DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one behind the wheel. Now, if you want to understand Houston — really understand it — you've got to start with a man named Jesse H. Jones.
Prominent real estate developer, publisher, statesman, banker. That's not a resume, that's a force of nature. And in 1929, Jesse H.
Jones opened the Gulf Building right here in Houston, and when those doors swung wide, he wasn't doing it small. His primary tenants were Gulf Oil, National Bank of Commerce, and Sakowitz Brothers. You don't open a skyscraper with those names attached unless you mean business.
The man Jones chose to design the thing was Alfred C. Finn, and Finn delivered something worth talking about for the next century. An Art Deco edifice — four hundred and thirty feet high.
Steel frame, thirty-seven floors. The design had a six-story base holding everything up, and then a tall tower rising above it, diminishing in size as it climbed — like it was reaching for the sky but had the good manners to taper as it went. Elegant, and enormous.
For thirty-four years, the Gulf Building stood as Houston's tallest skyscraper. Thirty-four years. Cities were growing all around it, ambition was stacking up in steel and glass across the country, and this building just kept standing there at the top of the Houston skyline, holding its position.
Then came 1986. The building was owned by a successor bank by then, and they put fifty million dollars into a restoration. Fifty million.
That's a statement — not about age, but about worth. In 2000, it was renamed the JPMorgan Chase Building, and it continues to stand as a monument to Houston's growth, its modernity, and its financial prosperity. Jesse Jones opened a building in 1929, and nearly a hundred years later, it's still in the conversation.
That's not just architecture. That's a city telling you who it is.
What the marker says
Prominent real estate developer, publisher, statesman and banker Jesse H. Jones opened the Gulf Building in 1929 with Gulf Oil, National Bank of Commerce, and Sakowitz Brothers as primary tenants. Alfred C. Finn designed the 430foot high Art Deco edifice with a six-story base topped by a tall tower that diminishes in size as it rises. The 37-floor, steel-frame structure remained Houston's tallest skyscraper for 34 years. In 1986, the building, then owned by a successor bank, underwent a $50 million restoration. It was renamed the JPMorgan Chase Building in 2000 and continues to be a monument to the city's growth, modernity and financial prosperity. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2007