Main Street/Market Square District, to be used by school groups for use on field trips or in the classroom. A teacher training workshop has been scheduled for late summer.

NEWS CLIPS

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Barry Moore Lois Morris

PCitricia M~~at •••••.

'Kathleen··'Wild ,'••••••...

Architects Kelly Thompson, AlA and Helen R. Peter of the Houston firm Thompson-Frater Associates have won a Merit Award in the The Gateway Gas Design Competition. purpose of the nationwide competition was to transform a 1950s-era Mobile service station in Portland, Maine, into a contemporary facility that would be both a functioning gas station and a landmark. The design by Thompson and Peter, one of 14 chosen for awards from 160 entries submitted from 26 states, restored the station to its original 1950s character.

Thompson and Peter specialize in design for the restoration and renovation of historic structures. Their winning entry was one of only a few submitted that chose to restore the station, rather than demolish it and build new.

The Grea ter Houston Preservation Alliance has recieved a grant of $3,650 for organizational support from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston for the 1990-91 fiscal year beginning July 1, 1990.

*** The Houston Archeological and Historical Commission has received an $1800 grant from the Texas Historical Commission for historical survey in the Warehouse District. The grant, which must be matched by the City, will be used to update and expand the results of earlier surveys in the area.

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The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance 712 Main Street, Suite 110 Houston, Texas 77002-3207

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PERIIII T NO . 712