Murphy Home

Duane's take

The official marker's got the story, and here's how I tell it. Somewhere in Victoria County, there's a house that couldn't make up its mind. Built in 1897, it looked out at the Texas coastal plain wearing two completely different personalities at once.

Southern plantation on one side, New England Saltbox on the other. Now, most buildings pick a lane. This one did not.

And honestly, that stubbornness might be exactly why it's still standing. The house went up in 1897, and from the beginning it seems like everybody in Nursery who was anybody eventually called it home. R.

S. Fowler lived there. John M.

Horton lived there. E. S.

Jennings lived there. Louie Carpenter lived there. And then for many years, W.

M. Murphy, Sr. made it his own, enough so that today folks know it simply as the Murphy Home. That's quite a guest list for one address in one small Texas community.

A plantation porch shading New England rooflines, a parade of prominent Nursery citizens passing through its doors across the decades. Some houses hold a family. This one held a whole town's worth of notable names.

And it's still there to prove it.

What the marker says

Built 1897 combining southern plantation and New England Saltbox styles of architecture. Home of prominent Nursery citizens R. S. Fowler, John M. Horton, E.S. Jennings, Louie Carpenter,and for many years, W.M Murphy, Sr. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966