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Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » Gulf Coast » Orange to Port Arthur » Port Arthur (Jefferson County) » Pompeian Villa Museum

Pompeian Villa Museum

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1900, Nimmons and Fellows. 1953 Lakeshore Dr.
  • (The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

John W. Gates persuaded DeKalb, Illinois, barbed wire manufacturer Isaac L. Ellwood to build a winter cottage next to the substantial Colonial Revival house that Gates erected on Lakeshore Drive (demolished in 1960). Both houses were designed by Chicago architect George C. Nimmons. Ellwood shortly sold his house, which was eventually acquired by George M. Craig, chief executive of the Port Arthur Townsite and Land Company and local banker. The U-plan, pink stucco–faced, tile-roofed house, organized around an interior peristyle, is now open to the public as a historical house museum. The Pompeian Villa faces the undulating corniche of Lakeshore Drive, along with other substantial houses built in the early twentieth century.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Port Arthur Independent School District Performing Arts Building (Woodrow Wilson Junior High School)
Gates Memorial Library
Solid Rock Methodist Church (First Methodist Church)
Rose Hill
First National Bank Building

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Pompeian Villa Museum", [Port Arthur, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-OP18.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 384-384.

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