DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Westover Manor, out in Tarrant County. Now, some houses just sit on a piece of land. And then there are houses that arrive like they've got something to prove.
Westover Manor is that second kind. The year was 1929, and somebody had a vision — not just for a house, but for a whole community called Westover Hills. This manor was built in 1929 and 1930 to serve as the flagship for that development.
The flagship. The one that was supposed to make everybody else say, yes, I want to live near that. And it worked, because the Fort Worth Star-Telegram — one of the great newspapers of Texas — looked out across the landscape of homes in the region and named this place its "Home Beautiful." You don't get a designation like that without earning it.
Now, let's talk about the man who built this life inside those walls. John E. Farrell moved in come 1930 and stayed until his death in 1946.
He was the first Mayor of Westover Hills — fitting, really, that the man living in the flagship was also the man running the town. But Farrell had another distinction entirely separate from civic life. In 1931, he was co-discoverer of the vast east Texas oil field.
The vast east Texas oil field. You already know what that means for Texas history. The house itself was designed by architect Victor Marr Curtis, and Curtis did not come to play it safe.
What he gave Westover Hills was a Norman-Jacobethan revival mansion — that's Norman and Jacobethan working together in the same structure, which sounds like it shouldn't work and somehow absolutely does. Curtis used brick alongside rough-cut limestone, and the two materials create what the marker calls a picturesque blend. Your eye keeps moving, keeps finding something new.
Then there's that bell-cast tower roof — the kind of silhouette that makes you slow the car down without quite knowing why. Tudor chimneys rise up against the Texas sky. Half-timbered gables frame the upper stories.
And the roof tile comes in vari-shaded colors, which means the whole thing shifts depending on the light and the hour and the season. A flagship for a new community. A mayor's home.
The address of a man who helped uncover one of the great oil fields in the state's history. And through it all, one architect's vision holding it together in brick and limestone and tile. Westover Manor wasn't just built to impress.
It was built to last — and by the look of things, it has.
What the marker says
Built in 1929-30 as the flagship for development of Westover Hills, this Norman-Jacobethan revival mansion was selected as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper's "Home Beautiful". John E. Farrell (1891-1946), first Mayor of Westover Hills and co-discover of the vast east Texas oil field in 1931, lived here from 1930 until his death. Designed by architect Victor Marr Curtis, the house exhibits picturesque blend of materials, including brick and rough-cut limestone, and features a bell-cast tower roof, Tudor chimneys, half-timbered gables, and vari-shaded roof tile. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1988