From The Archives

R & R
(rescue and remodel) in Eastwood
Once slated for demolition, this icon of Arts & Crafts style is now the pride of the east side

by LINDA BARTH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIRO DVORSCAK

How the mighty had almost fallen.
The 1912 Arts & Crafts-style home in Eastwood was just days away from the wrecking ball in 1977 when kindly neighbors down the street took pity on it. It had been a magnificent family home, but its elderly owner simply couldn’t keep up with the repairs needed. The roof leaked, the foundation had shifted, fireplaces and chimneys no longer worked, the porch had dangerous holes in the floor and the whole place needed new electricity and plumbing. The city had condemned it.

Back in the day, the home was an iconic example of the forward-thinking Arts & Crafts movement, which advocated clean-lined organic design in rebellion against the frills and fripperies of the Victorian era. The home, with its gracious porches and elegant woods, was one of the first three built in the up-and-coming new master-planned community of Eastwood. William Wilson, developer of Eastwood and the Houston Heights, used the showcase home in advertisements to attract other buyers to the neighborhood, which was a brief, easy carriage ride from downtown Houston.

The neighbors, a married couple with grown children, recognized the house was a historic treasure, so they bought it, moved in and restored it enough to prevent demolition. Then they waited for knights in shining armor who had the energy and vision needed to restore it to the top-notch condition it deserved. They carefully screened potential buyers. It took a while for those knights to ride in.

KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE
In 2004, Stephen Steiner and Keith Wallace, who were living in a house they’d custom-built in The Woodlands, decided they might want to restore a house in a historic neighborhood. A friend of theirs had bought in Eastwood, so they looked
at a house two doors down from the 1912 Arts & Crafts house. They passed on the house they’d walked through with a realtor, but the storybook good looks of the 1912 Arts & Crafts number turned their heads. They asked to see inside it.

“When we walked in this front door,” says Steiner, “I had an immediate visceral reaction to the house, almost like it claimed me. I don’t want this to sound weird, but I feel like the house chose us.”

The owners knew Steiner and Wallace would do the house justice and immediately sold the place to them. The duo hired general contractor Connie Cooper of CC & Subs to restore and repair it and seven months later moved in. This year on Feb. 2, the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance will honor Steiner and Wallace with a Good Brick Award for their superb restoration of the house. (See Page 52 for more information and other winners.)

HONORING OLD WOODS
Steiner and Wallace wanted to preserve and enhance all historic and architectural features and make as few structural changes to the building as possible. They were lucky because much of the house was intact. It had not been dramatically altered, nor cut up into tiny apartments.

The floors needed refinishing, but the old wood was gorgeous. “The floors are silver pine,” says Wallace. “You can hardly find that any more. Silver pine hasn’t been milled since the 1930s.”

In the entry, living and dining rooms, the original oak beams, exquisite built-in bookshelves and dining room hutch are all characteristic of Arts & Crafts style. The flared oak pillars and arch over the entry to the living room are classic elements reminiscent of Charles Limbert’s Dutch Arts & Crafts designs for his early 20th-century furniture company in Grand Rapids, Mich. All decorative woods in the house were refinished to bring out their luster. The wooden front door was painstakingly restored and, wherever possible, Steiner and Wallace kept the original hardware, such as drawer pulls, doorknobs and hinges.

Upstairs in the master bedroom and sleeping porch, which has been converted to a master bath, the wooden floor had been damaged by roof leaks. Steiner and Wallace visited Historic Houston’s Salvage Warehouse and found beautiful salvaged oak floor planks from a 1920s River Oaks house. “We saved money by going to Historic Houston,” Wallace says, “and we got flooring that’s appropriate to the period of our house.”