In the 1930s the ranching elite of the Coastal Bend, flush with oil and gas royalties, may have imagined themselves ensconced in mythical “Southern Colonial” plantation houses, but they—and their architects— overlooked the genuine late Grecian-style houses that were built along the coast, which were most often cottages rather than grand two-story houses. The wooden house, built by John S. Ragland, a doctor and drug store operator who came to Refugio from Victoria, is a handsome example of a Grecian-style cottage, notable for the fluted Doric pilasters that support its pedimented front porch gable; its front-facing windows and front door with transom and sidelights, all framed with architraves; and pilasters with Doric capitals that bracket the street front of the house.