24 CITE 69 : WINTER 20O6

BY BEN K O U S H

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By the Wayside

?dp&>fc; THE AREA OF 'S East End along South Wayside Drive between Lawnd.de Avenue and I larrishurg Boulevard con- tains a surprisingly rich collection "I well-designed buildings and fascinating urban developments. This Wayside cor- ridor developed rapidly in the lirst half of' the 20th century, brum the 1900s CO the 1940s a number of important cultural, social, and commercial institutions and developments were located in the area. In the late 1940s and early 1950s a surge of construction, which included several significant examples oi modem architec- ture, coincided with the 1951 completion of the Gulf b'reeway to Wayside Drive. Then things began to change. Most new development slutted south, ,ind in 1957 the last remnants of the area's genteel origins symbolically disappeared with the removal of the Houston Country Club to far west I [ouston. The decades Following ^^^Jf LJ were a period of slow decline as middle- class inhabitants began to move to outly- ing subdivisions. By the 1970s the blast bud had become almost completely Hispanic. The ii jjj Wayside corridor was no different. But what was interesting about the area is that Qlliiiiiii. while in much of the blast b.nd the ethnic -vm y " " shift meant as well a shift from middle- 1 i , $* -i income to lower-income families, in the Wayside corridor middle-class desirability -1 — «w was retained, only with a new Spanish- — speaking majority. This section of Houston has been -• buffered hy a variety of relatively large, long lasting commercial and institu- tional developments such as the f [ouston CITE 69 i WINTER 2006 25

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Above L i f t : Aerial view ol the Houston Countly Club, m o 1941. Winding polhs (o the light nie those of Foiesl Pmk Ceineteiy. wooded aiea to the left is the newly developed Houston Ceunliy Club Plate. streets ill lowei light DIE those of Idylwood ihe Ship Channel turning bosin is loinlly visible nl tap cenlei. Above Right: Ihe loimei Houston Country Cub Clubhouse (Sunguinet K Stools, 19091. Opposite Poge Tap: Dinner Bell Cafel«na A model of urban development in the East End building, 1955 Opposite Page Center: hoy House in Idylwood IHonyA hjinei, I WO) Opposite Page Bottom: International Delink end fquipmtttt Company of tanas Building, 1944-45.

