DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it right along to you. Now, the Houston Light Guard Armory — this is a building that knows how to make an impression, and it was designed to do exactly that. Alfred C.
Finn, a noted Houston architect, drew up the plans, and in 1925 those plans became stone and brick and something considerably more ambitious than your average warehouse with a flag out front. See, there had been an armory on the scene before this one — an 1892 building that had served its time and, by 1925, had simply become obsolete. So Finn got the commission to replace it, and he did not come to play it safe.
What he reached for was Late Renaissance period Neo-Gothic English masonry. Let that sit a moment. In Houston, Texas, in 1925, a man decided the thing to do was build something that looked like it belonged in another century and another continent — and then he went ahead and did it.
The alternating bands of brick and stone give the walls that unmistakable rhythm, and above the arched entrance, elaborate relief panels announce to anyone walkin' up that this is not a building that was in any hurry to be ordinary. Over the years, ownership of the armory has passed through more than one set of hands — the Houston Light Guard held it, then the State of Texas, then the Houston Community College. Three different stewards, three different chapters, but the building itself just kept standing there in its Neo-Gothic resolve, alternating bands and all, outlasting every notion that it might someday be forgotten.
What the marker says
Designed by noted Houston architect Alfred C. Finn, the armory was constructed in 1925 to replace an 1892 building that had become obsolete. Finn detailed the building to suggest a Late Renaissance period Neo-Gothic English masonry, represented by the alternating bands of brick and stone and elaborate relief panels above the arched entrance. The building has been owned by the Houston Light Guard, the State of Texas, and the Houston Community College. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1992