DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and I'm just along for the ride. Now, if you've ever driven through Kaufman County and felt the road itself slow down a little, like it wanted you to take notice, well, there's a reason for that. What stands out here is what folks called an unusual mansion, and unusual is doing some serious work in that sentence.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Warren had this place built in 1904, and they weren't thinking small. The architect was J.
E. Flanders out of Dallas, and Keith and Company up in Kansas City came down to handle the stencilled interiors. When you bring in talent from two cities to finish your house, you are sending a message.
Eighteen rooms. Count 'em; eighteen. A formal reception hall, two large drawing rooms, a conservatory, and ten fireplaces, because apparently one per room wasn't quite the statement they were going for.
There's a basement. There's an attic. The house has layers, literally and otherwise.
Robert Lee Warren himself was born in 1865 and lived all the way to 1952, a man who watched a century turn and kept right on going. Along the way he served as a State Senator from 1911 to 1915, and in those years and beyond, this mansion was where leading Texans came to be entertained. You can almost hear the conversations that filled those drawing rooms, the fire crackling in one of those ten hearths, somebody making a case for something important in the reception hall.
The house carried all of that. And then time, as it tends to do, took its toll. By 1969, the place needed someone willing to believe in it again.
That's when Mr. and Mrs. Murphy L. Crowell bought it and set about restoring it.
An unusual mansion, built with intention, filled with history, and saved by people who understood what was worth saving. Some houses just refuse to be forgotten.
What the marker says
Unusual mansion built 1904 by prominent residents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lee Warren. Architect was J. E. Flanders, Dallas; Keith & Co., Kansas City, stencilled interiors. House has 18 rooms, including a formal reception hall, two large drawing rooms, a conservatory; ten fireplaces; a basement and attic. Robert Lee Warren (1865-1952), a 1911-15 State Senator, entertained many leading Texans in his home. Bought 1969, house was restored by Mr. and Mrs. Murphy L. Crowell.