PFT Stories

Courtlandt Place: A Piece of Historic Houston

In the early 1900s, Houston was continuing to grow and expand. So much so, that people were now moving out of downtown and off Main Street and developing neighborhoods.

"(People) were feeling encroached upon so they moved to what was pasture land," Sallie Gordon said.

According to Penny Jones, street car lines and the emergence of the automobile helped people make the decision to move.

"Suddenly you didn't have to live downtown so those that could afford it – the elite – fled," Jones said. "They got out of downtown. They came out and developed their own neighborhood. Some of those homes on Main Street stretched or consumed a whole city block, so in some ways they were downsizing when they came to Courtlandt Place."

Some of the neighborhoods they moved to were so called private places, small enclaves like Westmoreland Place started in 1902 and Courtlandt Place, where the first home appeared in 1909.

"They left kind of as a group," Jones said. "They didn't just move out here as individuals. They moved out here knowing all their friends were moving out here."

When they settled into their houses they found themselves living out on Houston's frontier.

"This was very much the edge of town," Gordon said. "To the West was pasture land and the Courtlandt Place people took their horses there to ride. There were cows on Courtlandt Place."

The families not only lived in close proximity, they also utilized each other as a built in social set.

"It was a pretty close society," Mary Air said. "They were very careful about who moved onto the street and who was allowed to build."

"They were related and they were families," Gordon said. "They were business partners and of course, Houston was very small at that time so they were members of the same social set. There was one family that had four houses for their grown children and families."

Everyday life for Courtlandt Place residents could be pretty grand.

"They all went away for the summer to the East coast or somewhere cool," Gordon said. "They took most of their household staff with them. They would lock their silver in the big safes downstairs. They were very much a people of class and leisure and privilege."

These large houses, without electricity in those early years, couldn't function without servants.

"It was not unusual for a Courtlandt Place house to have five or six servants," Gordon said. "At today's dollar that would be overwhelming but at that time it would not have been."

"The servant community on Courtlandt Place was an integral part of the Courtlandt Place community," Jones said. "These homes could not have functioned without them. They knew the intimate secrets and shared the intimate lives of all these owners."

Residents of Courtlandt Place included not only successful businessmen, but strong women, as well. One of these was Jessie Carter Taylor.

"She had her famous Saturday night gambling parties," Gordon said. "She had as many as 50 people there. She had boxing matches in her basement. She had roulette. This went on for years and years and years."

"She was just a character," Jones said. "And then her sister, Frankie Randolph, was very active in Houston politics and is very well known to this day. She was involved in the Democratic party. She founded the League of Women Voters, and I believe she was a co-founder of the Junior League of Houston and was very active in Civil Rights in the 50s and 60s, which was not popular."

Each of the houses is a unique treasure, designed by some of the city's top architects. The James Autry House is one example.

"Mr. Autry wanted to build the finest house with the finest materials of the day," Murray Air said. "A lot of that is documented in the library. It's clear that since 1913 that the house has held up pretty well."

"Birdsall Briscoe was one of the leading architects of the period and we have, I believe, five examples of his work on Courtlandt Place," Gordon said.  

"He is part of the Courtlandt Place set," Jones said. "He partied with these people. He was part of their social set and that allowed him to garner quite a few commissions on the street."

The homes were lovely to say the least, but the architecture also included a practical side.

"Houston was still Houston, and it was before air conditioning and so much of the social life took place outside, and the houses were built to accommodate that," Jones said.

"It was a good life," Gordon said. "A lot of the people I've talked to or descendents of the Courtlandt Place people say they lived the good life."

Today, Courtlandt Place remains one of Houston's greatest historic treasures.

"The fact that this neighborhood is intact, the houses are intact, it shows a time in our past that is rapidly being lost, and this is one of the best preserved private neighborhoods in the country," Jones said. "It is very unusual that here it is in Houston, Texas, where we tear everything down every 20 years."