DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the A. M. Armand House in Harris County.
Now, some stories are big and sprawling — battles, dynasties, whole civilizations rising and falling. And then there's this one. A man, a lot, two years, and a house that outlasted all of it.
Let me tell you how it went. Albert M. Armand came out of New Orleans — a city that knows a thing or two about good architecture, as it happens — and by 1910 he was working as a clerk for a Houston plumbing supply company called Ahrens and Ott.
Not glamorous work, maybe, but Houston was growing, and a man who knew where the pipes went was never without purpose. Then on September 15th, 1911, Armand made his move. He bought block 6, lot 5 in the Avondale neighborhood from the Greater Houston Land and Improvement Company.
Two thousand dollars. That was the price of a piece of Houston, and he paid it. What went up on that lot was a two-story house — asymmetrical, side gabled, wrapped in the kind of easy, deliberate craftsmanship that the Arts and Crafts style demands.
A wraparound porch held up by full-height square wood columns. A gabled portico framing the front entry like it wanted you to feel welcome before you even knocked. And up along the eaves of both the main house and the porch, knee brackets — small details that a man in a hurry wouldn't bother with, but somebody did.
Here's the part that gives the story its particular flavor though. Albert Armand lived in that house for only two years before he sold it. Two years.
He bought it, he lived in it, and then he moved on — and the house passed through several owners and residents after that, each one adding their chapter to a story that Armand himself had barely started. That's the thing about a well-built house. It doesn't much care who's keeping it.
It just keeps standing, porch columns and knee brackets and all, long after the man who paid two thousand dollars for the lot has gone wherever he was headed next.
What the marker says
New Orleans native Albert M. Armand was a clerk for Ahrens & Ott, a Houston plumbing supply company, by 1910. On Sep. 15, 1911, he bought block 6 lot 5 in the Avondale neighborhood from the greater Houston land and improvement company for $2,000. Armand lived here for only two years before selling the house, which had several owners and residents in its early history. The two-story, asymmetrical, side gabled house exhibits arts & crafts styling in its wraparound porch with full-height square wood columns, gabled portico highlighting the entry, and knee brackets on the eaves of the main house and porch.