W.S. Gibbs Home impressive structure

By Mike Yawn

You might forgive those who have recently driven down 11th Street and failed to note the old W.S. Gibbs Home nestled atop the southeast corner of 11th Street and Avenue O.

Despite adjoining one of the city’s busiest streets, the home has long been receding into obscurity, shrouded by trees and ivy. Its obscurity is now complete: in the past month, it was dismantled.

Designed by renowned Houston architect Harry Payne, the home typified the Colonial Revival style: a symmetrical structure, a tall, slender design with side chimney, paired windows on either side of the door, and a side porch on the second story.

The grounds were also impressive — the Gibbs’ driveway was narrow and ascended steeply up the east side of the house, snaking around the back where it encircled a large cedar tree.

The front yard, according to a neighbor, was “immaculately landscaped” with a sidewalk that led from the front door, down the hill, to the point at which at the driveway met 11th Street. Other sidewalks meandered across the property and were bordered by impressive stone walls, some of which are still visible from certain angles north of the property.

The home was built in 1934. The original owner, W.S. Gibbs, moved in shortly after marrying Peggy Jones. The pair had planned a much larger house, but with the onset of the Great Depression — and soup kitchens on the square — they opted for a more modest structure.

Still, it was an impressive three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home and, according to a local resident, the first house in Huntsville with an automatic washing machine.

With the birth of their daughter Margaret in 1935, the Gibbs family expanded. Their property similarly expanded: following W. S. Gibbs’ service in World War II, the family added another structure, building a two-story party house for Margaret in the back yard. The bottom floor of the party house contained a ping-pong table, darts, a restroom, and a shower. On the upper floor guests enjoyed a fireplace, kitchenette, piano, and an expansive area for dancing. And much dancing took place in the early 1950s when Margaret was married in the family home.

She moved away, and eventually Gibbs would move to the outskirts of town, selling the home to the Huntsville Memorial Hospital in 1962.

The Huntsville Memorial Hospital used the old Gibbs Home to house staff in the 1960s and 1970s. Maxine Manning, the director of Nurses, lived there in the early 1960s. Darwin Winfield, the hospital administrator in the 1960s, lived there with his family from 1966 through 1970. His widow, Dee Dee Winfield, remembers the home as a “fine house. We didn’t have enough things to fill it up. I remember that there was a wonderful cedar closet, which was designed to protect furs and other clothes from moths. I thought, ‘Ooh, I wish I had furs to put in the closet.’ ”

The upstairs dining room was built with a “Servant Button,” depressed by foot, under the dining table. Ms. Winfield boasted to friends about her “servant button,” not always mentioning that she had no servants to summon. Recently, she told her son that the home was scheduled to be demolished.

He replied: “Oh, Mother, I don’t want them to tear that house down.”

Following the Winfields’ departure in 1970, the home was lived in by the Whitecotton family, after which it was used as office space and perhaps (recollections vary) as temporary housing for nurses.

By the late 1980s, it was used by the hospital district primarily for storage. For the last 20 years, the home’s inhabitants have been boxes, dust, and rust. Deteriorating and fading from sight, the house resembled the old home described by poet Joyce Kilmer “with its shingles faded and black. I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute and look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.”

As it fades to complete obscurity, perhaps passersby will pause for a minute on 11th Street and reflect on the old Gibbs Home and hope that Harry Payne’s other homes meet a better fate.

Note: Five other structures designed by Harry Payne still survive in Huntsville, each of which, like the Gibbs Home, has contributed to the city’s landscape.

The Gabe Smither Home, now the Smither, Martin, Henderson, and Blazek Law Firm, was built in 1924 and remains one of the more impressive Georgian-Revival structures in the city. Seven years later, SHSU President Harry Estill employed Payne to design his retirement home.

This revival-style bungalow still stands at 1614 University and now houses the Episcopal Student Union. That same year, Payne built what is now called the “Old Huntsville High School.”

This Classical Revival style building was recently purchased by David Adickes and there is hope afoot that the building might be used as his art studio. Payne also designed the old Walker County Jail, one of the city’s few Art Deco structures. Although steel bars still grace the windows, it now houses the Bloodworth Law Offices at 1012 University. Payne’s crowning achievement was the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, built in 1936, the 100th anniversary of the Texas Revolution. The museum, modeled after Jefferson’s Monticello, maintains an imposing presence in the center of town, amidst Sam Houston Park between the historic avenues and Sam Houston State University, not far off the downtown square.

These structures largely differ from Payne’s work on the Gibbs’ Home in style and material, but as County Clerk James Patton notes, all of the architect’s Huntsville structures share a harmony with their environment and an eye-pleasing symmetry.