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Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » Gulf Coast » Anahuac to Texas City » Liberty and Vicinity (Liberty County) » T. Jeff Chambers House

T. Jeff Chambers House

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1860s. 624 Milam St.
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )

The Chambers House is a rare Texan survivor of the vogue for octagonal planned houses promoted in the 1840s and 1850s by popular writer and phrenologist Orson S. Fowler, who spoke in Galveston on a lecture tour in 1859. An inset, triangular planned entrance porch faces Milam Street. The corners of the octagon are articulated with delicate pilasters. Tripartite windows framed by architraves with raked headers are centered on each wall plane and a lone chimney stack protrudes from the center of the house. A projecting bay facing south and a rear (east) wing do not disrupt the geometric clarity of the design. The house is raised on brick piers. Tall cedar trees, a favorite domestic tree of Texan elites in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, and a huge southern magnolia tree testify to the antiquity of the site. The house is still owned by Chambers's descendants.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

San Jacinto Elementary School
Liberty County Courthouse
W. C. Abbott House
Geraldine D. Humphreys Cultural Center
Tarver Abstract Company Building (First National Bank)

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "T. Jeff Chambers House", [Liberty, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-AT11.

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