NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National RegisterSBR of Historic Places Registration Draft Form 1. Name of Property
Historic Name: Essey, Lillian and George K. Aziz, House Other name/site number: NA Name of related multiple property listing: NA
2. Location
Street & number: 1205 W. Elizabeth St. City or town: Brownsville State: Texas County: Cameron County Not for publication: Vicinity:
3. State/Federal Agency Certification
As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, I hereby certify that this ( nomination request for determination of eligibility) meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ( meets does not meet) the National Register criteria.
I recommend that this property be considered significant at the following levels of significance: national statewide local
Applicable National Register Criteria: A B C D
State Historic Preservation Officer ______Signature of certifying official / Title Date
Texas Historical Commission State or Federal agency / bureau or Tribal Government
In my opinion, the property meets does not meet the National Register criteria.
______Signature of commenting or other official Date
______State or Federal agency / bureau or Tribal Government
4. National Park Service Certification
I hereby certify that the property is:
___ entered in the National Register ___ determined eligible for the National Register ___ determined not eligible for the National Register. ___ removed from the National Register ___ other, explain: ______
______Signature of the Keeper Date of Action United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
5. Classification
Ownership of Property
X Private Public - Local Public - State Public - Federal
Category of Property
X building(s) district site structure object
Number of Resources within Property
Contributing Noncontributing 1 0 buildings 0 0 sites 0 0 structures 0 0 objects 1 0 total
Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register: NA
6. Function or Use
Historic Functions: DOMESTIC/single dwelling
Current Functions: DOMESTIC/single dwelling
7. Description
Architectural Classification: LATE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY REVIVALS/Spanish Colonial Revival
Principal Exterior Materials: STUCCO, CERAMIC TILE, GLASS
Narrative Description (see continuation sheets xx)
Page 2 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
8. Statement of Significance
Applicable National Register Criteria
X A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. X C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield information important in prehistory or history.
Criteria Considerations: NA
Areas of Significance: Ethnic Heritage, Architecture (local)
Period of Significance: 1928-1971
Significant Dates: 1928, 1946-1948
Significant Person (only if criterion b is marked): NA
Cultural Affiliation (only if criterion d is marked): NA
Architect/Builder: Van Siclen, William D., Architect; Velten, W.A., General Contractor
9. Major Bibliographic References
Bibliography (see continuation sheet 9-xx)
Previous documentation on file (NPS): __ preliminary determination of individual listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. Part 1 approved on (date) __ previously listed in the National Register __ previously determined eligible by the National Register __ designated a National Historic Landmark __ recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey # __ recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #
Primary location of additional data: __ State historic preservation office (Texas Historical Commission, Austin) __ Other state agency __ Federal agency __ Local government __ University __ Other -- Specify Repository:
Historic Resources Survey Number (if assigned): NA
Page 3 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
10. Geographical Data
Acreage of Property: Less than one acre. (0.2755 acres)
Coordinates
Latitude/Longitude Coordinates
Datum if other than WGS84: NA
1. Latitude: 25.917343°N Longitude: -97.515883°W
Verbal Boundary Description: LOT 1-2 BLK 29 WEST BROWNSVILLE ADDITION (Property ID 61022) (VOL 1 PG 18 MRCC), Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas. Tax information accessed via Cameron Appraisal District, January 8, 2021 (Map 4).
Boundary Justification: The nominated boundary follows the current legal parcel.
11. Form Prepared By
Name/title: Juan Vélez/Historic Preservation Manager with the assistance of Stephen Fox/ Fellow of the Anchorage Foundation of Texas Organization: Planning and Development Department, City of Brownsville Street & number: 1034 E. Levee St., Second Floor City or Town: Brownsville State: Texas Zip Code: 78520 Email: [email protected]/[email protected] Telephone: 956 443-5312/832 361-1952 Date: 12/01/2020
Additional Documentation
Maps (see continuation sheets)
Additional items (see continuation sheets)
Historic Drawings (see continuation sheets)
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
Photograph Log Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas Photographs by Juan Velez Date: March 14. 2018 and June 25, 2019 as noted.
Photo 1: View of primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 2: View of primary (northeast) and secondary (southeast) elevations. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 03/14/2018.
Photo 3: View of primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 4: View of secondary (southeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 5: View of northwest elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 6: Detail of enclosed patio. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 7: Detail of entrance door on primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 8: View of both front entrance doors. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 9: View of original wood casement windows along primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 10: View of original wood casement windows along primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 11: View of living room. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 12: View of dining room. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 13: View of bathroom. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 14: View of bathroom #2. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Photo 15: View of bathroom #3. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C.460 et seq.).
Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 100 hours per response including time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Office of Planning and Performance Management. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1849 C. Street, NW, Washington, DC
Page 5 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
Narrative Description
The 1928 Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, located at 1205 W. Elizabeth Street, is a one-story tile-block, stucco-faced, Spanish Colonial Revival style bungalow built at the corner of W. 12th Street and W. Elizabeth Street in the West Brownsville Addition of Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas. The property was designed by architect William D. Van Siclen and served as a hybrid flat and cross-gabled roof subtype of Spanish Colonial Revival domestic architecture. Intact design elements include a red clay tile-roof, asymmetrical façade, arches, some original wood casement windows, elaborated chimney top, and a cast stone medallion centered under the gable on the primary elevation. Home to locally prominent Syrian-Lebanese immigrant merchant George K. Aziz, and his Lebanese- American wife Lillian, the Aziz House is one of a number of Spanish style bungalows built in the 1920s in the early twentieth-century West Brownsville neighborhood. The home experienced some modifications over the years, including a porch addition on the W. Elizabeth Street elevation, wing addition on the W. 12th Street elevation, and some window replacements—all completed between 1946 and 1948 and are now considered historic alterations. A non-historic fence was also added in the 21st century. Despite these changes the property retains a high level of historic integrity.
Location and Setting (Maps 1-6)
The Lillian Essey and George K. Azis House is located at 1205 W. Elizabeth Street on a double corner lot in the West Brownsville Addition approximately one mile from Brownsville’s commercial core. The property is a one-story tile- block, U-plan house, of interlocking tile block construction, surfaced externally with painted stucco. The cross-gabled roof is surfaced with red clay tiles, although most of the house is under a flat roof. The combination of pitched and flat roof configurations appears on other Spanish Colonial Revival style bungalows in West Brownsville. The house faces northeast toward W. Elizabeth Street on Lots 1 and 2 of Block 29. Its long southeast side elevation is aligned with W. 12th Street. A two-car garage is incorporated in a back wing of the house parallel to the rear alley. The alley is accessible from W. 12th and W. 13th Streets and runs parallel to W. Elizabeth Street. The flat site is landscaped with a large Royal Poinciana tree to the right of the primary elevation and a few smaller trees scattered throughout the property. A low non-historic fence of stucco panels between brick piers outlining part of the W. 12th Street side of the property and the portion of the W. Elizabeth frontage to the right (west) of the house is of twenty-first century construction. Paved sidewalks parallel the curb line on both of the site’s street fronts. The historic setting composed of early 20th century residences is largely intact. The only other National Register property in the vicinity is the Hicks- Gregg House located one block to the northwest at 1249 W. Washington Street (NRHP 2009).
