Houston architect Watkin designed the largest house of his career for W. T. Eldridge, I. H. Kempner's partner, who managed the Imperial Sugar Company. The sprawling, stucco-finished, tile-roofed, Spanish Mediterranean house was a real country house, although today it is surrounded by prosaic, 1960s suburban development. Watkin's father-in-law, a Columbus lawyer named Marcus Townsend, had successfully defended Eldridge after he shot and killed his previous business partner.