Edwin and Daphne Neville House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Edwin and Daphne Neville House. Now, some houses just sit there. This one announces itself.

We're talking a two-and-a-half story brick Tudor revival, built in 1914, designed by a man named Birdsall P. Briscoe. And Briscoe did not come to play.

He gave this house half-timbered gables, a steeply-pitched hipped roofline, and four, count them, four brick chimneys. One-story brick loggias topped with brick balustrades. The kind of details that make you stop on the sidewalk and just stare for a moment longer than you meant to.

What's remarkable is that the original floor plan and interior finishes are still there, still intact, still telling the story of what Briscoe imagined back in 1914. Now the house was built for Edwin L. Neville and his wife, Daphne Palmer.

Edwin was a partner at Dorrance and Company, and these two were not the type to just settle into a fine house and call it a life. They were active. The Houston Community Chest, the Junior League of Houston, the Edward Palmer Memorial Chapel, Jefferson Davis Hospital.

Civic life in Houston had their fingerprints on it. The house stayed in the Neville family all the way until 1949. Thirty-five years of one family inside those brick walls, under those four chimneys, moving through rooms that Birdsall P.

Briscoe drew up before the world had quite figured out what the twentieth century was going to ask of it. Some houses outlast the people who build them. This one earned it.

What the marker says

This 1914 Birdsall P. Briscoe house is a two-and-a-half story brick Tudor revival style residence. Retaining its original floor plan and interior finishes, it features half-timbered gables, a steeply-pitched hipped roofline, and four brick chimneys. Briscoe's design includes one-story brick loggias, topped with brick balustrades. Edwin L. Neville, partner at Dorrance & Company, and his wife, Daphne Palmer, were active in civic affairs, including the Houston community chest, the Junior League of Houston, inc., the Edward Palmer Memorial Chapel and Jefferson Davis Hospital. The house remained in the Neville family until 1949.