Chancellor House

Duane's take

Well, here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Chancellor House in Bastrop County, so settle in. Now, if you were strolling through Smithville sometime around 1909, and you happened to wander toward the railroad depot, past the hotels, right into the thick of the business district, you would have looked up and seen something that stopped you cold. J.

H. Chancellor was putting up a house. Not just any house.

A house that said, in no uncertain terms, that its owner had arrived. Chancellor was a prominent land developer and merchant in the area, a man born in 1876, and he apparently believed that if you were going to build a home, you were going to build one that people remembered. And he did.

The place he put up around 1909 drew from two proud architectural traditions. On one hand, you've got Classical Revival, and when they say Classical Revival, they mean it: a balustrade, stone lintels and sills, and two-story fluted columns rising right up off the ground like they had somewhere important to be. On the other hand, the house reaches toward the Romanesque, with a distinctive arched porch detail that gives the whole front a kind of quiet drama.

So there it stood, right in the center of things, near the depot where the trains came and went, near the hotels where travelers passed through, and Chancellor himself lived there. The house remained the Chancellor residence until 1938, the same year J. H.

Chancellor, born 1876, passed from the record. Then, in 1941, a new chapter walked through those arched doors. Dr.

J. D. Stephens, surgeon for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, the one folks called the Katy, acquired the property.

Dr. Stephens, born in 1890 and living until 1972, took part of that ground floor and converted it into a clinic. A railroad surgeon, working out of a Classical Revival showpiece in the middle of Smithville's old business district.

A developer built it to impress. A doctor turned it into a place of healing. That house had range.

What the marker says

Prominent area land developer and merchant J. H. Chancellor (1876-1938) built this residence about 1909. The house was located in the center of Smithville's business district, near the railroad depot and several hotels. It exhibits Classical Revival (balustrade, stone lintels and sills, and 2-story fluted columns) and Romanesque (distinctive arched porch detail) style influences. It remained the Chancellor residence until 1938. Dr. J. D. Stephens (1890-1972), Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) Railroad surgeon, acquired the property in 1941. Dr. Stephens converted part of the ground floor for use as a clinic. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995