Curzon Place

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Curzon Place, over in Tarrant County. Now, some places just sit there. And then there are places that carry a whole world inside their walls.

Curzon Place is that second kind. The man behind it was A. C.

Clayton Luther, born in 1896, a Tennessee native who made his way to Texas and looked at a stretch of land and apparently decided he had plans for it. In the early 1930s, he got to work, putting up residential and commercial buildings, developing the area piece by piece. Then in the 1940s, he set his sights on something bigger.

He began construction of what would become the Luther Apartments, right there on Highland Street. Now, here is where the story gets a little interesting. Highland Street eventually got itself renamed Curzon Avenue, and the apartments followed suit, becoming Curzon Place Apartments.

The name changed, but the character of the place, that was already baked in. And how did that character come to be? Well, Luther had been around.

He traveled to Florida, to California, and all the way to Europe. And from those travels, he came back with something. A particular architectural style, with Spanish and Moorish and Mediterranean variations woven through it.

You can imagine him, movin' through those places, storing up details, textures, archways, the way light falls on a certain kind of wall. The primary architect who brought that vision into actual brick and form was A. C.

Webb. Over the years, many prominent families have called this unique property home. Born from one man's travels and his eye for what a building could be, Curzon Place has been holding its ground ever since.

A. C. Clayton Luther died in 1982.

The place he built is still standing.

What the marker says

A. C. (Clayton) Luther (1896-1982), a Tennessee native, began to develop the area in the early 1930s with residential and commercial buildings. In the 1940s, he began construction of the Luther Apartments on Highland Street. The apartments were later renamed Curzon Place Apartments when Highland was renamed Curzon Avenue. From Luther's travels to Florida, California and Europe, he developed a particular architectural style with Spanish, Moorish and Mediterranean variations. Over the years, many prominent families have occupied this unique property, whose primary architect was A. C. Webb.