Exterior (Figures 1-4, Photos 1-10)
The W. Elizabeth front of the house is asymmetrically organized. A low-pitched, street-facing gabled bay, containing the dining room, advances forward of the rest of the house front to the right (west) of the one-bay entrance porch. This porch projects forward of the longer, side-gable-roofed portion of the house front, which contains the living room. The front-facing west gable contains three, equally sized arched apertures centered beneath the peak of the gable. These are fitted with two-over-two-over-two-over-two-over-two-paned wood casement windows. A cast stone medallion is centered beneath the peak of the gable, above the central windows. The windows share a common sill, sloped down to shed water. The front porch is just wide enough to accommodate a front-facing entry arch and an east-side-facing entry arch. The porch is covered by a shallowly pitched shed roof, surfaced with red tile. Centered on the front arched opening is the flat-headed front door. The door contains a lower and an upper panel. Set within the upper panels is a framed, glazed, arched window. To the right of the front-facing door is an identical door. The front-facing door opens into the living room. The secondary side door opens into the dining room. The front porch is continuous with a raised terrace facing W. Elizabeth St. The terrace is paved with red tile. A low parapet wall with a scalloped profile projects forward from the west gabled dining room wing to frame the west edge of the raised tile terrace. A similarly profiled
Page 6 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft parapet originally framed the outer edges of the terrace. This portion of the parapet was demolished when a two-bay arched porch was built to roof over the terrace between 1946 and 1948.1 The living room is lit by a street-facing aperture containing four, vertically ganged, two-over-two-over-two-over-two-paned wood casement windows. This aperture is capped by a segmentally profiled blind arch. The aperture is centered between the projecting front porch and the east edge of the house front.
The house’s long W. 12th St. side elevation displays the spatial organization of the interior. The gable end frames a slender chimney stack set atop a wider rectangular base. The top of the chimney has an elaborated chimney topped with tile. The chimney is framed by a pair of single, one-over-one-paned wood sash windows that light the living room. The roof gable dies into a continuous horizontal parapet capped with tile coping. Along the wall beneath this parapet are two sets of paired, double-hung windows illuminating the master bedroom. Stationed between the pairs is an attic-level tiled vent. A higher-set double-hung window to the left of the bedroom windows illuminates a bathroom. A tile-roofed wing that projects forward of the long side wall is an addition made in 1946-48 containing a bathroom and a closet. The house’s rear wing parallels the back alley to complete the U-shaped plan of the house. This wing contains a pair of side-by-side bedrooms. The rear wing concludes on the west with a lower-roofed, wood-framed, stucco-faced laundry-service room (originally a servant’s bedroom) and a two-car carport, both set at grade level.
The northwest side of the house, facing a side property line and a paved concrete driveway and motor court that enters from W. Elizabeth St., contains a sequence of four, double-hung windows, two illuminating the dining room and two illuminating the kitchen behind it. Between 1946 and 1948 Mr. and Mrs. Aziz roofed over the open-air rear patio, which was framed on the northeast, southeast, and southwest by the front, east side, and rear wings. The patio was enclosed with non-historic windows to become an interior sitting room. The room’s green tile floor dates from this remodeling.
Interior (Figures 5-6, Photos 11-15)
The Aziz House largely retains its original floor plan, with a few historic modifications added in 1946-1948 and a 2007-2009 non-historic reconfiguration of the kitchen and library. The dining room and living room are concentrated at the front (northeast) side of the house, while the kitchen, master bedroom and bath, and family room are centrally located. Two bedrooms and two bathrooms are located the rear (southwest) side of the house.
The interiors of the Aziz House are simply finished with painted plastered walls and ceilings and hardwood floors. Window and door openings are framed with painted wood jambs, lintels, and sills. The living room fireplace is faced with dark red brick and is capped by a prominent wood mantle. The living room contains four sets of paired, wall- mounted, cast iron sconces and two single sconces. The dining room contains two sets of paired sconces. Ceilings in the living room and dining room are coved in section and rise up under the pitch of the roof. The kitchen, bathrooms, and rear patio were remodeled by Mr. and Mrs. Aziz in 1946-48.
Alterations
Between 1946 and 1948 the property owners added a flat-roofed porch above the front terrace and enclosed the rear patio to become an indoor sitting room (Figures 1-2). A wing addition was also constructed on the W. 12th Street elevation. The kitchen was remodeled and two bathrooms were added. The three bathrooms retain the colored tile finishes and some of the plumbing fixtures from this remodeling. Historic photographs show that the windows on the house’s southeast and northwest side elevations were casement windows, similar to those still in place on the front
1 Margaret Aziz Pate, who grew up in the house, remembers the enclosure and screening of the front terrace as occurring in the mid-1940s. At the same time, the rear patio was also roofed over. Margaret Aziz Pate to Juan Federico Celis Hernández, personal conversation, 26 June 2020.
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft elevation of the house. It seems likely that in the 1946-48 alterations, these casement windows were replaced by the present wood sash windows. These alterations and additions are compatible with the original design of the house, were carried out by the original owners are now considered historic modifications.
A second series of alterations between 2007 and 2009 resulted in the remodeling and reconfiguration of the kitchen and the adjoining library as a single space and replacement of windows in the rear, patio, sitting room. The historic grills were removed and security bars were added over the windows at an unknown date. A low non-historic fence of stucco panels between brick piers outlining part of the W. 12th Street side of the property and the portion of the W. Elizabeth frontage to the right (west) of the house was added in the twenty-first century (Photos 2-4).
Integrity
The Aziz House retains the integrity of its location in the West Brownsville Addition in Brownsville and the historic setting is largely intact. Integrity of its Spanish Colonial Revival architectural design by William D. Van Siclen as well as materials and workmanship is reflected in the retention of its tile block construction, stucco exterior, red clay tiles over the cross-gabled and flat roof, asymmetrical façade, arches, some original wood casement windows, elaborated chimney top, cast stone medallion centered beneath the peak of the gable above the central windows, largely intact floor plan, and historic finishes. The home still possesses integrity of feeling, but is no longer associated with Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz.
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
Statement of Significance
The 1928 Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House is located at 1205 W. Elizabeth Street in Brownsville, Texas. Built between 1927-28, the property was the home of a Syrian-Lebanese immigrant clothing merchant George K. Aziz (1889-1972), his Lebanese-American wife Lillian (1901-1993), and their three Texan-born children. A one-story, tile block, stucco-faced, tile-roofed, Spanish Colonial Revival style bungalow, the Aziz House was constructed on a double corner lot in the West Brownsville Addition. The Aziz House is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A in the area of Ethnic Heritage at a local level of significance because it represents the Aziz family’s personal assimilation to Brownsville’s border town culture as successful merchants who sought to fit into their adopted community, with its “transnational” links to both U.S. and Mexican cultures, without abandoning their attachments to Lebanon. George K. Aziz and Lillian Essey Aziz played important roles in the commercial and civic life of Brownsville as it grew in the early to mid-20th century. George Aziz was a successful entrepreneur and civic leader who, with his brother Tewfik K. Aziz, owned and operated the Aziz Brothers Store at 1101 E. Elizabeth Street in downtown Brownsville from 1917 until their deaths in the 1970s. The Aziz House is also nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at a local level of significance as a distinctive example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture designed by the Brownsville architect, William D. Van Siclen, and built by contactor W. A. Velten. The period of significance begins in 1928 when the house was completed and ends in 1971 which serves as the NPS-50 year cutoff.
