Jester-Butler House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Somewhere in Navarro County stands a house that doesn't just sit on its lot, it presides over it. The Jester-Butler House.

And the story behind those walls is worth slowing down for. The home was completed in 1920, built for rancher and banker Charles Jester and his wife Marion. Now, Charles needed something that said something, and the man he turned to knew exactly how to say it in brick and slate and wood.

That man was Birch D. Easterwood, born in 1885, gone in 1969, and in between those two years he left his mark on some of the finest buildings in Texas. Easterwood was a favorite architect for major buildings on the Baylor University campus, Pat Neff Hall among them, and the Jester home shows you exactly why.

Colonial revival design, but not the stiff, by-the-numbers kind. This is colonial revival by somebody who genuinely understood detail and proportions, who knew that the space between a roofline and a cornice could make or break the whole conversation a building is trying to have with you. And Easterwood had a signature.

You learn to recognize it once you know what to look for: a slate roof, wide woodwork running under the roof line, and deep red brick. Not orange, not brown, deep red. The Jester home has all of it.

Then comes 1932. The house changes hands, sold to oilman Joe E. Butler and his wife Ora.

The Butlers weren't just passing through, either. They kept that home, cared for it, called it theirs all the way until 1979. That's a long and faithful stewardship of something worth keeping.

Two families, one architect, and a house in Navarro County that still stands as proof that when somebody truly knows their craft, what they build outlasts just about everything else.

What the marker says

An excellent and elegant example of colonial revival design by an architect well-trained in detail and proportions, the home of rancher and banker Charles Jester and his wife Marion was completed in 1920. It was designed by Birch D. Easterwood (1885-1969), who was a favorite architect for major buildings on the Baylor University Campus including Pat Neff Hall. The Jester home, sold to oilman Joe E. Butler and his wife Ora in 1932, displays several elements typical of Easterwood, such as the slate roof, wide woodwork under the roof line, and deep red brick. The Butlers owned the home until 1979. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997