DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Ponton House in Tarrant County. Now, some houses just sit there. Four walls, a roof, maybe a porch if you're lucky.
But then there are houses that announce themselves — houses that make the whole street stand up a little straighter. The Ponton House in Mistletoe Heights is that second kind. Around 1920, the Mistletoe Heights neighborhood was coming into its own.
Merchants, professionals, people of ambition — they were looking for a place to plant roots, and Mistletoe Heights was answering the call, emerging as one of Fort Worth's most desirable subdivisions. And into that moment stepped an architect by the name of Joseph R. Pelich.
Pelich was noted. That's the word the record uses, and noted is earned. Because what he drew up for this particular lot was not shy.
Spanish Eclectic style — and if you've never laid eyes on it, let me paint the picture for you. Clay tile roof, the color of the Texas sun baking into terracotta. Stucco walls, smooth and pale.
Large arched windows and doorways that don't just let the light in — they invite it, formally, like a guest worth impressing. Embellished door surrounds. A chimney belvedere.
And wrought iron detailing threaded through it all like a signature. This was not a house built to blend in. The first people to call it home were Dr.
Arvel Ponton and his wife Faye. First occupants of a house like that — there's a certain weight to being first. And Dr.
Ponton, it turns out, carried his own weight in this community. He helped establish Fort Worth's Protestant Hospital. That's the kind of thing that leaves a mark on a city — not just on a street.
And later, he opened his own clinic, in a building also designed by Pelich. Same architect, different walls, same hand in the details. There's something almost poetic in that — a doctor who helped build institutions for healing, living in a home built by the same man who would later design the place where he worked.
Pelich's name is threaded through the story of this family the way that wrought iron is threaded through the house itself. Mistletoe Heights got its desirable subdivision. Fort Worth got its Protestant Hospital.
And at the corner of all of it stands a Spanish Eclectic house, circa 1920, with a clay tile roof and arched windows that have been watching the neighborhood change for over a hundred years — and not once, not for a single decade, looking out of place.
What the marker says
At the time of this home's c. 1920 construction, the Mistletoe Heights neighborhood was emerging as a desirable subdivision for merchants and professionals. Designed by noted local architect Joseph R. Pelich, the Spanish Eclectic style home features a clay tile roof, large arched windows and doorways, stucco walls, embellished door surrounds, chimney belvedere and wrought iron detailing. Dr. Arvel and Faye Ponton were the first occupants. Dr. Ponton helped establish Fort Worth's Protestant Hospital and later his own clinic in a building also designed by Pelich. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2008