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44_51_StaubHomes_0308_hou 45
The Splendid Houses of
J
OHN
F. S
TAUB
Stor y by
LINDA BARTH
|
Photography by
RICHARD CHEEK
from
The Country Houses of John F. Staub
, by Stephen Fox, published by Texas A&M University Press
Tour six houses in Houston this month by an architect
considered the finest of his generation in Texas
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Houstons emerging patrician class, newly affluent, appreciat-
ed Staubs ability to design grand houses dignified in their
restraint. Never showy or extravagant, his residences fit comfort-
ably into the fabric of a democratic society. He brilliantly adapt-
ed historic house models to contemporary life and to Houstons
terrain. While his various house styles may have referenced
Greek, Colonial American, Spanish and English architecture,
they always looked like Houston or the genteel, refined
Houston Staub envisioned the city to be.
This month six private homes designed by Staub will be
open to the public during the Rice Design Alliance 2008
Architecture Tour on March 29 and 30 from 1-6 p.m. each day.
The tour houses, pictured in these pages, are located in the
Broadacres, Sunnyside and River Oaks neighborhoods and
represent the various phases of Staub's career, the various scales
at which he worked and the various neighborhoods where his
designs were built.
The tour is open only to Rice Design Alliance members and
guests. RDA memberships beginning at $45 can be purchased
in advance at the RDA office or at select houses on the tour and
include a complimentary tour ticket (household level and higher
include two complimentary tickets). Tickets for RDA members
are $25 and $15 for students and senior citizens 65 years and
older. Information: 713.348.4876 or rda.rice.edu.
Preceding the tour, the distinguished pho-
tographer Richard Cheek will give an illustrat-
ed lecture on the architecture of Staub and
about the photographs he took for the book,
The Country Houses of John F. Staub,
published
by Texas A&M University Press (2007)
. The
lecture on Wednesday, March 19, 7 p.m. in
the Brown Auditorium of the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, is complimentary with pur-
chase of an RDA architecture tour ticket, $7
for RDA and MFAH members and seniors
over 65 and students and $10 for all others.
In the 1920s and 30s, Houstonians of means
and taste who wanted fine houses sought out
architect John F. Staub.
John S. Mellinger House
(1930-31) 3452 Del Monte Drive
The Splendid Houses of
J
OHN
F. S
TAUB
THIS PAGE
:
(Top) Detail of the
white pedimented
front door
(Middle) At the back
door of the Mellinger
House, a shingle-faced
gabled bay overlaps the
brick block while a less
elaborate architrave
frames the door.
(Below) Aligned door-
ways allow a view from
the dining room
through the 12 1/2-
foot-wide central hall
into the paneled living
room. The aligned
doors and hallway
make the compact
house feel spacious.
OPPOSITE PAGE
:
The New England
Georgian Colonial
house that John F.
Staub designed for
Marguerite Meachum
and John S. Mellinger
is an icon of River Oaks
identity. The white-paint-
ed house is graciously
set far back on its lot. 47
H O W S TA U B D E F I N E D H O U S T O N
A native of Knoxville, Tenn., with a masters degree in architec-
ture from MIT, Staub began to build his reputation while
working in New York for the noted country-house architect
Harrie T. Lindeberg, There, Staub learned the scale, proportion
and details essential to creating the stately country houses in
vogue among the elite classes at the turn of the century. The
country house was a style of house, rather than a structure on
a rural estate. Although these houses came to be built in or near
the city, they were designed to open up to their spacious
grounds and lawns as though they were houses in the country.
In 1921 Lindeberg dispatched Staub to Houston to oversee
construction of three country houses, and the rest is history.
Staub never left Houston. He was asked to design the club-
house of the River Oaks Country Club, and dozens more house
projects came his way, including two that are now house muse-
ums of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Bayou Bend and
Rienzi.
