DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it my way. Back in 1905, somebody in Harris County did something a lot of ambitious folks were doing at the turn of the century — they ordered a house out of a catalog. Not a piece of furniture, not a set of curtains.
A whole house. The plans came from a Tennessee architect named George Barber, and the family who built from those plans was Benjamin and Bertie Harper, along with their two children. That's how the Harper House came to stand in what is now the Westmoreland Historic District.
Ben Harper was not a man who did things small, mind you. He owned Union Iron Works, Inc., and if that wasn't enough, he was also vice-president of the Harris County Bank and Trust Company. The man had irons in a lot of fires.
But the house — let's talk about the house. It's what Barber himself called a late Queen Anne design. Wrapped porch that pulls you in from every angle.
A decorative gable up top doing its level best to catch your eye. Projecting bays pushing out toward the world like the house itself has something to say. And Doric columns standing at attention like they've been there since ancient Greece and plan to stay a good while longer.
Now here's the detail that makes a storyteller smile. All of that — every column, every bay, every sweep of that porch — fits Barber's design number two thirty-four. And Barber gave that design a name.
He called it Suburban Beauty. You can find it right there in an 1899 issue of American Homes magazine. So the next time you roll past a grand old house and wonder how it got that particular look, consider the possibility that somewhere, a man flipped through a magazine, pointed at a page, and said — that one.
That's the one. The Harper House has been standing in Westmoreland ever since, making the case that a mail-order dream, built right, can last a century and then some.
What the marker says
Constructed in 1905 from mail-order house plans designed by Tennessee architect George Barber, this residence in the Westmoreland Historic District was first occupied by Benjamin and Bertie Harper and their two children. Ben Harper owned Union Iron Works, Inc., and was vice-president of the Harris County Bank and Trust Company. Exhibiting characteristics of a late Queen Anne design with its wrapped porch, decorative gable, projecting bays and Doric columns, the Harper House fits Barber's design No. 234, labeled "Suburban Beauty" in an 1899 issue of American Homes. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2001