Country C'lith, the Hughes Tool Company, was on the south side of the bayou west 1973 the City of Houston acquired the Alter the collapse of the Forest Hill Forest Park Cemetery, and the Villa de of downtown, where today the Federal course and renamed it the (ius Wortham project, little residential activity took Matel. Because they acquired sizeable Reserve Bank of Dallas now stands. In Coif Course. The existing clubhouse dates place in the surrounding area. To the tracts of land for longterm use, they I "us lhe club renamed itsell the Houston to this period. north, between I larnsburg Boulevard and helped the area remain relatively stable, Club and purchased 156 acres of roll- Partly because of the attraction of the Buffalo Bayou were ihe Magnolia Park with a rate of change that has been grad- ing terrain along Brays Bayou bounded Houston County C lub. the area was briefly Addition ol 1909 and ihe ( entral Park ual compared to other sections of the East to the west by South Wayside Drive considered to be a potential location for Addition of 1912. Here a large number I ml. Interspersed among these develop- between Capitol Avenue and l.awndale luxury residential development. In 19 10 ol modest dwellings intended lor I Iouston ments were comparatively small, middle- Avenue. According to the city map of the Forest Hill subdivision was [aid out to Ship Channel workers were built in the class residential subdivisions. These sub- |9| ', the first golf course on the new site the design uf Kansas City landscape archi- 1910s and 1920s. divisions were small enough that residents had nine holes. By the time the 1920 city tect Sid J. I lare. This subdivision, located Large-scale residential construc- felt a sense ol solidarity and commitment, map was published the course showed directly east of Brays Bayou across from tion dul not resume south of llarrisburg even as surrounding areas declined. IN holes. The I Iouston (ountry Club the Houston Country Club, was accessible Boulevard until I92N, when the Kansas Driving todas along Sonlli Wayside was accessible trom downtown via the from Forest Hill Boulevard, which began l its architecture firm Flare & Hare Drive between l.awndale Avenue and I larnsburg streetcar line, and members at llarrisburg Boulevard between 72nd designed Idylwood subdivision, whkh llarrisburg Boulevard one notices the often played a round of golf during lunch and ~?rd streets and proceeded directly was developed by John A. Fmbry directly pleasant, suburban atmosphere: large breaks. Prominent early members of the south through undeveloped land before it south of the Houston Country Club. areas of greenery at the Villa de Matel, club included Will C. Hogg, Howard crossed Brays Bayou and entered the sub- Idylwood, with its streets sensitively a series of stone gates at Idylwood, the R. Hughes, Jesse 11. Jones, I lugo V. division. Forest Hill was the first subdivi- responding to the undulating topography fairways of the former I iouston Country Neuhaus, and Ben Taub. sion in Houston ro break from the orthog- ol Brays Bayou on its eastern border, was Club, the large Willow Oaks of Houston The original clubhouse, located on onal grid street partem, being notable for designed for middle-class professionals Country Club Place, and remnants of the the northern section of the property, was a curving street pattern that took the form who managed the industrial operations of commercial development once limited a rambling, two-story Craftsman style of concentric arcs. the Ship Channel. It was a relatively large to the blocks around the intersection o| building designed by Sanguine! & Staats A few large houses were built in development ol H9 houses. ] [owever, tin- Harrisburg Boulevard and South Wayside and completed in 1909. It was remodeled Forest Hill, notabb the Colonial revival Depression hindered construction. Most Drive. In a city where most of the urban in 1921 at the behest of Hugo Neuhaus, house designed hv Dallas architects Lang ol Idylwood s houses date from the late held is a disorganized patchwork nt who commissioned New York architect &.' Wirchell at 1766 Pasadena Avenue oi 1910s through the 1940s. Early adver- incompatible uses, this coherence is nota- I larrie T. I.indeberg to design a swim- |9| | and the Mission style bungalow tising brochures described Idylwood as ble. As such it presents an effective model ming pool with pink stucco bath houses designed by W. A. Cooke for his own habi- "1 Iouston s Fast laid Residential Park." of urban development in a suburban, ,\\n\ shaded arcades modeled on classi- tation at 1724 Alta Vista Avenue of 19 12. The multiple entrances to the sub- automobile centered city, a model whose cal Roman baths along three of its sides. Unfortunately, Forest Hill never fulfilled its division along South Wayside Drive Insiorv deserves to be more widely known The clubhouse was remodeled again in backers' expectations. It could not compete are marked with rustic stone walls, and understood. 19.19, this time to the design of member with the development along south Mam thus setting it olf from the surrounding Kenneth Franzheim. Today none ol the Street that included and neighborhoods. Several notable earls fn r'Oi the I Iouston elite built Houston's buildings are extant. In I9S7 the I Iouston the Shadyside subdivision of 1916. The modern houses were built in Idylwood. first golf course, the Houston Coif Club, Country Club relocated ro Tanglcwood. majority of the existing houses in Forest The Lawler 1 louse of |9.s7 designed by on a 45-acre tract along Buffalo Bayou C lub member Cms Wortham purchased Hill date from second halt of the 1940s, Swenson, I leidbreder ix: Bush at 665 < that had been leased from the Rice the abandoned location and renamed when the large, one-acre properties were Wildwood Street was made of Vibrex Institute. The original nine-hole course it the Houston Fxccutive Coif Club, In reduced in size and redeveloped. I ile. a material that was described in the 26 CITE 69 i WINTER 2006

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A mop of ihe Wayside Comdoi senior of the Easl End. What was owe the Houston Country Club a now the Cos Woiltmm Golf Cooiw

