Rockwell House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Down in Cameron County, in a neighborhood called Los Ebanos Estates, there stands a house that has a way of stopping you in your tracks before you even reach the front door. This is the story of the Rockwell House.

A city engineer by the name of Fayette L. Rockwell purchased this place, and what he commissioned was no ordinary structure. He brought in an architect named Roscious Newell Waters to design it, and a builder named S.

W. McKenzie to raise it up, and in 1930 those three men put something on that lot that folks are still talking about. Two stories of brick veneer, dressed up in Spanish Revival style, laid out on what they call an L-front plan, and crowned with a red tile roof.

Now that alone would be plenty to earn a second glance. But then you look a little closer. The chimney stack is rectangular, and it doesn't hide inside the walls the way most chimneys do.

It stands outside the exterior wall, bold as you please, with flues protruding out from it like it has something to say. And perched up there, prominent for all of Los Ebanos Estates to see, is a metal sailboat figure. Not a weather vane, not a finial.

A sailboat. Riding the Texas sky above a Spanish Revival rooftop in 1930. That right there is a man with a point of view.

Fayette Rockwell wasn't just tending to his house, either. He was deeply woven into the fabric of that city, serving on several boards and keeping his hands in citrus cultivation. The Rockwell family enjoyed this place clear through the 1960s.

Decades of red tile and river breezes and that little metal sailboat catching the wind up top. Some houses hold a family. This one held an era.

What the marker says

Situated in Los Ebanos estates and purchased by city engineer Fayette L. Rockwell, this house was designed by architect Roscious Newell waters and built by S. W. Mckenzie in 1930. Enjoyed by the Rockwell family through the 1960s, it is a two-story, brick veneer, Spanish revival house with an l-front plan and a red tile roof. The house is marked by its rectangular chimney stack built outside of the exterior wall with protruding flues and prominent metal sailboat figure. Greatly involved in the city, Rockwell served on several boards and was engaged in citrus cultivation. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK - 2017