Lees-Bryan House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you've got an eye for houses, the kind that make you slow down and rubberneck a little, then you already know the type. This one sits in Granbury, Hood County, and it has a story that stretches across nearly seven decades of the same family's life.

That's the kind of staying power most of us only dream about. This is the Lees-Bryan House, and it starts in 1890. That's when a Granbury merchant by the name of J.C.

Lees, a man who'd come all the way down from Canada to set up shop in Texas, had this place built. Now, Lees knew what he wanted. He built it in the Eastlake style, which means this wasn't some plain-faced box on a lot.

We're talking about a corner porch entry that draws your eye right in, and a corner tower crowned with fish-scale shingles and a pyramidal roof. Those are the features that still dominate the house today. Fish-scale shingles.

On a roof. In Texas. This man had opinions.

By 1895, Lees had sold the house to a man named S.L. Bowden. Now, Bowden's chapter in the story is shorter; but his family's chapter?

That's where the roots really dig in. Because Bowden had a daughter named Maude. And in 1903, Maude married a man named Hardy H.

Bryan, and the two of them made this house their home. That corner tower, those fish-scale shingles, that pyramidal roof: they became the backdrop to the Bryan family's life. For nearly seventy years, the house remained in the Bryan family.

J.C. Lees built it, S.L. Bowden bought it, and then Maude and Hardy Bryan settled in, and that was that.

Some houses just find the people they're meant for.

What the marker says

This Eastlake style house was built in 1890 for Granbury Merchant J.C. Lees, a native of Canada. The home was sold to S.L. Bowden in 1895. Bowden's daughter Maude lived here after her marriage to Hardy H. Bryan in 1903. The corner porch entry and corner tower with fish-scale shingles and pyramidal roof are dominant features of the Lees-Bryan house, which remained in the Bryan family for nearly 70 years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1985