Houston I'nst on April 11, 19.17, when a breakfast room, on ibe first lluur, .i example, during the American Institute and together with the gates made an the limise was opened to the public, as maid's room oft the kitchen, a wine cel- of Architects' national convention in unusually impressive architectural state- "absolutely waterproof, completely fire- lar and furnace in the basement, and I louston, Bessie entertained a delegation ment for a modest subdivision. The west- proof, lightweight, exceedingly strong, seven bedrooms and five bathrooms on of the wives of architects from t uha ern gate collapsed in I 999 when a water varied textures adaptable to architectural the upper floors, as well as a big upstairs and Mexico at the house. At its peak main under it burst. The second gate detail and unlimited colors.... Tins type sleeping porch. I le built gardens, stables, from the 1920s through the 1940s, the was also in danger of collapse, but due of home is not to be confused with the greenhouse, reflecting pools, lakes and Simms estate was one of the largest, to the efforts of the I louston Country concrete block type of construction." The one ol Houston's first swimming pools— most elaborate residential compounds Club Place Civic Club it was stabilized l.roy House of 1940 designed by Harry a big one set some distance from the in Houston. Over the years, though, the and repaired in 2005. Development A. Turner at 6748 Meadowlawn Street house. The estate required eight gardeners family sold parcels of the estate, notably in I louston Country Club Place was was a two-story Modemc extravaganza. and the house servants to maintain. 1 le the southern sections along l.awndale delayed due to the outbreak of World The interiors still possess a wonderful called it Wayside." Avenue, which became the 1 louston War II, and most of the houses there date mural painted on plaster ol magnolia Simms" stucco-clad main house at 900 ( ountrj i lub Place subdivision and the to the immediate postwar years. blossoms and a fallout shelter installed in South Wayside Drive was accessible by a Simms Woods subdivision. The small, 20-acre, 47-house Simms the 1960s. winding gravel drive. J'ire insurance com- The Houston Country Club Place Win ids subdivision was developed in pany maps, which were last updated in subdivision was begun in 1941 by devel- 1946 by R.S. Collins, president of the At about the rime that the Forest 11 I 1969, showed several additional smaller oper C.K. King. The 49 acres King pur- Texestate Corporation. Its streets con- subdivision was still seen as a good idea. houses, an extensive collection ot out- chased from the Simms heirs at the corner nect direcily with those of the adjacent Colonel F.dward K Simms, a Keiituckian buildings, and an irregularly shaped con- i>i ] awnd.ile Avenue and Wayside Drive Houston Country Club Place, and most who made his fortune in the oil fields of crete swimming pool that was designed to constituted about half the Simms parcel. visitors fail to realize they are two sepa- and Louisiana, settled in I louston. look like a pond. The street plan comprised long, gently rate developments. Simms Woods would Sonti tune altel I 910 he pun, hast d M \ S ns\ stcpdaughtci Kessii marrii