Founding of the Community: Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas
Brownsville, county seat of Cameron County, Texas, is in 2021 a city of more than 180,000 people. Brownsville is located near the mouth of the Río Grande at the southmost tip of Texas, across the border from its sister city, Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico (founded 1784), and twenty miles west of the Gulf of Mexico. Brownsville was founded in 1848 at the end of the U.S.-Mexico War in order to establish a U.S. trade gateway opposite Matamoros, which had risen to prominence as a Gulf port in the 1820s. During its first twelve years of existence, Brownsville was one of the largest cities in Texas. As the site of the U.S. Army’s Fort Brown, Brownsville was occupied by both the Confederacy and the U.S. during the Civil War. Because Matamoros was not subject to the U.S. Naval blockade of Confederate ports, it became the gateway for funneling Confederate cotton to Europe and the U.S. between 1862 and 1865, generating immense wealth for the merchants participating in this trade.
After the war, Brownsville lost its commercial primacy as railroads linking Texas and Mexico were built in the early 1880s much farther upriver, bypassing the entire southern tip of Texas until construction of the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway, which linked Brownsville to Corpus Christi and Houston in 1904-07. Railway construction opened the Lower Río Grande Valley (comprising the four southmost counties of Texas) to rapid change as developers bought tens of thousands of acres of arid ranch land and installed steam-driven irrigation systems to transform the fertile alluvial delta of the Río Grande into highly productive agricultural real estate but, in the process, marginalizing the region’s numerically dominant Mexican-descended population. Developers encouraged the immigration of Midwestern farmers and investors in the 1900s and 1910s and founded thirteen new towns and associated farming tracts in Cameron, Hidalgo, and Willacy counties to accommodate the newcomers. During the 1920s, the focus of development shifted from agricultural real estate to urban real estate in the Valley’s small towns. Brownsville, the largest city in the Valley, saw its population grow from 11,791 in 1920 to 22,021 in 1930.2 Among those who contributed to this increase in population and commercial activity were the brothers George and Tewfik Aziz.
2 Milo Kearney and Anthony Knopp, Boom and Bust: The Historical Cycles of Matamoros and Brownsville, Austin: Eakin Press, 1991.
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
Criterion A - Ethnic Heritage: Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz
The Aziz House at 1205 W. Elizabeth St. is significant in the area of Ethnic Heritage because it represents the Aziz family’s personal assimilation to Brownsville’s border town culture as successful merchants who sought to fit into their adopted community, with its “transnational” links to both U.S. and Mexican cultures, without abandoning their attachments to Lebanon. George Kalib Aziz (1889-1972) was a Syrian-Lebanese immigrant retail merchant and civic leader in Brownsville, where he lived from 1917 until his death in 1972. His wife Lillian Essey Aziz (1901-1993) was the American-born daughter of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants. In her book Pesos and Dollars: Entrepreneurs in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1880 to 1940 (2014), Alicia M. Dewey identifies Syrian immigrants, along with eastern European Jewish immigrants, as the most visible foreign-born contributors to the retail economies of Texas-Mexico border communities during the first half of the twentieth century.3 George Aziz and his brother and business partner Tewfik K. Aziz (1887-1975) were Brownsville’s foremost Syrian-Lebanese merchants during their lifetimes. With such near-contemporary Syrian immigrants as the brothers Antonio and José Nassar of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and McAllen, Texas; the Damascus-born retail merchant Nicolás Hachar and the brothers José and Abram Kazen of Laredo; and the El Paso clothing manufacturer Mansour Farah, George Aziz and his brothers stand out in the area of Ethnic Heritage as Syrian-Lebanese immigrant entrepreneurs on the Texas-Mexico border engaged in the clothing trade.4
The Institute of Texan Cultures’ booklet, The Lebanese Texans and the Syrian Texans (1974), summarizes the history of immigration to Texas by Catholic and Orthodox Arabs from the provinces of the Ottoman Empire that became the states of Lebanon and Syria after the First World War, describing attributes that applied to George and Tewfik Aziz: “Urban in settlement pattern, the first generation of mostly young men were traveling salesmen or operated…businesses…. Individuals often maintain[ed] close family ties to Lebanon and Syria, and visits to the homeland [were] frequent…. Many families belonged to the Maronite Rite Catholic Church….” The publication lists the Dallas clothing manufacturer Marion Joseph Haggar (1892-1987), the Houston surgeon Michael E. DeBakey (1908-2008), the Houston petroleum geologist Michel T. Halbouty (1909-2004), and the Dallas-born aviation executive Najeeb Halaby (1915-2003) as among the best-known Texans of Syrian-Lebanese descent.5
George K. Aziz immigrated to the United States in 1902 from Jezzine in the Syrian province of Mount Lebanon, then part of the Ottoman Empire with his brother, Tewfik, and their father’s brother, the Rev. George Aziz (1872-1936), a Maronite Catholic priest. Father George Aziz was called to Buffalo, New York, to minister to its Syrian immigrant Catholic community; his nephews, George and Tewfik, lived in Newark and Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1914 the brothers were joined by their seventeen-year-old sister Maria and their thirteen-year-old brother Naiam. In the New Jersey State Census of 1915, the four Aziz siblings were enumerated as living as boarders in the household of Mary and John Nelson on Jersey Avenue in Jersey City. In 1916, George Aziz was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in Newark.6 George Aziz moved to Brownsville in 1917 to open a clothing store, Aziz Brothers, although he was not joined by his
3 Alicia M. Dewey, Pesos and Dollars: Entrepreneurs in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1880 to 1940, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014. 4 Camila Pastor, The Mexican Mahjar: Transnational Maronites, Jews, and Arabs Under the French Mandate, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. 5 The Lebanese Texans and the Syrian Texans, San Antonio: University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio, 1974. 6 Biographical data are from the U.S. Census of 1910 for Newark, New Jersey; the New Jersey State Census of 1915 for Jersey City, New Jersey; the World War I Draft Registration cards for George K. Aziz in Brownsville and Tewfik K. Aziz in Jersey City; and George K. Aziz’s application for a U.S. Passport of 17 February 1919. On the Rev. George Aziz see Richard M. Breaux, “George Aziz: The Pioneering and Rare Recording s of a Maronite Priest” at the website Midwest Mahjar: The Recorded Sounds of the Greater Syrian Diaspora in the United States at 78 RPM,” 26 October 2019 at http://syrianlebanesediasporasound.blogspot.com/2019/10/george-aziz-pioneering-and-rare.html, accessed 18 June 2020. Also “Hostesses Entertain Informally,” Brownsville Herald, 18 January 1933, p. 3, and “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 28 May 1935, p. 2.
