Scott-Barker House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Somewhere in Melissa, Collin County, there's a house that has been quietly outlasting everything the world throws at it, and I do mean everything. Nobody knows exactly who built it, or when.

The best the record gives us is probably the 1870s. Whoever those builders were, they put up something solid, because by 1880 the house was already standing and waiting when Louis A. Scott came along.

Louis was a prominent merchant in Melissa; the kind of man a town notices; and he and his new wife Louise, born a Miss Allen, purchased the property that year. The Scott-Barker House had its first named owners. The Scotts held it for two decades, then sold in 1901.

Two years later, in 1903, Hugh M. and Fannie Barker took ownership. The Barkers. And that's where this house really digs in.

Now, here's where I want you to slow down and listen. 1921. A tornado tore through Melissa. Devastated the town.

That's the word on the marker: devastated. The kind of storm that rewrites a community's story in a single afternoon. And when it was done with Melissa, when it had taken what it came to take?

It took a chimney. One chimney. From this house.

That's it. The Barker daughters lived in that house for 85 years. Eighty-five years.

A tornado came through and left with a chimney, and the daughters stayed on. And it's worth stepping back and looking at the thing itself, because it is something to see. An L-plan Victorian-era dwelling, the marker calls it; and it's got pedimented door and window surrounds, which is already more than most houses in any century can claim.

But the detail that really sets it apart? The dormers. Highly unusual dormers with distinctive Mansard-type roofs.

The kind of architectural flourish that makes you stop on the sidewalk and think, now who decided to do that, and why aren't more people doing it? Probably built in the 1870s. Still standing.

Still distinctive. The tornado came and went. The Scott-Barker House did not.

What the marker says

Probably erected in the 1870s, this house was already standing when prominent Melissa merchant Louis A. Scott and his new wife Louise (Allen) purchased the property in 1880. The Scotts sold the house in 1901, and in 1903 it was purchased by Hugh M. and Fannie Barker. A 1921 tornado devastated the town but took only a chimney from this house, which the Barker's daughters occupied for 85 years. A fine example of an L-plan Victorian-era dwelling, the house features pedimented door and window surrounds and highly unusual dormers with distinctive Mansard-type roofs. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1999