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in the subdivision. Floyd would later make design employs large plate glass openings, son S. Herbert Hare, was a noted expert Above Top Left: RutteUki House in a name tor himself as the I louston cquiva- one-way pitched ceilings, cove lighting on cemetery design and had served as the Fowl Hill (long ond WiKhall, 1911). Above Bottom Lett: Cooke House in lent of progressive California developer and the latest in electrical appliances and superintendent of Forest 1 I ill Cemetery in foiesl Hill (W.A Cooke. 1912). Joseph Eichler for his involvement in K\ air conditioning." Kansas City from 1896 to 1902. Above: Villa rie Mnlel Conventual Chapel (Mount* J Sullivon, 192?). eral Memorial area subdivisions from the The third architect associated with In the Fast F.nd's Forest Park mid- 1950s that had large concentrations Simms Woods was Allen K. Williams Jr., Cemetery one of the more notable of modem and contemporary houses. who designed the Minella House [see side buildings is the neo-Cothie, limestone- Another architect-designed house in bar, page 28). clad, reintorced-concrete trained Abbey Simms Woods is the Miller I louse of ll >s| Stmins. Woods aikl I louston Country Mausoleum, buill in J 928. The wings at M I 5 Brookside Drive, the creation of Club Place were also unusual in that to the north and south of it are later Phillip (,. Willard and Lucian I. Hood ihey quickly became a close knit Italian- unsympathetic additions. The contem- Jr. Willard vva> one <>l tin- nn»>.< prolific American ethnic enclave. About 60 of porary Funeral Home in the new sec- contemporary architects in Houston in the the 156 houses in Houston County club tion of the cemetery was built in 1963. late 1940s and early 1950s. He associated Place were owned h\ descendentS o( Notable 1 toustonians buried at Forest himself during his I louston years with Italian immigrants, ami many of these Park Cemetery include Neils and Mellie I lood. a 1952 graduate of the University families built large houses on corner Esperson, Jesse I I . Jones, and axe-mur- of Houston architecture program. double lots in both subdivisions, dubbed dcrcr C aria l.n linker. According to an article in the Houston "Italian houses" by local residents. Iti IL'J! " the l imgreg.ition ol the Chronicle from the time, Willard and Sisters ot Cliariry of the Incarnate Word Hood's "distinctive" Miller 1 louse was In 1922, Forest Park Cemetery was cre- moved from Galveston, where they had "planned to be built entirely of masonry ated on 49 acres of land carved out been located since 1X67, to 70 acres of materials throughout its structural frame, of the moribund Forest I till subdivi- Forested land south of Lawndale Avenue employing the use of cavity walls, tile sion along brays bayou, between 19.10 and east of South Wayside Drive. Maurice partitions and joistile ceiling and roof and 1950 it was expanded to the south J. Sullivan was commissioned to design structure. The cavity wall is of 4-incli face ui nss l.awndale Avenue and today com- the order's new mothcrhousc, novitiate, brick and 4-inch tile, with two inches of prises $50 acres with 127,000 burials. administrative buildings and chapel at air space in the center. The roof is insu- Its designer was probably I lare cv I lare. 6510 Lawndale Avenue. According to lated wiih rigid fiberglass insulation board Sid J. Hare, who began the firm in 1910 architectural historian Stephen Fox, the before the finished rooting is applied. The and was joined in partnership with his conventual chapel "is the grandest church continued nu psgfi ^' 30 CITE 69 : WINTER 2006

