DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and it's a story worth the telling. Now, most houses just sit where they're built and call it a life. This one took a nine-block stroll.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It starts in Indianola — a town the Gulf of Mexico would later have strong opinions about — where Julius Lichtenstein came into the world in 1871. He was just three years old when his family packed up and moved to Corpus Christi, and in 1874 they opened a drygoods store.
Three years old, and already the boy had a commercial address. From childhood, Julius worked that store. Swept floors, learned the trade, watched the thing grow.
And grow it did — until it became the noted M. Lichtenstein and Sons, a firm that South Texas relied upon. Prestigious is the word the marker uses, and in a region where trust is currency, that word carries weight.
Several Weil family members joined the firm along the way, and in 1902 Julius Lichtenstein married Carrie Weil. Business and family, bound together the way things often were in those years. Then, in 1904, Julius's father Moritz Lichtenstein died, and Julius stepped into his father's place as head of the firm.
With that responsibility came travel — frequent visits to the East, where, the marker says, he apparently acquired a liking for architecture that contrasted with the Victorian forms usually seen in this region. You take a man out of South Texas long enough, and he starts noticing things. In 1905, Julius and Carrie built this house at 715 North Chaparral.
Colonial Revival style — a trend popularized by architect Stanford White of New York. The marker doesn't shy from the details: a stately front door, an elliptical porch, a peaked roof, other handsome features. Elegant, was the word.
Elegant, full stop. But here's the thing about the Lichtensteins — elegant apparently had a higher floor than most folks'. Because in 1913, they built a larger house and moved into that one instead.
They kept this place, mind you, held it in their hands until 1926. They just didn't live in it anymore. Some people's second-best is still pretty fine.
Then, in 1929, this house did something almost no house ever does. It moved. Nine blocks north.
Picked up and relocated like it had somewhere better to be. Julius Lichtenstein died in 1923, Carrie in 1958. The firm outlasted one, the house outlasted them both.
And that house — survivor of many fads, as the marker puts it — is still standing. A Colonial Revival in South Texas, built by a man who saw something on his travels and decided Corpus Christi deserved a piece of it. Some things, once built right, just refuse to disappear.
What the marker says
This was a merchant's residence of the early 1900s. Born in Indianola, Julius Lichtenstein (1871-1923) was three when his family moved to Corpus Christi and opened a drygoods store in 1874. From childhood, he worked in the store that in time became the noted M. Lichtenstein and Sons, a prestigious business relied upon in South Texas. Several Weil family members also joined the firm, and in 1902 Julius Lichtenstein married Carrie Weil (1877-1958). After the death in 1904 of his father, Moritz Lichtenstein, Julius was head of the firm. His duties frequently sent him on visits to the East, where he apparently acquired a liking for architecture that contrasted with the Victorian forms usually seen in this region. Julius and Carrie Lichtenstein built this house in 1905 at 715 North Chaparral. The style is Colonial Revival, in a trend popularized by architect Stanford White of New York. Elegant as this structure was--with its stately front door, elliptical porch, peaked roof and other handsome features--the Lichtensteins built and moved into a larger house in 1913, owning this place, however, until 1926. Moved nine blocks north in 1929, this structure, survivor of many fads, stands as an exhibit of a distinctive housing style. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976