DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture a man who crossed an ocean, built a city with his own two hands — literally — and then turned around and ran that city for six years. That's William J.
Bryce, born in Scotland in 1861, and if Fort Worth has any bones at all, some of them are his. He arrived in Fort Worth in 1883 and built himself a brick contracting business, the kind of successful enterprise that leaves a mark on a skyline. And when a man spends his days thinking in brick and mortar, when he finally builds himself a home, he does not think small.
In 1893, Bryce constructed this house — and he didn't just sketch something out on a napkin. He brought in Sanguinet and Messer, one of the prominent architectural firms of the day, and what they gave him was something Texas had almost never seen before or since. They called the style Chateauesque, which sounds exactly like what it is — something that belongs on a hillside in the French countryside, not the rolling plains of Tarrant County.
Richardsonian arches sweeping up from the ground, gabled dormers cutting into the roofline, the whole thing sitting there with the quiet confidence of a man who knows exactly what he's built. And Bryce knew. He lived in that house — Fairview — right up until his death in 1944.
In between, he found time to serve as Mayor of Fort Worth from 1927 to 1933. Six years running a city he helped build, brick by brick, starting back in 1883. One of the rare examples of a Chateauesque dwelling in all of Texas, they said.
Rare. For a man who came from Scotland with nothing but ambition, rare seems about right.
What the marker says
A native of Scotland, William J. Bryce (1861-1944) moved to Fort Worth in 1883 and developed a successful brick contracting business. In 1893 he constructed this house, which was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Sanguinet & Messer. The Mayor of Fort Worth from 1927 to 1933, Bryce lived here until his death. One of the rare examples of a Chateauesque dwelling in Texas, Fairview features Richardsonian arches and gabled dormers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1983.