12 Cite Winter 1986 CiteSeeing Braeswood: On the Last Neighborhood In Houston An Peter D. Waldman Architectural The neighborhood is an idea of measure: a physical, social, and mythic geography more often founded on Tour pretension rather than necessity. The Garden of Eden and the Tower of Stephen Fox Babel are both allegorical constructs l£wS that permit us to understand the idea of Braeswood was the last in a succession of elite neighborhood in Houston. Between the residential neighborhoods that developed along Towers of Work constructed in the ike axis of Main Street beginning in the middle urban precincts of downtown. Green- 1870s. It was begun in 1927 on a 456-acre tract at Main and Holcambe by a group of investors way Plaza, and the Galleria, the headed by the lawyer, banker, and public official residential gardens of this city have George F. Howard. Responsible for its design grown up in the form of the "Satiric Scene," 1618, Sebastian Serlio were the Kansas City landscape architects and neighborhoods of Shadyside, River planners. Hare forest in the some Houston neighborhoods, the was implemented, and this required 25 years and the Genesis of a City obsessed with center (Inwood), and the bayou to the setting, once such a precondition for and, eventually, six developers. the dream of Benign Bayou and the north (Bayou Bend). dwelling, has been reduced to the nightmare of the Bestial Bosque. hanging basket and the potted plant. As a result, Braeswood contains single-family house types characteristic of Houston's develop- Braeswood, to the south, along the ment from the 1920s through the 1960s. More Braeswood is a "conjunctive" name: an banks of Brays Bayou and at the edge Braeswood, on the other hand, is important, it contains a number of singular, invention linking the water's edge with of the new landscapes of Rice determinably pretentious, not humbly architect-designed houses, built between the mid the wilderness. Braeswood, conceived in University, is the last neighborhood folksy, as a neighborhood. Throughout 1930s and the mid 1980s, which chart the course an age of optimism (1927) and of this kind of speculative genesis. its organic landscape are houses not of of modem architecture in Houston. substantiated in a period of Depression, The genesis of these neighborhoods great size, but great reserve. Rarely Because of circumstances that affect all Houston is an example of one of a sequence of was based on a vision larger than does a porch appear to suggest social neighborhoods - demographic change, past residential landscapes in Houston. The that of house type itself. From ambiguity. Doors are deeply set within problems with the enforcement of deed focus of the Rice Design Alliance Shadyside to Braeswood, the City clearly private facades. The bungalow restrictions, encroachment within the neighbor- hood, and large-scale development on its Architectural Tour this fall, its impor- Beautiful era produced a vision of a was conceived for a life spent perimeter - Braeswood is not as homogeneous as tance resides not only in the diversity of garden landscape at the scale of the intentionally out-of-doors. There are no Howard and Hare & Hare must have envisioned dwelling types in that neighborhood, but city and the neighborhood. From such spatial or typological pretensions it. But its environmental and architectural on the archetypal nature of the River Oaks on the north to in Braeswood, rather, there are two characteristics have proved sufficiently strong landscape itself. Braeswood on the south, the two types of natural settings to be found and enduring to motivate residents to conserve and rehabilitate what they now fondly call "Old major bayous of the city were there. Chronologically developed, they Braeswood." While some neighborhoods have been acknowledged in contemporary are the labyrinthian area planned by characterized by a house type - the developments. Hare & Hare between Main and bungalow of Montrose; the cottage of Maroneal and the topographic area 1 6900 Main Boulevard West University Place - other neigh- Unlike the palms planted along developed in response to a California Shamrock Hotel borhoods might be identified with a Montrose boulevard, the landscape of sensibility for the horizon from Hol- Wyatt C. Hcdrick, 1949 spatial fascination with the Forest and