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft brother Tewfik until 1920.7 In 1919 the brothers opened a second clothing store, specializing in women’s and men’s ready-to-wear garments, on calle Tacuba in the Centro Histórico of Mexico City. This would eventually come under the management of their younger brother, Naiam Aziz (b. 1901).8 In 1921 their sister, María (b. 1897), married Alfredo Rahaim in Mexico City.9 George Aziz made use of Brownsville’s historic function as an economic gateway to operate simultaneously in both; Aziz and his siblings were immigrants to two countries. In her book on twentieth-century Syrian and Lebanese immigration to Mexico, Camila Pastor characterizes this phenomenon as one of “transnational migration.”10
Aziz was an enthusiastic modernizer. He assimilated to and successfully adopted a middle-class American social and entrepreneurial identity. Yet he also remained rooted in Syrian immigrant networks in the U.S. Both George and Tewfik Aziz married the American-born daughters of Syrian immigrants. Tewfik Aziz’s first wife, Isabel Khouri (1904-1952), was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Cranford, New Jersey.11 In 1926 George Aziz married Lillian Essey, who had been born in Tacoma, Washington, but, at the time of her marriage, lived with her recently widowed mother, sisters, and brother in Hollywood, California.12 Because Aziz Brothers advertised frequently in the Brownsville Herald, the newspaper reported on the brothers’ comings and goings with regularity. Reflecting the slow pace of summer sales in the hot-humid climate of the lower Río Grande border, the brothers took months’ long summer forays, which were chronicled in the Herald.13 Tewfik (also called “Tom”) and his wife regularly drove to New York and New Jersey, where, during the month of August, he did the buying for the store’s coming fall season.14 George, his wife, and eventually their three children (George Kalib, Jr., 1927-2017, Robert Eli, 1929-2009, and Margaret Effie, b. 1932) just as regularly drove to Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver, British Columbia, where Mrs. Aziz’s relatives lived.15 Newspaper reports indicate that George Aziz and his family also spent weeks’ long visits at the
7 “Clothing To Be Featured: Latest Styles From Aziz Bros. Shown in Model Home,” Brownsville Herald, 21 November 1926, Model Home Section, p. 6; “In the Holy Land,” Brownsville Herald, 9 August 1931, p. 10; Helen Nelson, “People You Should Know,” Brownsville Herald, 5 November 1936, p. 2; “Around the Town” Brownsville Herald, 14 July 1947, p. 8; “Celebrate Anniversary,” El Heraldo de Brownsville, 7 May 1952, p. 2; and “Aziz Bros. Celebrating 50 Years in Downtown Brownsville,” Brownsville Herald, 4 July 1967, p. 5-C. 8 “Personal,” Brownsville Herald, 18 March 1920, p. 3; “City News: Here from Mexico,” Brownsville Herald, 6 July 1920, p. 4; “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 26 June 1921, p. 6; ; “Personals,” Brownsville Herald, 19 October 1921, p. 3; “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 18 April 1922, p. 3; “Local News,” Brownsville Herald, 25 January 1923, p. 5; “Mexico City Very Quiet, Is Report of Local Business Man,” Brownsville Herald, 14 January 1924, p. 3; “Personals,” Brownsville Herald, 17 March 1925, p. 3; “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 6 August 1926, p. 3; “Aziz Brothers Ready for Formal Opening,” Brownsville Herald, 18 November 1927, p. 2; “Ban Is Lifted on Aziz Goods,” Brownsville Herald, 8 July 1928, p. 8; “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 4 May 1932, p. 2; “From Mexico City,” Brownsville Herald, 2 May 1934, p. 5, Society section. 9 “Married at Mexico City,” Brownsville Herald, 27 June 1921, p. 3. 10 Pastor, The Mexican Mahjar. 11 Two years after Isabel Aziz’s death from leukemia at age 48, Tewfik Aziz married her sister Margaret Khouri (1908-1993). “Mrs. Aziz Dies; Rites Set Monday,” Brownsville Herald, 28 March 1952, p. 1, and “Miss Khouri, Tom Aziz Are Married,” Brownsville Herald, 7 April 1954, p. 5. 12 “Essey-Aziz,” Brownsville Herald, 8 August 1926, p. 6; and “Mr., Mrs. Aziz Arrive in City,” Brownsville Herald, 22 September 1926, p. 5 13 The most notable journeys chronicled in the Herald were George’s trip in summer 1922 to France, England, and Lebanon, and Isabel and Tewfik’s journey, lasting from April 1930 to December 1931, to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine. Egypt, Italy, France, and England, on which they took their car. “Mr. and Mrs. Aziz Leave for Tour,” Brownsville Herald, 27 April 1930, p. 1, Society section, and “In the Holy Land,” Brownsville Herald, 9 August 1931, p. 10. 14 “Local News,” Brownsville Herald, 25 January 1923, p. 5; “Personals,” Brownsville Herald, 17 March 1925, p. 3; “Social Activities,” Brownsville Herald, 25 August 1926, p. 3; “Aziz Brothers Ready for Formal Opening,” Brownsville Herald, 18 November 1927, p. 2; “T. Aziz Off on New York Trip,” Brownsville Herald, 18 May 1928, p. 9; “Leaves for the East,” Brownsville Herald, 20 May 1928, p. 1 Society Section; “Aziz Bros. The Store of Stylish Clothes,” Brownsville Herald, 11 June 1928, p. 5; “T. Aziz returning From Eastern Trip,” Brownsville Herald, 25 October 1928, p. 6; “New Front Installed in Aziz Building,” Brownsville Herald, 13 March 1934, p. 3; “Aziz Brothers Buy $45,000 New Stock,” Brownsville Herald, 21 March 1934, p. 2; “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 28 July 1936, p. 2; and “Tom Aziz Back From Trip East,” Brownsville Herald, 24 September 1937, p. 2. 15 “Vacation Trip,” Brownsville Herald, 28 June 1929, p.9; “Comings, Goings of Local People,” Brownsville Herald, 22 October 1929, p. 3; “To Leave Soon,” Brownsville Herald, 31 May 1936, p. 1, Society section; “Valley Man, Ending Broad Tour of Nation, Favors Advertising,” Valley Sunday Star-Monitor-Herald, 28 August 1938, p. 9; “Mrs. George Aziz Back From Visit,” Brownsville Herald, 13 April 1956, p. 3; and “Mrs. Aziz Is Back From West,” Brownsville Herald, 7 August 1958, p. 11.
Page 11 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft house of his brother, Naiam (also known as “Norman”) in the Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City.16 Isabel K. Aziz’s mother, sisters, and brothers came to Brownsville for regular visits of several months’ duration, as did Lillian Aziz’s mother, Effie Balish Essey.17
George and Tewfik Aziz were Elizabeth Street merchants during what was, from the 1920s until the early 1970s, downtown Brownsville’s apogee as the city’s retail and entertainment center. Alongside such merchants as the clothing store owner Enrique Manautou (1885-1962), the furniture dealer Morris Edelstein (1889-1967) and his sons Ruben (1918-2014) and Ben (1925-2009), the men’s clothing store owners and brothers Sam Perl (1897-1980) and Leon Perl (1889-1969), the jeweler Isadore Dorfman (1896-1965), the furniture dealer Oscar Sommer (1897-1971), the men’s clothing store owners and brothers James Philip John (1912-1967) and William Woodrow John (1921-2002), the women’s clothing store owners Philip Kory (1913-1968) and his wife Adela Sfair Kory (1922-2008), the pawn shop owner Bernard Whitman (1920-1984), the women’s clothing store owner Michael Begum (1920-2008), and the women’s clothing store owner Harry Katz (1928-2002), the Aziz brothers contributed to the cosmopolitan character of Brownsville’s mid-twentieth-century retail community in a city that, demographically, was predominantly Mexican- American. Of these business people only Morris Edelstein’s sons; Isadore Dorfman; Philip Kory; and the John brothers were born in the U.S. Kory and the Johns were the children of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants; Mrs. Kory was the Mexican-born child of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants.
