DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Landes-McDonough House in Galveston County. Now, some houses just sit there looking pretty. And then there are houses that have seen things — real things — the kind that test whether walls and rooftops and the people inside them are going to hold together or not.
This one held together. Henry A. Landes had it built in 1887 and 1888.
The marker calls him a Confederate veteran and a capitalist, which tells you something about the kind of man who commissions a house with Romanesque accents, ornamental terra cotta, brick and ironwork, and an exuberant parapet and towers. He wasn't building a cottage. He hired prominent architects George E.
Dickey of Houston and D. A. Helmich to design the thing, and what they delivered was a full-throated eclectic Victorian structure — the kind of building that plants itself on a street and refuses to be ignored.
For about a dozen years, it was just a fine house on a Galveston lot. And then came 1900. If you know anything about Galveston, you know what 1900 means.
The marker calls it the disastrous 1900 hurricane, and that word — disastrous — is doing a lot of quiet work. Reportedly, some two hundred people took refuge inside these walls when that storm came ashore. Two hundred souls crowding into a house because the alternative was unthinkable.
Those towers and that parapet weren't just ornamentation anymore. They were shelter. The house passed hands in 1911, when John P.
McDonough — owner of a dry docks and ironworks business — purchased the property. Then in 1954, the Dominican Sisters acquired it, and for a number of years it housed a fine arts center. Confederate veteran.
Capitalist. Refuge for two hundred in the worst storm the Texas coast had ever seen. Dry docks man.
Dominican Sisters. Fine arts. One house.
A whole lot of Texas packed into those walls, terra cotta, brick and ironwork, and all.
What the marker says
Confederate veteran and capitalist Henry A. Landes (1844-1919) had this house built in 1887-88. Designed by prominent architects George E. Dickey of Houston and D. A. Helmich, the house reportedly provided refuge to some 200 people during the disastrous 1900 hurricane. John P. McDonough, owner of a dry docks and ironworks business, purchased the property in 1911. Acquired by the Dominican Sisters in 1954, it housed a fine arts center for a number of years. The eclectic Victorian structure features Romanesque style accents in its fine ornamental terra cotta, brick and ironwork, and its exuberant parapet and towers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973