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continued lru»> page 2 ? huilt in Houston during the 1920s. It 1944-45 at 5425 Polk. This polychrome was the Cull Brewing t ompany. The leases their "Id buildings to a variety of is detailed with nco-Byzantinc decor. exercise in Moderne architecture was brewing plant located at s ill I - 5 Polk small industrial manufacturing concerns. Sitllnaii employed exposed aggregate rehabilitated by the ( HV ol I louston for Avenue produced Grand Prize beer until concrete mosaic for the wall surfaces and city government offices. [96 \. Belgian bom brewmeister Franz In the late 1940s and early 1950s there- Guastavino tile vaults for the chapel's Due to increased production at the II. Brogniez, vice president in charge nl was substantial commercial development ceiling. Numerous varieties <>f polished 1 lughes Tool Company during World production at Gulf Brewing and father on the blocks around the intersection and colored marbles are used. Sullivan War II, William G. Farnngton built the of noted Houston architect Raymond I I . of South Wayside Drive and I larrislnirg designed the stained glass windows, I awnd.ile Village Apartments in 1944 Brogniez, designed the layout for a large Boulevard between the working class which were fabricated in Munich." on Lawndalc Avenue at the southeast warehouse and bottling plant in 1946, subdivisions to the north and the middle- I liese buildings, known .is the Villa de corner of Forest Hill. Because steel was from which architectural drawings were LI.ISS subdivisions to the south. Sears cs Matel, remain in good condition today. unavailable, the foundations ol thest prepared by Lloyd & Morgan. Roebuck hired Kenneth Franzheim to Another staple of the area, the giant two-story garden apartments were The new plant, capable of handling design a new store and auto service su- Hughes lool Company, was founded made of extra-thick concrete with no 660,000 bottles a day, was described tion on the block bounded by Harrishurg in 1909 by ex-Spindletop well drill- reinforcement. The exterior walls were in the Houston Post as a "model of the Boulevard, South Wayside Drive, Capitol ers I toward R. I lughes and Walter H. made ol unglazed cream and gla/.ed newest and most efficient brewing and Avenue, and 69th Street. Completed in Sharp. In 1917, Hughes bought out his yellow ceramic tiles. The interior walls bottling operations." The building, clad 1947, the building shared many traits with partner and relocated to the bast End. were also made of ceramic tiles covered in corrugated asbestos panels and brick Franzheim's better known buildings from Shortb thereafter the compan} . ntert il in plaster, they are a good example of veneer, was located in the northeast late 1940 through the 1950s such as the B period of great expansion. I vt.-ntii.illy the high quality <»t site planning, archi- sector ol the complex lacing Capitol Foley's department store of 1947 at 1100 the Hughes Tool Company's industrial tectural design, and construction of Avenue, loday it is only partially used Main Street, the Prudential Building at complex in the East End encompassed multi-family residential projects during and in a state ol advanced disrepair. I 100 i lolcombe Boulevard of 1952, the the land between Polk Avenue, Hughes this era. In 1987 I lughes Tool Company San Jacinto Building of 1952 (formerly Street, the Evergreen Cemetery, and 1 Inward R. I lughes Jr., who inher- merged with Baker International to at S22 Mam Street 1, and the Bank of the Capitol Avenue. Its entrance was at siHt ited ownership of the company at his become Baker Hughes, the third-largest Southwest Building of 19.56 at 9\{) Travis, 1 lughes near Slaughterpen Bayou. father's death in 1924 and was well well services company in the world after While the formal design of these Several notable parts of the com- known for eccentric schemes, began an I lalhburton and Schlnmberger. Baker buildings was retardataire, they were plex remain, among them the former interesting side business in 19.V5 at the I lughes has since reconfigured part of remarkable for the way that Franzheim International Derrick and F.cjtiipmcnt of behest t\i R, c , Kuldetl, the president the original I lughes lool complex as the and his designers ingeniously accommo- lexas I ompany building of |l.H() and fit 1 lughes Tool. I hal side business Central City Industrial Park and now dated complex programs using the CITE 6 9 : WINTER 2006 31