George Aziz participated actively in the civic life of Brownsville. A tennis player, fisherman, and bird hunter, he underwrote presentation of the Aziz Cup in the Brownsville Tennis Championship in 1933.18 In 1937 he became one of the founding directors of Charro Days, Inc., and served for ten years on its board.19 (Charro Days is Brownsville’s annual, Mexican themed, pre-Lenten carnival, first held in 1938.) Aziz also served on the board of directors of the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce.20 During the years of the Second World War, both he and his wife were engaged in volunteer work supporting the Red Cross. He was a member of the board of directors of Mercy Hospital and was involved in its expansion campaign of 1948-50.21 In 1959 he was one of five civic leaders who proposed the organizational and business plan of the Public Utilities Board of Brownsville, the city-owned corporation that provides local electrical, water, and sewer services.22 In 1963 he was one of the founding members of the Advisory Board of Villa María Academy, the girls school in Brownsville operated by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament.23 This heritage of civic leadership was carried on by his son, Robert, who took on the management of Aziz Brothers after his graduation from the University of Notre Dame in 1949. Bob Aziz was especially identified with the
16 “City Briefs,” Brownsville Herald, 6 April 1932, p. 10; “Here N’ There With Brownsville Residents,” Brownsville Herald, 12 June 1940, p. 5; and “Brownsville,” Valley Sunday Star-Monitor-Herald, 29 June 1941, p. 4. 17 “Social Activities,” Brownsville Herald, 25 August 1926, p. 3; Sarah Thaxton, “Valley Social Events,” Brownsville Herald, 20 March 1927, p. 3; “Comings, Goings of Local People,” Brownsville Herald, 17 February 1929, p. 3, Society section; “Comings, Goings,” Brownsville Herald, 10 October 1930, p. 5; “Personals,” Brownsville Herald, 19 April 1932, p. 5; “Khouri Leaving for New York School,” Brownsville Herald, 11 June 1940, p. 3; and “Have House Guests,” Brownsville Herald, 13 March 1945, p. 3. 18 Helen Nelson, “People You Should Know,” Brownsville Herald, 5 November 1936, p. 2; and “Batsell-Wells, Aziz Give Cups,” Brownsville Herald, 8 March 1933, p. 7. 19 “Charro Heads Are Elected,” Brownsville Herald, 24 February 1939, p. 1; “Matamoros Leaders Praise Charro Event,” Brownsville Herald, 7 March 1939, pp. 1, 2; “Band Uniforms Are Ordered,” Brownsville Herald, 3 January 1940, p. 2; “Charro Days Shaping Up as Best Yet Held,” Brownsville Herald, 23 January 1941, p. 3; “Charro Board Oks Deficit Finance Plan,” Brownsville Herald, 13 May 1949, p. 1; and Louise Beard Moore, “1938 Charro Days Program Trips Trigger for Backward Glance At All local Fiestas,” Brownsville Herald, 12 February 1950, p. 16-B. 20 “Meet Slated on Passports: Brownsville Session Up Tuesday Night,” Brownsville Herald, 23 July 1940, p. 1; “Merchants To See ‘Science in Business,’” Brownsville Herald, 24 September 1940, p. 2; and “Directors Elected,” 13 December 1940, p. 1. 21 “Plans Begun to Enlarge Mercy Hospital Facilities,” Brownsville Herald, 22 April 1948, p. 1. 22 “Group Appointed to Study Utility Plan” Brownsville Herald, 9 January 1959, p. 1; “Utility Board Hs ‘Majority Support,’” Brownsville Herald, 13 February 1959, p. 1; “Utilities Board Plan Outlined: No Action Taken by City Fathers On Vote Request,” Brownsville Herald, 12 June 1959, p. 1; and “Power Plant May Honor Late Si Ray,” Brownsville Herald, 10 November 1960, p. 1. 23 “Villa Maria of the Incarnate Word Advisory Board,” Brownsville Herald, 22 November 1964, p. 10-A.
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United Fund of Brownsville and support of Community Concerts, which brought classical musicians to perform in Brownsville.
Lillian Essey Aziz joined her husband in participating in the social and community life of Brownsville. She, like her sister-in-law Isabel Aziz, was a member of the Altar Society of Sacred Heart Catholic Church.24 For decades she was a leader of the Wednesday Study Club, a women’s club whose members researched and reported on a wide variety of topics.25 The study group also participated in community activities, such as their annual Merienda in advance of Charro Days. At the 1940 Merienda, Mrs. Aziz hosted over a hundred costumed guests in her house; by 1949 the number of guests she entertained at home had grown to three hundred.26 As a member of the Brownsville Garden Club, she contributed to the club’s successful effort to systematically implant a subtropical public landscape in Brownsville in the late 1930s.27 In the 1950s and ‘60s she served as an officer of the Sacred Heart parish unit of the National Council of Catholic Women.28 In 1959 she was one of the founders of the Mercy Hospital Women’s Auxiliary, which provided volunteer services to the hospital’s patients, staff, and the Sisters of Mercy, who operated the hospital.29 Although Mr. and Mrs. Aziz were longtime parishioners of Sacred Heart Church, they moved to St. Joseph Church in West Brownsville after the Diocese of Brownsville moved to enforce parish boundaries in the late 1960s. Following the lead of George and Tewfik Aziz’s uncle, Father George Aziz, Mr. and Mrs. Aziz’s eldest son, George, entered the Jesuit novitiate in Los Gatos, California, after graduating from St. Joseph Academy in Brownsville as valedictorian of the class of 1944. George Aziz, Jr., subsequently studied at Mount St. Michael’s Seminary in Spokane, Washington, and Alma College, the Jesuit theological school, in Los Gatos prior to his ordination in 1957. Father Aziz had a long career in both teaching, and parish and hospital ministry.30 Mr. and Mrs. Aziz’s daughter, Margaret, married a widower, Sam Glass Pate, a Brownsville supermarket owner and civic leader.31
Criterion C - Architecture: Late Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Revivals / Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture in Brownsville
The Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House exhibits the distinctive characteristics of a Spanish Colonial Revival bungalow of the 1920s period and represents the work of William D. Van Siclen, an architect associated with the modern revival of Spanish colonial forms beginning in the 1890s in California. It also represents the work of the Brownsville contractor W. A. Velten. The Aziz House is significant as one of a number of stucco-faced, tile-roofed houses built during the second half of the 1920s decade that sought to re-image Brownsville and the Lower Río Grande Valley of far south Texas as an Exotic Tropical Paradise.
Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture and the Lower Río Grande Valley of South Texas The revival of building traditions associated with Spanish colonial settlements in New Mexico, Florida, Texas, the Mississippi River Valley, and California between the late sixteenth century and the early nineteenth century began in California at the end of the 1880s. During the 1890s architects in San Francisco formulated a set of stylistic and material conventions intended to identify new construction with historical examples of Spanish colonial building. Karen J. Weitze in her book California’s Mission Revival (1984) illustrates a design, published in 1895, for a country
24 “Benefit Bridge Plan of Altar Society,” Brownsville Herald, 20 January 1931, p. 3. 25 “Study Group Has Meeting,” Brownsville Herald, 28 February 1937, p. 5. 26 “Wednesday Study Club Honors Over 100 Guests at Third Annual Merienda at Aziz Home,” Brownsville Herald, 25 January 1940, p. 9; and “Aziz Home Gaily Decorated for First Festival Party,” Brownsville Herald, 18 November 1949, p. 6. 27 “Interesting Reports Heard by Brownsville Garden Unit and Officers Are Chosen,” Brownsville Herald, 28 April 1939, p. 3. 28 “Mrs. Aziz Is Sacred Heart NCCW Head,” Brownsville Herald, 21 April 1952, p. 9. 29 “Hospital Auxiliary Performs Much Needed Service to Community: Auxiliary Celebrates Birthday This Month,” Brownsville Herald, 27 November 1960, p. 1-B. 30 “Rev. Aziz To Be Ordained as Priest,” Brownsville Herald, 14 June 1957, p. 2; and “Events Honor George K. Aziz To Observe His Ordination,” Brownsville Herald, 7 July 1957, p. 1-B. 31 “Margaret Aziz Exchanges Vows With Mr. Sam Pate,” Brownsville Herald, 8 August 1965, pp. 1, 3-B.
