DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. The house goes by the name White Haven, and if you've ever stood in front of it on Lakeshore Drive in Port Arthur, you'd understand why a name like that sticks. It carries itself with a certain authority.
The kind of authority that gets built into a house when it goes up in 1915 for a man like Dr. Harvey D. Morris.
From the very beginning, this was not a modest undertaking. But hold on, because the story doesn't stop with Dr. Morris.
Two more families would put their mark on this place. The C. E.
Booz family called it home, and so did the Carl White family. Three families, one house, and a whole lot of history folded into those walls. Now, around 1923, White Haven underwent what the marker calls major renovations.
And when you hear what those renovations included, you'll agree that's not an overstatement. They added a wraparound porch, the kind that invites you to sit a spell and watch the world go by. And then, crowning the whole affair, a massive pedimented portico supported by paired Ionic columns.
Paired. Ionic. Columns.
That's not a front porch. That's a declaration. White Haven is representative of the residences that were built along Lakeshore Drive in the early nineteen hundreds, and it reflects something the marker calls Port Arthur's cosmopolitan heritage.
That phrase does a lot of work. It tells you this stretch of road, this city on the Gulf Coast, was home to people who built with ambition and intention. Three families.
One grand house. A wraparound porch and columns that still have something to say.
What the marker says
(White Haven) Built in 1915 for Dr. Harvey D. Morris, this has also been the home of the C. E. Booz and Carl White families. The home underwent major renovations about 1923, including the additions of the wraparound porch and the massive pedimented portico supported by paired Ionic columns. It is representative of the residences built along Lakeshore Drive in the early 1900s and reflects Port Arthur's cosmopolitan heritage. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988