Top Right: The foimai Woyside Sean Building (Kenneth Fiawheim, 194?) Bottom Right: The lomisi IndusliiuT Suite Sunk Mottie i Komioltt, 19491. Opposite Page, Top Left: luwlet House in Idylwood (Swenson, Keidbicder I Bush, 1937). Opposite Page, Bottom Left: Millet House in Stttitm Woods (Phillip C. rVillatd and Lurian T. Hood, 19511. Opposite Page, Top Right: the Weisenthal Clink (Geotge Pierre-Abel B. Pierce. 1949). Opposite Page, Bottom Right: (lie Belli! Coiuoiahon Building in Supply Row. 1948

latest technology and exceptional tectonii close, b u t n o t d i r e c t l y accessible , to t h e detailing. Geoffrey Baker and Bruno Hughes T o o l C o m p a n y c o m p l e x . T o d a y Furnaro described the parking system tor it contains a collection of substantial the Wayside Drive Sears building in their modernist commercial buildings m vari- 19SI book Shopping Centers, Design ous states of repair housing a variety of and Operation as having, "a controller small businesses. A good example is the high up on the store to oversee the whole IHIIIS t orporation building of 1948 at parking area. When one-way aisles (with 120 South 66th Street. Perhaps the most 60° stalls) are as long as this, it becomes architecturally significant building in exceedingly difficult for the arriving Supply Row Center, though, was the Kay motorist to see from one end il there is Manufacturing Building at 440 South .m empty stall. So at the entrance "i each 66th Street of 1953, built for a manufac- aisle is a traffic lighl managed by the con turer of steel mattress springs. Its architect [roller. As long as there is a single empty is unknown, but according to Houston stall in the aisle the light at its end will magazine, "The big factory building is the show a green arrow. When the aisle is first completely pre-cast concrete build- full the controller will switch that light to ing in the entire Southwest to utilize pre- red. Were it not for this control it would stressed members ... the entire structure scarcely be feasible to economize in space of 64,000 square feet costing approxi- by emptying the aisles directly on to a mately $750,000 was erected in about a public street, instead of having a service week's time." The Kay Manufacturing road Willi ilie site." The building is no building also featured one of the earliesi longer extant. installations in Houston of tilt-up con- In 1949, when the Industrial Slate crete wall panels. Hank by MacKie & Kamrath at 6756 At 960 South Wayside, below ( apitol Avenue opened diagonally across I larrisburg boulevard and between the the street from the Wayside Sears store, Simms estate and Houston Country the Houston Post noted that it was "said t Inb Place, I loyd \' Morgan designed to be one ol the most modern banking the Parker Memorial Methodist Church buildings in the ." The of 1949. Of this $400, > church, steel-framed, brick-clad building was William Ward Warkin said in his I9SI distinguished by its drive-in banking win- book Planning and Building the Modern dows facing the parking lor. Those win- Church that, "It seems to have all the dows were protected by a five-foot simpleiKss of form that was characteristic In the I "60s and 1970s the area led a seemingly quixotic fight against cantilevered concrete overhang. Inside of the Colonial types, yet it is definitely a entered a period of decline, and several the city and the Texas Department there was a sawtooth arrangement of modem design." Over the years the con large apartment complexes were built on of 'Transportation to stop a freeway teller cages to simplify standing in line, gregation shrank, and the building was land purchased from the former Simms thai promised to decimate the low today the bank has been altered almost finally abandoned in 1984. It was later estate north of Houston Country Club income Hispanic neighborhoods along beyond recognition. sold to the I louslon Independent School Place. The Royal Wayside Apartments of the I larrisburg corridor. In 1976 the At 200 North Wayside Drive, two District, which demolished it to make 1961 at 1010 South Wayside Drive and I larrisburg Freeway was officially blocks past the Wayside Sears. George way for the postmodern Edna M. Carillo the l.awndale Gardens Apartments of suspended, and in 1992 it was a t last Pierce-Abel B. Pierce designed the Elementary School of 149.3. 1975 at 910 Fairoaks Drive are a series deleted from the ( i n of I louston's Major Weisenthal Clinic of I S>49. The front wall In 1955 an unknown architect of two-story, brick-veneer tenement bar- Thoroughfare and Freeway Plan. Thus the MM.\ planting box of this charming build- designed the shopping center at 6525 racks. When they're compared to William East End was spared the disastrous effects ing was made of Arizona pink ledge stone l.awndale Avenue that contains the (i. Harrington's tree shaded l.awndale of freeway construction that decimated Veneer, while the side and rear walls were Dinner Hell Cafeteria (a picture of which Village Apartments of 1944, it is apparent the Second Ward and Eirst Ward. Today, clad in corrugated asbestos panels. It can be seen at the beginning of this story I. how much architeciur.il design sensitivity I larrisburg Boulevard retains many of its appears to be in relatively good condition A true East End establishment, it has was lost over the three decades that old buildings, and is an active, if in some today, except for the incongruous laux been in continuous operation for over 50 separate them. places shabby, commercial corridor. stained-glass front door and scalloped years. The design ol tins restaurant and One positive event that occurred In a city where developers are the shingles in some of the window openings. adjacent shops is quite sophisticated. The in the area during the 1970s was ultimate arbiters ol taste, the Wayside An early office park prototype devel- end closest to l.awndale, with tts pink the cancellation of the ill-conceived corridor has benefited doubly. Not only opment with 17 properties. Supply Row brick veneer laid in a stack bond with I larrisburg Freeway, In 1969 the Texas was the planning of its developments Center, was laid out by the Texestate integrated planters and narrow clerestory Transportation Commission accepted the superior, but it supported a collection of ( o r p o r a t i o n along Supply R o w at about windows under a large overhang with Houston City Planning Commission's distinguished examples ol conventional the same time that Simms Woods was a raked fascia, gives an idea of how the I960 proposal for a new freeway to and modern architectural design that was being developed. It was located between entire center must have originally looked. connect the l a Port freeway to the almost unparalleled in Houston. Other Polk Avenue, South Wayside D r i v e , The interiors of the Dinner Bell are a trip, Central Business District Loop—U.S. parts o| the city could do worse than Capitol Avenue, and Hughes Street— and the iood is not bad either. 59. Community activist Richard Holgin learn from its example. •