In 1884, a young barber from New Orleans named Gustave Adolph Helmann (1862-1921) moved to Galveston to pursue success. He boarded with a local lumberman for a year and then became a tenant in the home of locksmith Christian Cassel, Sr., a German immigrant like Helmann’s father. He soon found work at Philip Seidensticker’s Mechanic Street barber shop.
Adolph fell in love with his landlord’s daughter, Augusta “Gussie” J. Cassel (1869-1932). They were married a few days before Valentine’s Day in 1888 at the German Evangelical Lutheran Church on Winnie Street.
Both children of German immigrants, these first-generation Americans became parents to daughter Hazel Elizabeth just before Thanksgiving that same year.
Helmann purchased land on 24th Street from bookkeeper Jacob Singer in 1894 and built a cottage there for his young family. This was just four years before the land of the former Texas Cotton Press in the area was sold in lots, expanding the Silk-Stocking District.
The home featured five rooms, including a kitchen, sunroom, and one bathroom. The lights and stove were powered by gas. The gas heater in the bathroom was a luxury for a small home.
Original insurance papers for the structure provide interesting details, such as the existence of three exterior and 11 interior doors. Each door had a hard oil finish and molded casings.
The home also had three brick fireplaces and a scuttle in the hall. A scuttle was usually a bucket or box-shaped item used to carry or store coal or wood for fireplaces. Scuttles were also occasionally used to carry ash from the home. A wooden cistern provided water.
The family had exciting changes in 1895. As Adolph’s business grew, he opened his own barber shop in the new Atkins Building at 2008 Market Street. The family grew, too, with the birth of their second daughter, Naomi.
His new shop was advertised as a ‘tonsorial parlor,’ - an archaic Latin-based term that roughly referred to a high-end establishment for haircuts, shaves, and hairdressing.
The Helmann cottage survived the hurricane of 1900, protected by piles of debris formed by the storm surge along Avenue N. The house was repaired and repainted within weeks of the hurricane.
A neighbor of the Helmanns, Edmund Reed Cheesborough, was an official involved in the island grade-raising project in the ensuing years. Cheesborough took advantage of the opportunity to ensure that 24th Street, where his residence was located, was raised to a considerable height.
Though the project included tolerating a dredge pipe and muck down the middle of their street during the process, the surrounding homeowners were thankful for their good fortune.
In 1905, Helmann accepted a job managing the barber shop of the Tremont House Hotel, a lucrative establishment that served both locals and visitors.
The 24th Street cottage was raised on brick piers in 1909, and an additional bathroom was constructed. Later that year, Gussie took on the entrepreneurial task of selling fruit trees from their home. Her offerings included Satsuma orange, Washington naval, grapefruit, and other varieties of trees.
By 1910, the couple was financially comfortable enough to hire a housekeeper. They also had their home wired for electricity and made one last addition in 1918.
Helmann, who was still working at the Tremont House Hotel, passed away in 1921, at the age of 58. In September of the following year, Gussie sold her home to the well-known Galveston photographer James M. Maurer (1876-1953), who used the property as a tenant house. Maurer is remembered for his iconic photos of the island’s bathing girl revues and panoramic postcard images.
Maurer advertised the home for rent in the local newspapers, describing it as a high-raised cottage of five rooms including a sun parlor and breakfast room. He listed that the remodel included new electric light fixtures and a ceiling fan in the dining room. The ads also boasted of a large backyard, cistern, garage, large basement, and servant’s quarters.
He did not retain the investment property for long. After just five years of owning the house, he sold it.
Dora Agnes Bickett Chapman (1888-1954) became the new owner and moved into the cottage in 1927 with her children Bobby and Jean. Chapman was the widow of Willoughby Joseph Chapman (1860-1926) who was the owner of a seafood company and warehouse, as well as the popular Bettison’s Fishing Pier.
A capable businesswoman, the former schoolteacher continued to operate Bettison’s into the 1940s, guiding the business through two destructive hurricanes and reconstructions in 1932 and 1934.
In the 1940 census, she and her family are listed as living in the home with her brother Earl Bickett. Ten years later, when her children were married with families of their own, the widow took in three boarders.
Wylie Howard White (1910-1994) and his wife Beaulah Emily Lippincott (1916-2000) became the next owners of the cottage in 1951. The couple had four sons: Donald, Bruce, Robert, and Richard.
White came to Galveston with the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1945 and retired as the Chief of the Structural Section of the Engineering Division in 1973.
In April 1965, an attempt was made to rezone the lots at 1314 and 1316 to allow a commercial enterprise by Bill Brown Chevrolet, to adjoin the two properties. City Council denied the request citing that the lots were positioned in the middle of a residential street. By doing so, they maintained the integrity of one of the most attractive residential thoroughfares on the island.
The home was purchased by army veteran Norris J. Seaux (1927-1994) and his wife Nancy Garcia (1928-2017) in 1966 as a home for their family, which included their daughter Nora and sons Ricardo and Norris Jr.
Norris was a self-employed carpenter, who also worked as a delivery truck driver and an assistant manager for a local store. After their parents’ deaths, the Seaux children retained ownership of the home and lived there at various times.
In 2019, Peter and Sondra Oxman purchased the house at 1318 24th Street, two doors down from the cottage. They began rehabilitation work on it for use as a weekend home.
When the Seaux family sold the Fleur de Lis cottage, the Oxmans felt the new owners did not fully understand the importance of retaining the historic integrity of the small house. They agreed to purchase it themselves.
The Oxmans worked with architect Brax Easterwood to rehabilitate the property. They found that major areas of the cottage had termite damage. It required new support beams and an entire replacement of the front porch and entry steps.
One detail retained in the replacement was the distinctive fleur-de-lis cutout panels on the porch and stair railings, from which the Oxmans derived the home’s new name: Fleur de Lis Cottage.
Original red pine floors and newer yellow pine floors were restored. The Oxmans hired Texas A&M professor Peter von Hengstrum to replicate decorative concrete capitals to replace missing or damaged sections.
The new owners made changes to the property to improve its functionality. The kitchen was moved from the back of the house to the dining room. This offered an open plan that incorporated it with the living and dining rooms.
The former kitchen was turned into a third bedroom. They also converted a small rear room into a modern bathroom.
A concrete slab was poured downstairs to finish an earlier concrete and rock partial floor. The back stairs leading to the main floor were rebuilt. The couple was careful to restore missing or damaged windows and doors with period-appropriate replacements.
The Fleur de Lis cottage is now prepared to greet whatever the next 130 years have in store for it.
Peter Oxman has spent countless hours doing extensive research on the history of the home. The Oxmans have also been visited by members of the White family, who shared personal reminiscences about the home with them.
The cottage is currently a short-term rental property, offering visitors the opportunity to stay in a home whose history intertwines with that of the island. Details can be found at www.Fleurdelisgalveston.com.