Ellis House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm telling it to you. Way back in 1893, in Bowie County, a man named Gaither Booker Ellis and his wife Mary, born a Bell, needed a home worthy of a local realtor and loan agent. Now, they didn't just slap something together.

They called on Charles R. Korn, a local builder, and Korn delivered something to talk about. A two-story Victorian residence, asymmetrical in its plan, the kind of house that doesn't look the same from any two angles.

And here's the detail that really stops you: it had a tower. A tower, sitting up on top of that Victorian frame like it owned the whole street. Which, in a sense, it did, because the land the house stood on belonged to Mrs.

Ellis herself. Then came the 1920s, and the tower came down. Gone.

Just like that. Whatever reasons the years had for taking it, the marker doesn't say, and I won't pretend to know. What stayed, though, what's still there, are the porches on both the first and second floors, dressed up with jigsawn porch brackets, the kind of detail a builder puts in when he wants folks to remember the work long after he's gone.

Charles R. Korn knew what he was doing. The Ellis House is still standing in Bowie County, a two-story reminder that 1893 had its share of people who built things meant to last.

What the marker says

Built in 1893 as the home of Gaither Booker Ellis, local realtor and loan agent, and his wife Mary (Bell), this house was designed and constructed by local builder Charles R. Korn. Erected on land owned by Mrs. Ellis, the two-story Victorian residence was built in an asymmetrical plan with a tower that was removed in the 1920s. The house includes porches on both the first and second floors with jigsawn porch brackets. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997