Page 13 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018
Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft hotel by a young, Michigan-born architect then practicing in San José, California, William Doty Van Siclen.32 Van Siclen’s drawing displays the use of stucco finishes, tile roofs, arches (including triple arched windows), and a scalloped frontispiece—an “Alamo” gable—as identifying features of the California Mission style. The design illustrates the compositional techniques Van Siclen and his architectural contemporaries used to integrate the insignia of the Spanish Mission style into modern building types and practices.
The introduction of California Mission architecture to the Lower Río Grande Valley of Texas was associated with the construction of the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway. Such extant buildings as the Pump House of the Louisiana-Río Grande Canal Company (1910, NRHP, 1995) in Hidalgo, Texas, the San Benito Land & Water Company Building in San Benito, Texas (1910, Endress & Walsh, architects), the San Benito State Bank & Trust Company Building in San Benito (1911, Endress & Walsh), the Pharr Townsite Company Building in Pharr, Texas (1911, M. E. Tracy), and the Casa de Palmas Hotel in McAllen, Texas (1918, M. L. Waller, NRHP, 2003), demonstrate the consistent association of this architectural genre with development activities oriented to newcomers to the Lower Río Grande Valley. California Mission architecture sought to re-interpret the border to Anglo-American newcomers alienated by its pervasive Mexican culture. California Mission architecture appropriated images of Spanishness that architects applied to modern building types, producing designs that were prettier, more winsome, and more appealing than the border’s nineteenth-century Mexican vernacular architecture—and the culture associated with that vernacular.33
The Mexican Revolution of 1913-1917, the Sedicioso Uprising of 1915-16 along the south Texas border, and the U.S. entry into the First World War in 1917 interrupted development activities in the Lower Río Grande Valley. When new construction resumed in the early 1920s, it did not always embrace California Mission architecture. This period of transition was marked by the arrival of a new cohort of architects, most of them from outside Texas. Two of these architects had previously practiced in California: the Swedish-born Birger A. Elwing (1867-1935), who came to Harlingen, Texas, in 1919 from Fullerton, California, in Orange County, and William Doty Van Siclen (1865-1951), who came to Brownsville in 1925 after thirty years of practice in San José, Alaska, Seattle, and Tulsa. The 1920s decade additionally witnessed the emergence of a new phase of neo-Spanish style architecture: the Spanish Colonial Revival.
Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture and Brownsville The Spanish Colonial Revival was the more sophisticated successor to the California Mission style. Brownsville’s introduction to this trend came with the coordinated redevelopment of three downtown blocks along Front Levee Street, the nineteenth-century waterfront that was also the terminus of the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico rail line. In 1925-27, the Missouri Pacific Lines Passenger Station (1927, demolished; the Missouri Pacific Railway had absorbed the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway), the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce Building (1927, demolished), and Brownsville’s tallest skyscraper, the eight-story Hotel El Jardín (1926), all designed by the San Antonio architects, the Kelwood Company, were built on Front Levee. Across from the Hotel El Jardín, the Spanish style Capitol Theater (1928, Henry T. Phelps, architect) was constructed. The Batsell-Wells Building at 837 E. Elizabeth St. (1926, E. G. Holliday), the Aziz Brothers Building at 1101 E. Elizabeth St. (1927, Page Brothers), the Broadfoot Building at 952 E. Elizabeth St. (1927, E. G. Holliday), the Borderland Building at 1018 E. Washington St. (1927, Stanley W. Bliss), the Cameron Hotel at 900 E. Washington St. (1928, William D. Van Siclen), and the Clay & McDavitt Building at 1001 E. Washington Street (1930, Proctor & Dudley) suffused downtown Brownsville with modern, Spanish style, commercial architecture. Los Ebanos, Brownsville’s first garden suburban neighborhood, which opened in 1927, was also replete
32 Karen J. Weitze, California’s Mission Revival, , Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1984, p. 68. 33 Stephen Fox, “Architecture in Brownsville: The Twentieth Century, 1904-1970,” in Studies in Matamoros and Cameron County History, ed. by Milo Kerney, Anthony Knopp, and Antonio Zavaleta, Brownsville: The University of Texas at Brownsville / Texas Southmost College, 1997, pp. 284-292.
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft with stucco-faced, tile-roofed houses.34 Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in Brownsville figured as the architecture of entrepreneurial modernization. It embodied the entrepreneurial consensus that Spanish style architecture (materialized in stucco, tile, cast stone, and wrought iron) could, along with subtropical vegetation, transform everyday reality in the Lower Río Grande Valley into the mythic trope of an Exotic Tropical Paradise that would attract economic investment and expansion.
Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture and West Brownsville The application of Spanish detailing to new Brownsville buildings built in the second half of the 1920s acquired a civic dimension when buildings were concentrated geographically, as in West Brownsville, the 1908 extension of Brownsville’s mid-nineteenth-century gridded townsite. With its tile-roofed towers, Brownsville High School and Junior College at 601 Palm Boulevard (1928, Phelps & Dewees and Atlee B. & Robert M. Ayres) was designed to figure as a civic landmark. The Church of the Advent left its historic location in Brownsville’s Original Townsite to move to a new parish complex at 104 W. Elizabeth Street (1927, Thomas MacLaren with Stanley W. Bliss) in West Brownsville. The Model Laundry & Dry Cleaning plant at 314 W. Elizabeth St. (1928, Page Brothers, demolished), the two-story M System grocery market building at 608 W. Elizabeth St. (1927, E. G. Holliday), the City of Brownsville’s first neighborhood fire station, Number 2, at 534 W. St. Charles St. (1928, Page Brothers), the three- story Casa Alta Apartments at 743 W. St. Charles St. (1928), the Valley’s first Jewish temple, Congregation Beth El at 145 W. 8th St. (1931, W. Frank Godwin), and a cluster of stucco-faced, tile-roofed houses on W. Levee and W. St. Charles streets display the effort to reimage West Brownsville with consistent, modern, Spanish style architecture.
