The makings of a quality tourism center
The Cohn and Foley houses, top and bottom, stand as the only remaining homes from the old Quality Hill neighborhood at Rusk and what is now Avenida de las Americas. Soon, they’ll house a regional heritage tourism center. |
Story and photos by Dave Schafer
With his two daughters returning after years away at school, William Foley needed a larger home. The one-story house the girls and their brother had grown up in wasn’t big enough for all of them, so in 1904 Foley had a two-story wood house built.
Erected to shelter a large family, that historic house and the one next to it, the Arthur B. Cohn house built in 1905, will soon accommodate even larger groups. The last two houses of the neighborhood once known as Quality Hill are being renovated into a regional heritage tourism center that will serve 18 counties of the Upper Texas Gulf Coast.
The center is a partnership between the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance and the city.
“This will give people a starting spot to get the flavor of the area, and a place for tours to meet,” said Sharon Adams, head of intergovernmental relations for the Convention & Entertainment Facilities Department.
These houses, though, have their own stories to tell. “They represent important eras in Houston architecture,” Adams said. “Important people were born and raised in them.”
Foley’s store, but not that one
At his funeral in 1925, Foley was called the “dean of the mercantile industry in Houston.” He established the W.L. Foley Dry Goods Co. in the 200 block of Travis in 1876, according to a 1965 Houston Chronicle article. The store specialized in French imports and “ladies’ piece goods and notions.”
After his brother died in Ireland, Foley brought his nephews Pat and James Foley over and taught them the business. In 1900, they opened Foley Brothers department store.
In 1905, the Foleys moved into their new home at 1617 Texas Ave., a Neo-Classical house with four fluted Corinthian columns and a double gallery extending across its façade.
Within months of the move, railroad interests began buying up a 12-block area for a new Union Passenger Station.
Foley fought Houston Belt and Terminal Railway, but in 1906 the house site was lost in condemnation proceedings. Foley received $64,000 for the land.
In 1909, Foley moved his house to the corner of Capital and Chenevert, the site of the old one-story house.
“It was very common for houses to be moved then because it was much easier,” said David Bush, director of programs and information at the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance. “You didn’t have utilities hooked in and lots of wires overhead.”
The 1965 Chronicle article says that because of power lines, the roof had to be taken off and the upper story and columns shortened for the move. However, Bush is skeptical.
“In all the historic photos, it always had a funny look,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense that they’d have to do that. The columns are as tall as the second story, so they’re the correct height.”
In 1950, Blanche, Foley’s last living child, closed the store and sold the Foley name to Federated, which owned Foley Brothers department store. Federated dropped the “Brothers” moniker, leaving us with Foley’s department stores.
In 1963, Blanche bequeathed the estate to Annunciation Catholic Church. The last of the Foley items were sold at auction in 1965. In 2003, the city bought the house and moved it over and back to allow for the widening of Avendia de las Americas.
Cohn heads
About the time Foley moved his house, Arthur Cohn sold his home at 1711 Rusk Ave.
As agent for William Marsh Rice’s estate Cohn, was instrumental in the creation of Rice University and was its first business manager. He bought lot 12 for $4,000 in 1905. The land was originally owned by Winnifred Browne, one of Houston’s early homesteaders and mother to former mayor John T. Browne.
Oral history says all or part of the Browne house was incorporated in the Cohn house, according to “Houston: A History,” a book by David G. McComb.
When Cohn had the house built is unknown. He sold the land in 1909 for $12,000, according to Harris County deed records. That $8,000 land improvement was the cost of constructing a new house at the time, according to a house and land survey.
Cohn’s two-story, white-frame house was a late Queen Anne-style house. Asymmetrically composed with a variety of decorative elements, it was distinguished by its patterned windows and wide, bracketed eaves under an irregularly pitched roof. The double front doors had a beveled glass design, sidelights and a transom.
The house went through a succession of owners and was deteriorating when St. Francis Charities Inc. bought it in 1964, according to documents in the society’s collection.
The city bought the house in March 2003 and moved it a few feet west and turned 90 degrees so that, like the Foley house beside it, it fronts Avenida de las Americas.
The two homes stand against the progression of time, out of the past and out of place amongst parking lots, high-rise buildings and pristine sports venues.
“They provide a nice contrast to what’s happened in the city in just 100 years,” Bush said. “Imagine the changes those houses have seen.”
And the stories they could tell.
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