H.P. and Mollie McCartney House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the H.P. and Mollie McCartney House in Ellis County. Now settle in, because this one's about a house with a little magic baked right into the walls. Homer Patrick McCartney, born in 1901, and his wife Mollie, born in 1899, had a vision.

They wanted a home. Not just any home, mind you. They went out and commissioned Charles S.

Dilbeck, a noted Dallas architect, and a local contractor by the name of Fin Garvin, and they said, build us something. And those two men delivered something the neighborhood had probably never seen coming. The house was completed in January of 1939, a French eclectic style design that Dilbeck approached with what the marker itself calls a whimsical hand.

Now when an architect gets called whimsical, you pay attention, because that word covers a lot of ground. Here, it covers irregularly coursed limestone, brick, and rough timber on the façade. It covers a turret, the kind of thing you half expect to see in a storybook, complete with a Juliet balcony.

There's a Dutch door at the entry, leaded glass windows, and dormers tucked into the roofline. Step inside and the story keeps going. A large front hearth anchors the living space.

Decorative rosettes dress the doors. And then there's the dining room ceiling, patterned in diamond-cut oak, the kind of detail that makes a dinner guest stop mid-sentence and look up. Homer Patrick McCartney lived until 1955.

Mollie, born in 1899, lived all the way to 1990. And through all of it, and well beyond, the house stayed in the McCartney family. It wasn't until 1983 that it finally passed out of their hands.

Forty-four years a family home, with a turret and a diamond ceiling and a Dutch door to greet whoever came calling. Charles Dilbeck gave them whimsy. The McCartneys gave it time.

That's a pretty good deal all around.

What the marker says

Homer Patrick (1901-1955) and mollie (Biard) McCartney (1899-1990) commissioned noted Dallas architect Charles S. Dilbeck and local contactor Fin Garvin to build their family home which was completed in Jan. 1939. Dilbeck’s whimsical design for a French eclectic style home is evident in the irregularly coursed limestone, brick and rough timber façade, turret with Juliet balcony, Dutch door entry, leaded glass windows and dormers. Notable interior features include a large front hearth, decorative rosettes on the doors, and a diamond-patterned oak ceiling in the dining room. The house remained in the McCartney family until 1983.