William D. Van Siclen contributed to this landscape with his design of the Terrace at 707 W. Elizabeth St. (1925, demolished), a ”drive-in confectionary, luncheonette, and neighborhood drug store,” and the Brownsville Herald Home Beautiful demonstration house at 509 W. Levee St. (1926).35 The Home Beautiful was one of the stucco-faced, tile-roofed, Spanish style houses that clustered in the 300 through 600 blocks of W. Levee St. (346 W. Levee, 409 W. Levee, 434 W. Levee, 444 W. Levee, 545 W. Levee, 550 W. Levee, 611 W. Levee, and 613 W. St. Charles). The one- story Herbert L. Thomas House at 409 W. Levee (1926), the Thomas H. Sweeney House at 509 (1926), the imposing, two-story Louis Brulay House at 611 (1925, E. G. Holliday), and the two-story Hylton S. Lynch House at 613 W. St. Charles (1926, Albaugh & Steinbomer) stand out as architecturally notable. With the exception of Louis Brulay, the occupants of all these houses were Anglo-American newcomers to Brownsville.36
The house that Lillian and George Aziz built at 1205 W. Elizabeth lay west of West Brownsville’s Levee St. cluster.37 The Spanish style presence of the George Aziz House was reinforced by the one-story, stucco-faced, tile-roofed house that Isabel and Tewfik Aziz built a block away at 1091 W. Elizabeth St., completed in 1929. With a tile pyramid roof crowning the house’s street-facing solarium, the T. Aziz House (designed by Aziz, according to a report in the Brownsville Herald) echoes the modern Spanish style of his brother George’s house.38
W. D. Van Siclen’s spatial organization of the Aziz House is quite similar to that of his Home Beautiful house. Both have U-plan configurations that frame a central, side-facing patio. The patio of the Home Beautiful house faces its site’s southeast side street, W. 5th St. At the Aziz House, the southeast side-street elevation of the house consists of a
34 Fox, “Architecture in Brownsville: The Twentieth Century, 1904-1970,” pp. 293-295. 35 “Contract Let for ‘Terrace’ Building,” Brownsville Herald, 31 July 1925, p. 3; “The Terrace To Open Tomorrow,” Brownsville Herald, 10 September 1925, p. 3. On the Home Beautiful see” Building Program of Brownsville to Exceed Past Years,” Brownsville Herald, 26 July 1925, p. 2; “Home Beautiful Board of Trustees Named; Displays to Be Ideal,” Brownsville Herald, 2 August 1925, p. 1; “Work on ‘Home Beautiful’ Making Progress,” Brownsville Herald, 14 November 1925, pp. 1, 3; “Work on Home Beautiful Nearing Completion,” Brownsville Herald, 17 January 1926, p. 1, Home Beautiful Section; “Model Home is Well Designed” and “Good Work of Contractors,” Brownsville Herald, 21 November 1926, p. 3. 36 Fox, “Architecture in Brownsville: The Twentieth Century, 1904-1970,” pp. 295-305. 37 “George Aziz To Build New Home,” Brownsville Herald, 27 October 1927, p. 6. 38 “T. Aziz Home Being Built,”, Brownsville Herald, 28 March 1929, p. 18.
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The Spanish style architecture of the Aziz houses is consistent with the consensus orientation the Aziz brothers displayed in their lives in Brownsville. The modern Spanish Colonial style was the consensus architectural style of Anglo-American modernization in the Lower Río Grande Valley of far south Texas from its California Mission phase in the 1910 period through its final American Regional phase in the 1930s and ‘40s. Lillian and George Aziz’s house materializes the ways they integrated themselves into the economic and social mainstream of Brownsville’s entrepreneurial elite during the second quarter of the twentieth century. Like the Spanish style Aziz Brothers store building downtown, George Aziz’s house adhered to prevailing representational codes, standing out by virtue of its architectural distinctiveness without appearing eccentric or excessively exotic. As someone who made a living selling clothes—and, implicitly, styles of social representation—to middle-income consumers, Aziz adopted a style of representation that identified him as a successful American entrepreneur. That he was an immigrant, and an Arab immigrant from the Middle East rather than Europe, and that his business operations spanned two cultures speak to the skill with which he and his brother assimilated to new circumstances.
The Aziz House is associated with George Aziz’s career-long record of participation in community life in Brownsville from the 1920s to 1970. It is associated as well with the contributions Lillian Aziz made to cultural, religious, and philanthropic activities in Brownsville during this period. Architecturally, it is associated with such landmark neo- Spanish style houses of other successful Middle Eastern entrepreneurs as Alta Vista Place, the house of the Armenian- Turkish immigrant Vartan[es] M. Donig[i]an at 3302 Ocean Drive in Corpus Christi, Texas (1934, Morris L. Levy, architect), the Nicolás Hachar House at 2201 Lane Street in Laredo, Texas (1940), the grandest house built in Laredo during the interwar period and the work of another architect transplanted from California to Texas, L. S. Sanderson, as well as a series of opulent houses built in the colonial Californiano style in Polanco and Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City during the 1940s by such Lebanese immigrants as the Domit, Slim, and Henaine families. The Mexico City architectural historian Rafael Fierro Gossman has profiled these houses, some of which were designed by Leonardo Shafik Kaim and Alfonso Kuri, architects of Lebanese descent.39
William D. Van Siclen William D. Van Siclen (1865-1951), architect of the Lillian and George Aziz House, was identified with the modern American revival of Spanish style architecture from its California Mission phase at the end of the nineteenth century through its final American Regional phase of the 1930s and ‘40s. A brief profile of Van Siclen published in the Brownsville Herald in 1930 described him as being “a considered artist in Spanish and California design.”40 William Doty Van Siclen was born in Woodlin, Michigan. He began the practice of architecture in 1895 in San José, California.
39 On V. M. Donigan, see https://www.armeniafest.com/pioneers-of-texas.html, accessed 27 June 2020. On the Hachar House see “N. D. Hachar Succeeds the American Way: Combines Hard Work with Civic Pride,” Laredo Times, 18 March 1940, p. 11. For Fierro Gossman, see https://grandescasasdemexico.blogspot.com/2016/10/la-casa-domit-gemayel-en-polanco.html, https://grandescasasdemexico.blogspot.com/2017/03/la-casa-de-don-elias-henaine-en-polanco.html, and https://grandescasasdemexico.blogspot.com/2017/08/paseo-de-la-reforma-n403-esq-montes.html, accessed 27 June 2020. 40 “The Brownsville Chapter of the National Builders & Construction Asn’s Surest of All Investments ‘The Home,’” Brownsville Herald, 2 November 1930 p. 5.
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft
Between 1901 and 1912, he practiced in Seattle, Washington, where he designed the ten-story Northern Securities Trust Building (1906, 1910) and the San Remo Apartments (1907).41 According to his obituary in the Brownsville Herald, Van Siclen also practiced in Alaska, Canada, and South America before coming to Brownsville in 1925.42 Census listings indicate that in 1900 he and his family lived in Alaska; in 1910 in Bellevue, Washington; and in 1920 in Tulsa. Van Siclen was married to Ida Katherine Peach (1868-1953), who had been born in Sacramento, California. They were the parents of one daughter, Rena Van Siclen Miner. The architect and his family lived in a Spanish Colonial Revival style bungalow that Van Siclen designed at 1805 W. Washington St. in West Brownsville (1930).
In Brownsville, Van Siclen was the architect of the Brown White (Nabisco) Building at 720 E. Frontón St. (1926, Brownsville Freight Depot and Warehouse Historic District, NRHP, 2018),43 a second Brown White (Stevenson Motor Co.) Building at 953 E. Adams St. (1927), the International Drug Co. Building at 304-18 W. St. Charles St. (1928), the Sethman Apartments at 1850 and 1856 Palm Boulevard (1927), the Cameron Hotel at 912 E. Washington St. (1928), a third Brown White (Piggly Wiggly) Building at 803 E. Elizabeth St. (1929), the U.S. Border Service Building at the Gateway Bridge (1929, demolished), the Valley View Apartments at 1020 Palm Boulevard (1928, 1929, demolished), the Argentine Arms apartments at 1805 W. Washington St. (1930), Resaca Elementary School at 901 E. Fillmore St. (1931), and the Dr. W. S. Merrick House at 14 Poinsettia Place (1936). He collaborated with architects A. H. Woolridge and Frank E. Torres on the design of Brownsville’s first public housing community, Buena Vida Homes at 1419 E. Tyler St. (1940). In San Benito, Van Siclen was the architect of the Rivoli Theater, 170 N. Sam Houston Boulevard (1926), and the Hinkly-Sublett Building at 197 N. Sam Houston Boulevard (1927). He also laid out the Hinkly North Shore Park subdivision in San Benito alongside Resaca de los Fresnos (1926). In Port Isabel, Texas, he designed the Point Isabel Yacht Club (subsequently the Yacht Club Hotel) at 700 N. Yturria St. (1928, 1931, demolished) and the Alta Vista Apartments at 700 Polk St. (1931). He designed houses for C. R. Weston (1930), John Domek (1930), Caspar R. Tyrrell (1931), and Dr. J. G. Williams (1931) in Bayview, and for Dr. W. A. Hobbs (1931), all near Los Fresnos, Texas. He was the architect of the W. O. Connally House at 729 W. 8th St. in Weslaco, Texas (1931), the U.S. Post Office at 301 S. Main St. in McAllen, Texas (1936), and Watsonia, the May Mathes Watson House at 2703 Ocean Drive in Corpus Christi (1938).
