DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the stone and the oak do most of the talking. Way back in the 1890s, this corner of Fort Worth was getting dressed up — part of a grand development called Chamerlain-Arlington Heights, the kind of place where ambition put on its Sunday best. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and the neighborhood was about to get a crown jewel.
Earl and Florence Baldridge hired the architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats, and between 1910 and 1913, they built something that turned heads and kept them turned. Massive limestone columns lining the facade. Carved oak woodwork through the interior.
A showplace, the marker calls it, and you get the sense that word is not being used lightly. Now, the Baldridges built it — but the story doesn't stop there. For many years the home was occupied by a man named W.
C. Stonestreet, a prominent Fort Worth clothier. Think about that pairing for just a moment: a man who dressed the people of Fort Worth, living inside a house that Fort Worth itself dressed up to impress.
There's something fitting about that, even if nobody planned it that way. That limestone is still standing. That oak is still carved.
Some showplaces earn the title just once. This one has been earning it since 1910.
What the marker says
This property was part of the original Chamerlain-Arlington Heights development of the 1890s. Earl and Florence Baldridge built this elegant residence in 1910-13. Designed by the architectural firm of Sanguinet & Staats, it was a showplace of the time. Massive limestone columns line of the line facade. Carved oak woodwork decorates the interior. The home was occupied for many years by W.C. Stonestreet, a prominent Fort Worth clothier. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1978.