This will be a primarily visual blog highlighting some of the heritage sites I saw this past month which I had not seen before.  First is the Tuberculosis sanitarium houses on Zarzamora here in San Antonio.

Built starting in 1938, this complex of a dozen buildings features red tile roofs and southwestern style sun-baked wall finishes.  TB patients would each get a small cubic house with plenty of windows and really sweet architectural details.

Gotta love a real steel casement window.  They rolled that steel 7 or 8 times to get those delicate profiles.  Nothing like it today.

University Health Systems owns them and uses some for offices and some for storage.  We are hoping that several can be preserved in the long-term, focusing on those built in the 1938-48 period of initial construction.  The overall feeling is like you are on a 1920s silent movie set!

We also got to tour the Sisson House, a very early house adjacent to the acequia at Mission San Jose.  The American Indians in Texas are planning to create their museum there.  The house is owned by the National Park Service.

The fun part here is trying to figure out which section was built when.  There are two structures, and parts of the main house here appear to be wood, but a rear portion is stone and/or caliche block.

Did they take stone from the abandoned mission and build an addition?  The rear building has a surprisingly deep basement – was it built first?  I love these kind of forensic escapades with knowledgeable historic architects around as we debate potential answers.

Even the double munched standing seam metal roof has a curious proportion on the shed addition.

The next treasure is in Billings, Montana and it is a house museum.  I have seen many, many house museums, but the Moss Mansion in Billings is really something.  Built in 1903 and designed by Henry Hardenbergh of Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel and Dakota Apartments, this house was an exercise in architectural styles, beginning with the insanely detailed Moorish foyer:

To the left is a library so paneled and English that is has a stained glass window of William Shakespeare, while to the right is a room so French and pink you expect Louis XIV-XVI to materialize out of thin air.

The level of architectural detail is really off the hook – this house did not do a wall finish, but a wainscot, a wall finish, a crown finish and a relief plastered ceiling in every room in every style.  Here is the parlor beyond the library in a Nouveau style:

The crown molding here in the study is about 8 inches high and 4 inches deep

Not only is there a massive bathroom on the second floor with tile all over the floors and walls, but even the ceiling is tiled with rosettes at every corner:

horror vacui non potest

Dining room detail.  The other side of the room has stained glass.

A bedroom.

Another bedroom.

Not only did they have the first telephone in town (and owned the company, if memory serves) they also had electric hair curlers in every bathroom, and massive ice boxes in the pantry.

This house survived because it stayed in the family until the 1980s.  Reminds me of the Maverick Carter House here in San Antonio, which is STILL in the same family, has a similar vintage and a similar Richardsonian Romanesque exterior.

Entry, Maverick Carter House, San Antonio

I actually toured that one back in August, so it doesn’t count for September.

Here’s me with Stephen Cavender at the Audi Dominion, which replaced a Robert Hugman house that was not known at the time.  We are standing by a plaque recalling the house and there is an area that uses stones from the property to create a small rest area whilst the house outlines are traced on the lot.

Finally a wonderful courtyard with a tile waterfall design from O’Neil Ford’s incomparable Trinity University, listed on the National Register of Historic Places this year and the site of the city’s second Living Heritage Symposium!  That deserves another blog…