In my opinion, Mr. Staub was the outstanding architect of
his generation in Texas, says Stephen Fox, architectural histori-
an and author of The Country Houses of John F. Staub. For me,
a combination of both imagination and rigor distinguished his
architecture. The way in which he continually and ingeniously
adapted historical models that would have seemed especially
inappropriate in Houston and made them seem reasonable and
at home in Houston really stands out for me. The rigor with
which he resolved the practical issues of planning and climate,
taking advantage of sites that often
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The Splendid Houses of
J
OHN
F. S
TAUB
Tom Scurry House
(1936-37) 1912 Larchmont Road
C. Milby Dow House
(1926-27) 1305 South Blvd.
seemed to have no distinctive characteristics,
marks his architecture as very intelligently and
conscientiously developed.
The qualities inherent in Staubs architec-
ture enabled him to frame, magnify and
identify a patrician class in Houston from the
1920s through the 1950s, Fox writes in his
book.
T H E S TA U B FA M I LY I N H O U S T O N
Houston was a sleepy Southern town in
those days, recalls Caroline Staub Callery,
Staubs youngest daughter who lives in
Houston and who will be attending the tour
with her daughter, Nancy Callery Bowling,
an architect in Seattle. My father just wanted
to build a comfortable house for people.
The Staubs lived in River Oaks amid the
other houses Staub had designed for his
clients and friends. Very often, clients became
good friends of John and Madeleine Staub,
an affable couple who loved to dance
and enter-
ABOVE LEFT
:
Scurry House, view of south ele-
vation from side garden. This houses gener-
ously sized reception rooms betray its small
size; its the smallest Staub-designed house
in River Oaks.
ABOVE RIGHT
:
Staub based his design of the house for Sarah Chambers and Tom
Scurry on the historic 1854 Kellum-Noble House now located at Sam Houston Park.
Instead of reproducing the front elevation of the Kellum-Noble House, Staub rotated it
so that its L-plan rear elevation became the street front. This gave the living room and
dining room three exposures each.
The Broadacres house of widower C. Milby Dow and his daughter, Dagmar, is based
on an 18th-century English Georgian model. The three-bay house subtly clad in a mixed
blend of sandstruck brick features a decorative cast-stone cornice along the central
bay, which underscores the lack of ornamentation on the rest of the façade.
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LEFT
:
Detail of Hutcheson
house chimney made
of textured orange-red
clinker brick
RIGHT
:
The shingled Colonial
house in Broadacres
Staub designed for
Eleanor Thomson and
Palmer Hutcheson was
his first Houston resi-
dence. The front door is
framed by Staubs chas-
tened version of an 18th-
century colonial scrolled
pediment, Fox writes.
LEFT
:
Detail of dormer window,
Hutcheson House
Palmer Hutcheson House
(1924-25) 1405 Nor th Blvd.
ABOVE
:
The south-facing garden elevation of the house
resembles a more conventional Georgian house
front. A pair of French doors framed by a flat archi-
trave provides an unpretentious entry. house
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The Splendid Houses of
J
OHN
F. S
TAUB
tain. The Staub family house was cater-corner from the Mellinger
House pictured on the cover of The Country Houses of John F. Staub.
That was my godmothers house, Callery says. The Scurry House on
Larchmont Road, also on the RDA tour, housed one of Callerys dear-
est friends. I spent many a night there, she says. I cant wait to see it
again.
River Oaks then was a suburb on the edge of Houston and seemed
rural. Del Monte Drive ended in virgin woodlands, Callery says. She
practically lived in those woods. A neighbor on Chevy Chase Street
kept horses that he would harness and ride down the streets every
Andrew Jackson Wray House
(1938-39) 3 Remington Lane
morning. I would awaken to the clip-
clop of horses hooves, she remembers.
What can Houstonians learn today
from the houses Staub designed 80 and
90 years ago? I hope people come away
sensing the proportion of the mass of
the house to the space of the lot,
Callery says. A gracious lawn and gar-
den were essential to the look o