Fox-Caldwell House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker on the Fox-Caldwell House tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some houses just sit there. Four walls, a roof, a door; nothing more to say.

But then there are houses that carry a whole county's worth of story in their eaves and porches, and this one right here in Collin County is exactly that kind of house. It starts with George W. and Lula Fox, who built this place in 1915. George wasn't just anybody showing up with a hammer.

He was a descendant of one of Collin County's pioneer families, the kind of roots that go deep and wide, like a live oak that's been there so long the fence grew around it. He worked as a local Realtor and county official, a man with a stake in the land in every sense of the word. Now here's where the story gets its second chapter.

In 1922, prominent local citizens Gibson and Goldie Caldwell purchased the house. One family builds it, another family carries it forward; and together they give this place the name it still answers to: the Fox-Caldwell House. But let me tell you about the house itself, because this is where the builder earned his keep.

What went up in 1915 wasn't your plain-Jane farmhouse. The style is asymmetrical prairie school, and if that sounds like an architect showin' off, well, maybe a little. It's got a strong hipped roofline with deep eaves that reach out like arms trying to keep the Texas sun at bay.

The rafters are boxed and ornamental, meanin' somebody cared enough to make the bones of the thing beautiful. And wrapping around the whole structure is a porch, a real wraparound porch, where the columns and eaves pick up the same rhythm as the upper level, like a piece of music where the chorus answers the verse. There's a word for that kind of intentional building: character.

And character, turns out, is what keeps a house standin' long after the people who built it are gone.

What the marker says

This house was built in 1915 by George W. and Lula Fox. George Fox, the descendant of one of Collin county's pioneer families, was a local Realtor and county official. Prominent local citizens Gibson and Goldie Caldwell purchased the house in 1922. Its asymmetrical prairie school style features a strong hipped roof line with deep eaves, boxed ornamental rafters, and a wraparound porch whose columns and eaves repeat the rhythm of the upper level. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1994