Shadyside, Broadacres, River Oaks, and combe to Bellfontaine. The symbol of Houston in the 1950s thanks to the Bayou. Their names attest to the Braeswood is in the form of shade- Life, Holiday, Frank Lloyd Wright. Dorothy Lamour, Edna Ferber, James Clean, Elizabeth prerequisites of shade and edge in a giving oaks. Where palms suggest an In // Secondo Libro Di Prospettiva by Taylor, Conrad N. Hilton - and Glenn H. limitless, sun-baked land where the imagery of sunlit singularity, the Serlio (1618) there are projected three McCarthy, who built iL In the original Braeswood horizon is endless and the surveyor's southern live oak is characterized by its stage sets as conjunctive models for master plan this 15-acre site was reserved for a grid is the rule. conjunctive capacity to make darkness. urban theater. The tragic setting is community shopping center, a vision that Braeswood is a neighborhood born, McCarthy and Hedrick hoped to carry out with rational, systematic, and hierarchic; the the building of McCarthy Center. Only the hotel, The first garden neighborhood was then, from a remarkable vision of an Comic setting is circumstantial, idiosyn- the parking garage, and the legendary pool were Houston Heights (1891), a fabrica- archetypical garden rather than from a cratic, and chaotic; the third setting is realized, however. Now, even their continued tion in a landscape no higher than prototypical house. It is "the last the Satiric, dominated by a society half- existence is in doubt. downtown. Conceived as a new town neighborhood" in a parable of this city man, half-beast, a forest wilderness, the that commenced with the fabrication of 2 7200 Block Main Boulevard for industrial development and blue- place of quarries and fallen trees, the Hare & Hare. 1928 collar bungalows, it focused its urban Houston Heights, the cultivation of place of huts along labyrinthian paths The stretch of Main between Holcombe and space on an introverted Heights Shadyside, the mapping of Houston and dominated by expansive woods and Brays Bayou was paved, esplanaded, and planted Boulevard rather than exploiting the along the north-south axes, and that walkways and small hills, Braeswood with ranks of live oak trees by the Braeswood banks of the White Oak Bayou as terminated with the opening of the city follows the tradition of Shadyside, Corporation in 1928. The year before, the the interface with Houston's place of to the west at the crossroads of Sunset. Broadacres, and River Oaks in the corporation's president, George F. Howard, had retained the Kansas City landscape architects origin. Hermann Park, to the east of Sunset, is satirical nature of its urban Hare & Hare to work with Houston civil engineer Houston's original Bestial Garden condition. The urban condition of William G. Famngton in preparing a master plan The second garden neighborhood was which brings the axis of memorable Houston, as well as much of contempo- for the 456-acre tract, which had been acquired Shadyside (1916), which was the first to growth to a stop at the Palace of the rary America, is a condition of the from John H. Kirby. At the time Houston Primates. The perception of this city as stopped at the Rice University campus; not until exploit Houston's obsession with the Tragic and the Comic. It is in the 1937 in fact was Braeswood annexed by the City Bestial Bosque, though it remains extending beyond the loop, at the scale exploitation of this Satiric dimension of Houston. introverted behind its paradisiacal walls. of the automobile, has destroyed this that an American urbanism can be Main Street, from Mecom Fountain myth of a city between two bayous and established at the scale of the city and 3 21 IS Glenn Haven Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard, is an allegory of having one significant crossroad. the scale of the neighborhood. Harry D. Payne, 1929 the genesis of Houston's growth from the banks of the northern (Buffalo) Braeswood is also the last neighborhood It is only fitting that the last great house bayou to the banks of the southern because it is conceived as a labyrinth, in Braeswood would be the Shamrock; a (Brays), and the dramatic reorientation not an extension of the Cartesian grid. house at the scale of a hotel, a house set of Sunset as a portal to its open western Unlike Houston Heights, River