Wood-Valda Home

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Wood-Valda Home in Montgomery County. Now, some houses just sit on their land. Others settle into it, like they mean to stay a good long while.

Homewood is one of the latter kind. Built in 1887 by William Baker Wood, a man who wore a lot of hats out here, merchant, landowner, farmer, and his wife, Amelia Davis Wood. Between the two of them they put up something worth remembering.

William was born in 1853, Amelia in 1859, and together they raised a home that would outlast just about anyone who doubted it. The walls went up in choice heart pine, that dense, resin-rich wood that builders back then knew how to pick. The siding is shiplap, fitted tight.

The nails holding it all together, square nails, the kind that tell you right away you are dealing with a different era of craftsmanship. Now here is a detail worth savoring. The kitchen, at first, was detached.

A board and batten structure standing apart from the main house. Practical, deliberate, the way people built when they understood what a summer kitchen fire could do to a home they intended to keep. And underneath it all, a cypress-lined underground cistern, drawing on one of the most rot-resistant woods a Texas builder could reach for.

William Baker Wood lived until 1941. Amelia Davis Wood until 1943. Homewood stood through all of it, and it is still standing.

Some things, built right, just refuse to be a short story.

What the marker says

"Homewood." Built 1887 by merchant, landowner, farmer Wm. Baker Wood (1853-1941) and wife, Amelia Davis (1859-1943). Choice heart pine, shiplap siding. Square nails. Board and batten kitchen at first was detached. Cypress-lined underground cistern. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965