DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the official marker's own account, the way I'd tell it around a fire. Now, Quality Hill. Even the name sounds like a place that expects something of you.
And back in 1899, when a local contractor by the name of John Allen Greathouse — and friend, that is a name built for a man who builds things — broke ground on a house for the William H. Herblin family, Quality Hill was exactly the kind of neighborhood where a man wanted his home to make a statement. The work stretched from 1899 into 1900, and when the dust settled, two thousand five hundred dollars had changed hands.
That was the price of the whole project. For that sum, Greathouse delivered what you'd call an Eastlake slash Queen Anne house — a style that wears its ornamentation like a proud peacock, all flourish and detail. But here's where the story gets interesting.
Somewhere before 1917, somebody looked at that original brick exterior and decided it needed a coat of stucco. Just like that, the bones of the old house disappeared beneath a new face. And that wasn't the last time the place would reinvent itself.
In 1927, the William B. Shoe family purchased the home, and by then the house had already been drifting in a whole new direction. Tastes had shifted in the early twentieth century — away from all that Victorian exuberance, toward something more composed, more serious.
The Classical Revival style had arrived, bringing with it what the marker calls massive Ionic columns. Massive. Not decorative little accents — massive columns, planted out front like a statement of intent.
So what you've got, when you stand in front of this place, is a house that started as one thing and became another. Eastlake and Queen Anne underneath, Classical Revival on the outside, brick hidden under stucco, nearly a hundred years of changing hands and changing minds — all stacked up on a lot in Quality Hill. John Allen Greathouse built it to last.
Turns out, it did.
What the marker says
Built in 1899-1900 by local contractor John Allen Greathouse for the William H. Herblin family, this house was located in the neighborhood known as "Quality Hill." Construction costs totaled $2,500. The William B. Shoe family purchased the home in 1927. Classical Revival alterations to the original Eastlake/Queen Anne house reflect changing tastes in the early 20th century and include massive ionic columns. The original brick exterior was stuccoed before 1917. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1987