Simon Gugenheim House

Duane's take

The official marker tells the story, and here's my telling of it. Now, Corpus Christi has seen some characters come through over the years, but few arrived quite like Simon Gugenheim. The year was 1882, and this native Texan walked into town with exactly forty dollars in his pocket.

Forty dollars. You hold onto that number, because the story that follows is going to make it feel very, very small. Simon and a friend formed the Gugenheim and Cohn Drygoods Co., and that was just the beginning.

By 1891, the year he married Lila Belle Soloman, he was already acquiring a great deal of property. Then came 1896, and with it a recession that threatened to buckle the city's economy. Simon Gugenheim helped rescue it.

Not watch from the sidelines. Helped rescue it. And if that weren't enough, he later became a successful investor in the petroleum industry.

The man who arrived with forty dollars eventually gave away four lots on South Broadway as the site for a YMCA building. They hung his portrait there. Seems about right.

Around 1900, Simon and Lila Belle had a house built at 1101 North Chaparral, and that house is something to talk about all on its own. The builder did not hold back. Bay windows.

A lunette in the front pediment. Gables faced with shingles. Porches dressed up with columns, brackets, and banisters.

And the cornices, well, the cornices featured wooden beads, spindles, lattices, and what the marker lovingly calls Victorian gingerbread. This was a Victorian house built in the early nineteen hundreds and it was not shy about it. In 1924, Simon and Lila Belle sold the home and moved into a modest apartment.

Modest. After all of that. The house itself was later moved to its present site during a period of city growth, and here is the detail that stops you cold.

That turret up top, that Victorian tower reaching skyward, it survived all others in the domestic architecture of Corpus Christi. Every other turret in town is gone. This one is still standing.

Simon Gugenheim, born in 1861, died in 1942, arrived with forty dollars and left a city a little richer in more ways than one. And that turret is still up there, outlasting them all.

What the marker says

This structure was built at 1101 North Chaparral for Simon and Lila Belle (Soloman) Gugenheim. Simon Gugenheim (1861-1942) was a native Texan who came to Corpus Christi in 1882 with forty dollars in his pocket and remained to become wealthy. He and a friend formed the Gugenheim and Cohn Drygoods Co. In 1891, the year of his marriage, he acquired a great deal of property when he helped rescue the city's economy during a recession in 1896, and later was a successful investor in the petroleum industry. The Gugenheims had this house built about 1900. They moved into a modest apartment and sold their home in 1924. Among their philanthropies was a gift of four lots on South Broadway as the site for a YMCA building, where Gugenheim's portrait was hung. Their Victorian house of the early 1900s was moved to its present site during a period of city growth. The turret on this house survived all others in the domestic architecture of the city. The builder adorned the house with bay windows; a lunette in the front pediment; and gables faced with shingles; ornamenting the porches with columns, brackets, and banisters, and with cornices displaying wooden beads, spindles, lattices, and other Victorian gingerbread. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976