DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Sam and Marjorie Miller House in Hidalgo County. Now settle in, because this is a story about two people who left their mark on McAllen in just about every way a person can. Samuel Lynn and Marjorie Williams Miller — early leaders of that city, and I do mean early in the way that counts, the kind of early where you're helping build the thing from scratch.
Sam had his hands in a nursery, in banking, in real estate, and he was co-owner of the Hidalgo International Bridge. That's not one business empire, that's several, all running at once. But here's the move that really echoes down through time: in 1930, Sam donated one hundred and nine acres of land to establish the municipal airport.
One hundred and nine acres, just given over. That airport would go on to become McAllen Miller International Airport. Meanwhile, Marjorie wasn't standing still.
She was a civic leader, active in the Order of the Eastern Star, the kind of presence in a community that holds things together quietly and completely. Then the two of them took a trip to England, and something about that journey got into Marjorie's imagination and refused to leave. She came home with plans.
Her own plans, drawn up from whatever she'd seen and felt over there. She handed those plans to a man named Robert Vogler, and in 1937 he built them something — an English Tudor Revival house, designed by Vogler based on Marjorie's vision. Now, what makes this house more than just a pretty idea is who built it.
Local artisans. You can see their work in the Austin Cordova stonework, in the half-timbered gables, and in the gumwood detailing that runs inside and out. Every one of those details is a hand that shaped it, a skill that came from right there in the region.
A woman imagines a house from a memory of England, and craftsmen from South Texas bring it to life, stone by stone, beam by beam. That's the Miller House — and in McAllen, it turns out, that's exactly the kind of people the Millers were.
What the marker says
Samuel Lynn and Marjorie Williams Miller were early McAllen leaders. Sam had interests in a nursery, banking and real estate, and was co-owner of the Hidalgo International Bridge. In 1930, he donated 109 acres of land to establish the municipal airport, which later became McAllen Miller International Airport. Marjorie was a civic leader active in the Order of the Eastern Star. The Miller home, inspired by a trip to England, was built in 1937. Robert Vogler designed the English Tudor Revival house based on Marjorie's plans. The work of local artisans is evident in the Austin Cordova stonework, half-timbered gables and gumwood detailing inside and out. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2002