W. A. Velten William Adam Velten (1894-1980) was born in San Antonio, Texas, and came to Brownsville in 1925 from Lockhart, Texas.44 W. A. Velten was one of Brownsville’s foremost general contractors from the mid-1920s until 1936, when he joined the San Benito infrastructure contractors Dodds & Wedegartner, with whom he spent the rest of his career.45 Velten built the Aziz Brothers Building downtown (1927) and the Tewfik Aziz House (1929) as well as Lillian and George Aziz’s house. Velten also built the Herbert L. Thomas House at 409 W. Levee St. (1926), the Hylton S. Lynch House at 613 W. St. Charles St. (1926), the Brown White-Stevenson Motor Co. Building at 953 E. Adams St. (1927), the David J. Young House at 735 Central Boulevard (1927, demolished), the E. K. Goodrich country house at 24 Arien Court at Media Luna Lake (1927), the Borderland Building at 1018 E. Washington St. (1927), the O. D. Deputy House at 1104 Boca Chica Boulevard (1928, demolished), the Brown White-Piggly Wiggly Building at 803 E. Elizabeth St. (1929), the Brownsville Central Fire Station at 1000 E. Adams St. (1929), the Ernesto Urtusástegui House at 127 Sunset Dr. (1929), the W. T. Grant Co. Building at 1113 E. Elizabeth St. (1930), the Central Christian Church at 352 E. Levee St. (1930), the Henry G. Krausse House at 901 Lakeside Boulevard (1935), the Dr. George J. Toland House
41 Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, editor. Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994, p. 353. 42 “Retired Local Architect Dies at Home.” Brownsville Herald, July 15, 1951, p. 12; and “Application for Registration.” Texas Board of Architectural Examiners, November 20, 1937. 43 https://www.cob.us/DocumentCenter/View/8205/Brownsville-Freight-Depot-and-Warehouse-District, accessed 18 June 2020. 44 “Obituaries: W. A. Velten,” Brownsville Herald, 27 August 1980, p. 2-A; “Velten Contractor on Queen Building,” Brownsville Herald, 3 February 1926, p. 1 of Special Supplement. 45 “In Our Valley,” Brownsville Herald, 17 December 1926, p. 1
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Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas SBR Draft at 23 Sunset Dr. (1935), the L. H. Metejka House at 21 Acacia Dr. (1936), the H. R. McKay House at 125 Sunset Dr. (1936), and the Larry F. Lightner House at 2020 Palm Boulevard (1936).
Conclusion
The Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House built between 1927-28 was the home of a Syrian-Lebanese immigrant clothing merchant George K. Aziz (1889-1972), his Lebanese-American wife Lillian (1901-1993), and their three Texan-born children. George K. and Lillian Essey Aziz were important commercial and civic leaders in Brownsville in the early to mid-20th century. George Aziz was a successful entrepreneur who, with his brother Tewfik K. Aziz, owned and operated the Aziz Brothers Store in downtown Brownsville from 1917 until their deaths in the 1970s. The Aziz House is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A in the area of Ethnic Heritage at a local level of significance because it represents the Aziz family’s personal assimilation to Brownsville’s border town culture as successful merchants who sought to fit into their adopted community, with its “transnational” links to both U.S. and Mexican cultures, without abandoning their attachments to Lebanon. The Aziz House is also nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at a local level of significance as a distinctive example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture designed by the Brownsville architect, William D. Van Siclen, and built by contactor W. A. Velten. The period of significance is 1928-1971.
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Bibliography
Brownsville Herald
Houston Post-Dispatch
Laredo Times
San Antonio Light
Sunday Valley Morning Star-Monitor-Herald
Valley Morning Star (Harlingen TX)
Dewey, Alicia M., Pesos and Dollars: Entrepreneurs in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1880-1940, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014.
Fierro Gossman, Rafael, blogs “Grandes Casas de México” and “Polanco Ayer y Hoy.”
Fox, Stephen, “Architecture in Brownsville: The Twentieth Century, 1904-1970,” in Studies in Matamoros and Cameron County History, ed. by Milo Kerney, Anthony Knopp, and Antonio Zavaleta, Brownsville: The University of Texas at Brownsville / Texas Southmost College, 1997, pp. 283-346.
Kearney, Milo, and Anthony Knopp. Boom and Bust: The Historical Cycles of Matamoros and Brownsville, Austin: Eakin Press, 1991.
Myers, Terri, Preservation Central, National Register Nomination, Brownsville Freight Depot and Warehouse District, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas, Austin: Texas Historical Commission, 2017.
Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, ed. Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.
Pastor, Camila, The Mexican Mahjar: Transnational Maronites, Jews, and Arabs Under the French Mandate, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.
Weitze, Karen J., California’s Mission Revival, Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1984, p. 68.
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Additional Documentation
Maps Map 1: Cameron County, Texas.
Map 2: Google Map showing Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House in Brownsville, Texas. Accessed January 8, 2021.
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Map 3: Google Earth Map. Accessed January 8, 2021.
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Map 4: Map showing legal parcel (Property ID 61022) which serves as nominated boundary. Accessed via Cameron Appraisal District, January 8, 2021.
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Map 5: Brownsville Sept. 1930, Sheet 27. Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 accessed via ProQuest.
Map 6: Brownsville Sept. 1930-Feb. 1949, Sheet 27. Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 accessed via ProQuest.
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Figures
Figure 1: 1928 photo showing primary (northeast) elevation of Aziz House with original terrace configuration.
Figure 2: C. 1948 photo showing primary (northeast) elevation) of Aziz House with 1946-1948 porch reconfiguration.
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Figure 3: Original architectural drawings by William D. Van Siclin rear (southwest) and primary (northeast) elevations, 1927.
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Figure 4: Original architectural drawings by William D. Van Siclin showing side elevations, 1927.
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Figure 5: Original architectural drawings by William D. Van Siclin showing floor plan, 1927.
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Figure 6: 2019 site plan for Lillian Essey and George K. Aziz House showing current floor plan, courtesy Juan Federico Celis Hernandez.
N
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Photos
Photo 1: View of primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 2: View of primary (northeast) and secondary (southeast) elevations. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 03/14/2018.
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Photo 3: View of primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 4: View of secondary (southeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 5: View of northwest elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 6: Detail of enclosed patio. Photo by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 7: Detail of entrance door on primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 8: View of both front entrance doors. Photo by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 9: View of original wood casement windows along primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 10: View of original wood casement windows along primary (northeast) elevation. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 11: View of living room. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 12: View of dining room. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 13: View of bathroom #1. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 14: View of bathroom #2. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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Photo 15: View of bathroom #3. Photo taken by Juan Velez, 06/25/2019.
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