Oaks, or in a garden which recounts the genesis a frontier. North-South boulevards, Braeswood of Houston. With the world's largest (like Shadyside) is more the world of hotel swimming pool, and perhaps the Broadacres (1923) affirmed the geo- Serlio's satiric labyrinth, where nature is tallest diving tower, surrounded by graphical imperative of this new cosmic dimensionally greater than the objects banana trees and sago palms, this landscape with the magnetic naming of found within. It is a sylvan setting, a landscape of "the poolside garden," the North-South boulevards. If Houston has wilderness or jungle much akin to the exploitation of the conjunction of forest a quintessential neighborhood it is not original setting in which the Indian edge and water's edge, permits the final the modest bungalows of Montrose, or Bungalow developed. Adapting this Narcissitic urge to dwell in a world that The first speculative house built by the Braeswood Corporation was bought by one of the the cottages of West University Place, sylvan type of dwelling, free on all four is a mirror of one's own making. The corporation's directors, newspaper editor and ex but at the cosmic, Mercator dimensions sides, to the highly constricted, patheti- walls of Shadyside, the gates of River governor, William P. Hobby. Following Hobby's of North-South boulevards. cally reduced lots of urban America has Oaks, suggest the Shamrock as the true marriage to Ovela Culp in 1931, Payne was made the bungalow a type divorced portal to Braeswood, and complete this called back to alter and extend the house. It was from its intended setting. As a result of from this house that Mrs. Hobby went to River Oaks, commenced also in 1923, tale of one satiric precinct in a Tragic Washington, D.C. in 1942 to head the Women's is founded on a certain set of the densification and democratization of and Comic city. • Army Corps. Cite Winter 1986 13 WOOEti
Ws uMftft HMO 4 2215 Glenn Haven Boulevard 14 2423 Gramercy Boulevard Carl A. Mulvey, 1929 c.1953 Brick, stuccoed, and timbered gables set amidst a The archetypal Braeswood "rambler." The profusion of lush Gulf Coast greenery, This is reverse-tapered V-profile piers are a distinctive how all of Braeswood was supposed to have characteristic of 1950s ranch houses in Houston. looked. The round-arched entry way is Mutvey's version of John F. Staub's version of a 15 2424 Gramercy Boulevard characteristic detail by the English architect Val Glltich, 1984 Edwin L. Lutyens. With tact, intelligence, and imagination, Val Glitsch gave this 30-year-old ranchburger the 5 2234 Glenn Haven Boulevard Metropolitan Homes makeover, transforming it Carl A. Mulvey, 1929 into a demonstration house for the 1985 National Nofttl BfSMMOOd Described at the time of its completion by the Association of Home Builders' 1985 convention. Braeswood Corporation as "French Colonial." Mulvey, the corporation's consulting architect, 16 2311 Gramercy Boulevard had worked for the distinguished Houston c.1946 25 2330 Underwood Boulevard manorial house with the cool, hard-edged look so architect Birdsall P. Briscoe, some of whose A two-story that wants to go ranch. Orange Cameron D. Fairchild and James I. Campbell, admired in the '30s. W.W. Fondren built this eclectic versatility seems to have rubbed off. Roman brick, the thin, flat profile of the eaves, the 1930 house for his daughter and son-in-law; Glenn H. cantilevered planting ledge, and the effusive A large, austere, classically detailed French McCarthy eventually acquired it as a house for 6 2308 Glenn Haven Boulevard prickly-pear screen-door motif are quintessential^ provincial style house, designed by Eugene his parents. Michael Underbill, 1986 '40s, Werlin while he worked for Fairchild. The oilman The latest in postmodern traditionalism; the W.W. Fondren built (his house for his son and 35 7506 Morningside Drive denticulated/ventilated cornice is out-of-sight. 17 2302 Gramercy Boulevard daughter-in-law. William Fred Gray, 1936 c. 1946 Additions and paint obscure the mildly stream- 7 2313 Glenn Haven Boulevard Carlos Jimenez. 1985 26 2329 Underwood Boulevard lined detail of this transitional modernistic house, Charles S. Chase, 1931 A dowdy two-story house artfully transformed by Eugene Werlin, 1937 rotated on its deep site to catch the prevailing The Braeswood Corporation crashed at the end of one of Houston's most talented young architects Werlin was obviously in demand at this comer. southeast breeze. 