Smith-Rogers House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Smith-Rogers House in Potter County. Now settle in, because this is a story about a house that refused to die. It was built around 1904, out there in early Amarillo, for settlers James Bynum and Marie Lowery Smith.

Their address was 1101 South Taylor Street, and by all accounts, it was a proper Classical Revival home. Leaded glass windows. Roof cresting.

Interior woodwork with that turn-of-the-century craftsmanship that folks just don't put into a building the way they used to. It stood there on Taylor Street for decades, the kind of house that watched a city grow up around it. Then 1945 rolled around, and a man named Jesse A.

Rogers bought the property. Now here's where it gets interesting. Rogers had plans for that site.

Car dealership plans. The practical move, the obvious move, would have been to knock the old Smith house flat and get on with business. And most people, in most towns, would have done exactly that.

But Jesse Rogers looked at that house and made a different call. Instead of razing it, he had it moved. The whole thing, picked up and carried to a new location, to serve as his family's home.

While they were at it, architect C.W. Brott stepped in and made changes to the original design. So what you end up with is a house wearing two eras at once.

The leaded glass windows, the roof cresting, the interior woodwork, those are from the nineteen hundreds. The brick veneer, the balustrades, the full-height columns, those are from the nineteen forties. Two chapters, one house.

That's the Smith-Rogers House, still standing, still telling its story layer by layer.

What the marker says

THIS HOUSE WAS BUILT FOR EARLY AMARILLO SETTLERS JAMES BYNUM AND MARIE LOWERY SMITH c. 1904, AND WAS ORIGINALLY LOCATED AT 1101 SOUTH TAYLOR STREET. THE HOME WAS PURCHASED IN 1945 BY JESSE A. ROGERS, WHO PLANNED TO MOVE HIS CAR DEALERSHIP TO THE SITE. INSTEAD OF RAZING THE HOUSE, HE HAD IT MOVED TO ITS PRESENT SITE TO SERVE AS HIS FAMILY’S HOME. AT THE TIME OF ITS RELOCATION, ARCHITECT C.W. BROTT MADE CHANGES TO THE ORIGINAL DESIGN. THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL STYLE HOUSE NOW FEATURES LEADED GLASS WINDOWS, ROOF CRESTING AND INTERIOR WOODWORK FROM THE 1900s AND BRICK VENEER, BALUSTRADES AND FULL-HEIGHT COLUMNS FROM THE 1940s.