Through the years since it was built, the attractive Queen Anne house at 2327 Avenue M provided a home to several owners and numerous boarders, including three individuals who made headlines for very different reasons.
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The unique home at 2818 Ball, which has stood vacant for decades silently waiting for rescue, is slowly being demolished by neglect. In the past, it was a beautiful home, a place of refuge and even a place of worship. Multiple plans for the building, some including grants, have never come to fruition, but it stands with an air of hope.
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A stunning white plantation home on a large lot has stood watch over the corner of Fifteenth and Market Streets for generations. The original portion of the home, on the west side of the main building, was built in 1851 by Lorenza Sherwood who sold it to Judge Edward Tailer Austin (1822-1888) on January 10, 1867.
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Even before the Key-Harriss house was built, a prominent citizen of Galveston lived on the property. Dr. John Fannin Young Paine (1840-1912) and his wife Elizabeth Estes (1855-1937) lived in a home on the lot from 1884 to 1910. The physician was a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch and a practicing gynecologist and obstetrician at John Sealy Hospital.
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An impressive brick home that anchored the southwest corner of Tremont (23rd Street) and Broadway for over 100 years, constructed by Jacob Lawrence Briggs (1813-1870) in the 1840s, welcomed some of the most important figures in the early years of Galveston before fading into history. Briggs and Nahor B. Yard co-owned Briggs & Yard on Tremont Street, a highly successful clothing emporium specializing in “gentlemen’s furnishings.” Local dandies who frequented the business could find everything from hats, boots and shoes, umbrellas, walking canes, travel bags, pocketknives, hairbrushes, and clothing to prepare themselves to make the best impression on society.
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One glance at the raised cottage on the corner of Twenty-first Street and Avenue L in the Lost Bayou District reveals that there is something special about the small home. Built for Gustave A. Meyer (1839-1907) and his wife Carolina Koenig (1834-1915), both German immigrants, it was designed by the famous Galveston architect Nicholas Clayton who incorporated his signature graceful details and pleasing proportions uncommon in other small structures on the island.
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A grand residence once graced the northeast corner of 16th Street and Broadway, home to a succession of families who left an impact on Galveston Island that lasted long after their beautiful home was lost. It was built in 1876 by Captain Jeremiah Niles Sawyer (1829-1899), who was a native of Connecticut. After beginning his career as an apprentice on a whaling ship, Sawyer soon became a mate and then captain of a series of ships. He commanded a number of vessels around the world to places such as Alaska, Cape Horn, San Francisco, Honolulu, Europe, and the West Indies.
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Historic mansions often spark curiosity about the people who lived within their walls. When these architectural treasures are lost, the last traces of families that held important places in Island history are sometimes erased as well. This is the case with the Joseph E. Wallis home that formerly graced the northwest corner of 15th Street and Sealy Avenue.
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Many residents in the early days of Galveston had an impact on lives and businesses far beyond the shores of our Island. Determination, keen business sense, and love for family and community were often common threads in the lives that happened within the walls of Galveston’s lost mansions.
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Out of all the lost mansions in Galveston, the colonial style home that once stood proudly at Twenty-fourth Street and Broadway may have had the most varied history on the island, evolving from the small cottage of a slave trader to the beautiful home of wealthy philanthropists, and eventually a gift to the community.
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Not all of Galveston’s lost mansions were Victorian or Colonial style homes. One in particular, the 1899 Waters Davis Jr. House, was quite modern in appearance even though it was constructed over one hundred years ago.
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Julius Kauffman, Sr. (1815-1880) and his wife Clara Jockusch were German immigrants who found success after marrying in Galveston in 1851, bringing the lines of two prosperous families together. Kauffman was a dominant force in the business of providing a means of immigration for Germans from Bremen to Galveston. As consul to Austria and Hungary, he used his skills as an importer, merchant, and shipping agent as well as his overseas contacts to establish methods for new Americans to prepay for their European families to join them on the Island.
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The newly reorganized Galveston Garden Club is dedicating efforts toward giving a new life to one of Galveston’s oldest homes. Stoically sitting on the corner of Avenue O and Thirty-fifth Street, the 1847 Sydnor-Powhatan House has fallen into disrepair and is the object of plans for a restoration.
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One of Galveston’s finest homes was built for a woman who died before she could ever live within its walls. Despite its tragic beginning, the story of the residence would become as impressive as the structure itself.
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One of Galveston’s finest homes was built for a woman who died before she could ever live within its walls. Despite its tragic beginning, the story of the residence would become as impressive as the structure itself.
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Over a century and a half ago, one of the finest homes on Galveston Island was built at the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Avenue M. Referred to for years by Galvestonians as the Waters House, the handsome, three-story structure was owned at different times by three of the most prominent men in the Island’s history.
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When an imposing mansion owned by the Wood family was destroyed by fire in March 1886, only the wrought-iron fencing and prized oleanders that lined the surrounding sidewalks remained.
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Galveston’s private Artillery Club rests on the site of one of the Island’s most beloved mansions from the past. Referred to by the Library of Congress as the Brown-Denson-Moore House, the architectural gem housed even more families and stories than the title suggests.
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Sometimes society has to make mistakes to learn from them. That was certainly the case with the demolition of the Morris Lasker House in the 1960s. The loss of this grand Galveston home acted as a catalyst for community members to step up to the challenge of preserving historical homes.
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As many beautiful, historic homes as Galveston is proud to have dotting the island, some of the finest from the past are, sadly, lost. One of these was a spacious, three-story Victorian mansion in the east end of the city at 1228 Market. The home, which belonged to the family of Johann “John” Focke, was constructed in 1886.
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It seems appropriate that Galveston’s fabled past includes a long lost castle. Heidenheimer Castle once sat on the northwest corner of Sixteenth Street and Sealy Avenue on the island’s prestigious East End.
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Materials for the three-story, eleven-room home, including ten massive columns, were brought to Galveston from Maine by schooner. It was known for its wide porches, beautiful grounds, and elegant landscaping.
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