1929 along with the stock market. Development to accommodate an extended family. Here he essayed an English manorial house of of sections 1 and I-A was taken over in 1930 by some pretension for Donald A. Lee, the brother of 36 North Braeswood Boulevard and Braeswood the Belmain Company, which erected this stucco- 18 2345 Bellfontaine Boulevard Mrs. Glenn H. McCarthy. Court surfaced, tile-roofed house, advertised upon Gonzalo Ancira, 1946 Hare & Hare, 1929 completion as the "Belmain Mediterranean." The The Southern California country ranch look. 27 2328 Underwood Boulevard Hare & Hare laid out Braeswood Boulevard as first occupant was Edwin H. Borden, who carried Eugene Weriin. 1936 the first increment of a parkway drive that was on the development of Braeswood until 1940, 19 2337 Bluebonnel Boulevard Turning the parapet of the entrance bay into a intended to continue the MacGregor Parkway Wirt/ & Calhoun. 1936 broken pediment was an inspired gesture of westward along the course of Brays Bayou. Some 8 2318 Glenn Haven Boulevard bravura in this otherwise low-key design for the of their scenic improvements have been lost to Carl A. Mulvey, 1929 retail merchant Harry Battelstein. Anthony E. flooding and to street construction; Braeswood Another "English type" production by Mulvey for Frederick is responsible for a small, elegant Court remains, however, a charming island of the Braeswood Corporation. addition to the rear of the house. 1920s suburban pastoral tranquillity.
9 2355 Kelving Drive 28 1922 Braeswood Boulevard 37 2322 North Braeswood Boulevard Koetter & Tharp, 1954 | Carl A. Mulvey. 1929 I.S. Brochstein, 1951 Southern California was Houston's ideal during J This was the first house that Mulvey designed in the 1940s and '50s. What better expression of •, Braeswood. It lies in Section I A (east of Main). this predilection could there be than this low, £ which lost its deed restrictions in the 1950s. skew-planned, contemporary style house, its angled wings carefully adjusted to an intensively 29 7404 Greenbrlar Drive cultivated peninsular site? Damon Wells, builder, 1929 The first house to be built in Braeswood was 10 Kelving Drive and Maroneal Boulevard constructed by the warehouse developer, Damon Braeswood Sunken Garden The most famous modem house built in Houston Wells, for his mother. Hare & Hare. 1929 in the '30s. White stucco-surfaced walls, flat As was characteristic of 1920s suburban planning. roofs, panels of tnsulux glass block, and tubular 30 Greenbriar Drive and Bluebonnel Boulevard Hare & Hare overlapped street intersections to metal raiting were hallmarks of the period. Built Hare &. Hare, 1929 create residual islands of real estate that could be for Mr. and Mrs. L.D. Allen, the house is of This landscaped traffic island originally contained turned into small parks. This one has been steel-framed construction. J. Herbert Douglas the Braeswood Frog Pond. transformed into a playground by the Braeswood designed the interiors and Caldwell & Caldwell Angled wings reach out from the central pavilion Civic Club. were landscape architects. Superbly maintained. 31 2307 Bluebonnel Boulevard to frame the head of the court Note the window Bolton and Barnstone, 1954 at the base of the projecting stone chimney stack 11 2348 Maroneal Boulevard 20 2344 Bluebonnel Boulevard on the right; it is set next to the hearth, providing Dixon & Greenwood, 1948 Hollis E. Parker. 1932 -^^mLTt 'flSIGRfl wonderful optical and spatial sensations from Typifying patterns of postwar domesticity in Compact in massing, with just a tinge of severity, within. Brochstein designed the interiors, including Houston was this ranch-type house, designed for this painted brick house contains a delightful array ^^HnMP' much of the furniture, making this a virtual A.J. Sheffield, who with C. Mike Murphy, of picturesque Mexican-Mediterranean detail. treasure house of Houston-produced modem completed the development of Braeswood in the design of the late '40s and early '50s. 1940s and 1950s. 21 2404 Bluebonnel Boulevard Ben F. Greenwood, 1955 38 2330 North Braeswood Boulevard 12 2418 Maroneal Boulevard One of the most handsome contemporary houses Joseph Finger, 1933 Josenh Krakower. 