Davis House

Duane's take

The marker tells it this way, and I'm just passing it along: this is Duane, and this is the Davis House. Now, if you want a house that carries some weight, you look for one where the porch columns have something to say. And the Davis House, sitting right there in Collin County, has got fluted Corinthian columns; the fancy kind, the kind that don't let you forget somebody meant business when they built the place.

Those columns are part of what makes this a Transitional style residence, with Prairie-style influences, a Sullivanesque frieze, and Classical detailing all working together like a well-argued case before a judge. Which, as it happens, is not the worst comparison in the world. This house was built between 1897 and 1908 for the family of Judge Harvey Louis Davis (went by H.L.) born in 1861, and his wife Emma, who went by her maiden name Umphrees before she became a Davis.

H.L. lived all the way to 1956. Emma passed in 1949. Between the two of them, they had a front-row seat to about a century of Collin County life, and they spent most of it in this very house.

Now here's where the story gets interesting, because this was not a family that sat still. The Davis family produced two Collin County judges; count 'em, two; plus a district attorney, a county commissioner, a postmaster, and a schoolteacher. You add it all up, and that family put in a cumulative ninety-five years of public service in Collin County.

Ninety-five years. That's not a family legacy, that's a small institution. And through all of it, they kept coming home to this house.

Three generations of Davises lived under that Sullivanesque frieze and between those Corinthian columns. Ninety-one years of family life in one place. Some houses are just walls and a roof.

This one kept score.

What the marker says

Davis House Built between 1897 and 1908 for the family of Judge Harvey Louis "H.L." (1861-1956) and Emma (Umphrees) Davis (d. 1949), this Transitional style residence features Prairie-style influences with a Sullivanesque frieze and Classical detailing with fluted Corinthian porch columns. With two Collin County judges, a district attorney, county commissioner, postmaster and schoolteacher, the Davis family served a cumulative total of 95 years of public service in Collin County. Family members lived here for three generations -- 91 years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2002