1953 in Braeswood, this was designed by an architect The first house to be built on Braeswood Court, it The western section of Braeswood was not who not only had been associated with the v originally looked out across Brays Bayou to the opened for development until 1940 and Maroneal, neighborhood since 1936 (first as an employee of jj open countryside. The painted tile plaque inset in Bellfontaine, and Gramercy did not begin to be H.G. McDaniel, then Sam H. Dixon, Jr.). but m | the chimney stack next to the swimming pool is built-up until the early 1950s. This brick-faced lived and worked there until 1986. I vintage 1930s. house featured on the Contemporary Arts Associ- "\ 1 ation's first annual tour of modern houses in 22 2356 Underwood Boulevard Emphatically rectilinear, exquisitely proportioned, 39 7500 Kelving Drive 1954, exemplifies the trend of the limes. Win/ & Calhoun, 1936 framed in white painted steel outlining panels of Site of Glennlec Built just prior to the ID Allen House on brick and glass, this house is detailed in the Stayton Nunn-Mllton McGinty, 1938 13 2523 Maroneal Boulevard Bluebonnel for Allen's business partner, this manner of Philip Johnson and his mentor, Ludwig The Brentwood Condominiums fill up the once Paul Liizlo with Howard Barnstone. 1953 house presents a surprising stylistic contrast to Mies van der Rohe in an aesthetic that heavily wooded 18-acre tract that the 26-year-old Wirtz & Calhoun's better-known modem house. represented the pinnacle of modem design in Glenn H. McCarthy bought in 1935 to build the An unassertive but carefully detailed American American architecture during the 1950s. Not huge, steel-framed, centrally air-conditioned, Georgian production. surprisingly, Howard Bamstone was its chief Louisiana plantation style house that Milton Houston exponent. Florence Knoll was respon- McGinty designed for him. It was in front of this 23 2334 Underwood Boutevard sible for the interiors and Thomas Church for the house, amidst the moss-draped live oaks, that Lenard Gabert, 1936 gardens. This was architectural historian Henry- McCarthy and his family were photographed Dy G abort, the first graduate of the Rice Institute's Russell Hitchcock's favorite house in Houston. Time magazine when it made him the subject of a architecture department, was a prolific designer of cover story in February 1950. Demolished in houses in the suburbs along Brays Bayou during 32 2309 Bluebonnel Boutevard 1972. the 1930s. This elaborately detailed, timbered Carl A. Mulvey. 1929 brick house was designed for Morris Rauch. A graceful English Regency style house that once 40 7315 Main Boulevard again makes evident Mulvey's tutelage under G.C. Chrirtenwn, 1936 24 2333 Underwood Boulevard Birdsall Briscoe. Christensen, an architect-builder, seems to have Eugene Werlin, 1950 been inspired by John F. Staub's Chew House in Weriin adroitly combined a mixture of facing 33 2329 Bluebonnel Boulevard River Oaks when he designed this English manor The Hungarian-bora Beverly Hills architect, Paul materials (much admired in the late '40s and Carl A. Mulvey, 1929 house. Laszlo, essayed a modernist style that was early '50s) to design a contemporary style house Another of the Braeswood Corporation houses, refined, sophisticated, and accommodating. This that coexists amicably with its more conven- notable for its fine ornamental brick work and 41 7312 Main Boulevard wood-sheathed, Texas-sized, one-story house tionally detailed neighbors. His juxtaposition of pegged cypress timbering. Joseph Finger, 1931 (faced with just enough brick to satisfy the deed the two-story stone solid and the glazed void at Finger's office designed this trimly proportioned restrictions) presents a subtly composed interplay the entrance is masterful. Note the egg-crate 34 2335 Bluebonnel Boulevard and detailed house in a French provincial vein; of solids and voids, contained beneath a grilles and the perforated eaves. Cameron D, Fairchild and James I. Campbell. the asymmetric composition and steel casement continuous cornice Line, on its long street face. 1930 windows are distinctive '30s attributes. The pergolas, pipe columns, and north-facing White painted brick, sharply profiled gables, and brisesoieil are nifty period touches. steel casement windows imbue this English End of Tour