Link-Lee House

The Link-Lee House (1912), designed by the noted Fort Worth architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats, is an exceptional example of a Neo-Classical Revival style house, distinguished by its monumental portico, terra cotta and stone detailing, and decorative art glass. Prominently sited along the tree-lined esplanade of Montrose Boulevard, the elegantly designed house, together with its two-story carriage house and pergola, were the showplace of the Montrose Addition, Houston's largest restricted planned subdivision. Altered in 1922, to its present appearance, the Link-Lee House retains a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The Link-Lee House meets Criterion A in the area of Community Planning and Development, for the role it played in promoting the Montrose Addition, and Criterion C in the area of Architecture, for its exceptional design and association with the architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats.

Development of the Montrose Addition

During the first decades of the twentieth century, Houston emerged as a major metropolitan center, becoming the third-largest city in Texas in 1930. The opening of the Houston Ship Channel in 1914, coupled with its five radiating railroad lines, pushed the city into prominence as an important trade and transportation center. The discovery of oil at Spindletop in the 1920s, further increased the city's wealth and stature, as oil companies built refineries along the ship channel and erected striking corporate towers downtown. Along with its increased commercial stature, Houston's population doubled between 1900 and 1910, putting a strain on its already overcrowded residential neighborhoods. In response to this shortage of housing, land developers began building exclusive residential neighborhoods beyond the original townsite boundaries. Although connected to the downtown by streetcar lines, these subdivisions offered a retreat from the noise and congestion of the central city through deed restrictions that banned businesses and commercial intrusions.

The Montrose Addition began in 1909 when John Wiley Link purchased 165 acres of farmland just west of the exclusive neighborhoods of Westmoreland (1902), Courtlandt Place (1906), and Avondale (1907). This land had originally been part of the 1836 Obedience Smith land grant of 3,370 acres registered under headright certificate number 203. Following Mrs. Smith's death, the land went through a number of transactions and was subsequently sold for residential development after the city annexed the area in 1903. In September 1910, John Wiley Link moved to Houston from Orange, Texas, where he had been mayor and a prominent leader in the lumber and building industries. The following month, Link organized the Houston Land Corporation with a capitalization of $500,000. The land development company included John Henry Kirby, a longtime friend and business associate of Link, and a number of prominent Houston business and political leaders of the day.

The platting of the Montrose Addition occurred on October 4, 1911, with more than 1,000 individual lots, most measuring 50 x 100 feet recorded on paper. After platting, the Houston Land Corporation announced it would spend over one million dollars on improvements. Deviating from the street pattern established downtown, the four main thoroughfares, Montrose, Audubon, Lovett, and Yoakum, were drawn on a true north-south line. Edward Teas Sr., the founder of Teas Nursery, transformed these four boulevards into beautifully landscaped esplanades planted with palm trees. Early advertisements for the subdivision boasted that the Montrose Addition offered eleven of Houston's twenty-six miles of paved roads and over twenty-two miles of concrete curbs and sidewalks. The advertisements went on to claim that the new subdivision contained eight miles of sanitary sewers, seven miles of water mains, and several miles of gas mains. To access the new subdivision, the Montrose Line provided streetcar service between the neighborhood and downtown.

The property became available for purchase on October 11, 1911, and within the first year, sixty-five homes were completed. Advertisements for the area contended that "Montrose was a well-developed area, with all modern conveniences, for all good people." The price of individual lots ranged from $1,250 on some streets to $7,500 on the leading boulevards, with construction for the typical, more modest, homes ranging between $3,000 and $8,000 (Houston Land Corporation Sales Brochure, 1912). Over the next ten years, the subdivision flourished, developing steadily and profitably as a premier residential neighborhood.

In 1911, Link purchased the entirety of Block 41 in the center of the Montrose Addition on which to build his own home. Link commissioned the noted architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats, one of the busiest and best-known in Texas at the beginning of the twentieth century, to design his new house using his previous home in Orange as a model. The Link-Lee House was the first house completed for the subdivision. Built in 1911 after a design by Sanguinet and Staats, the $60,000 house quickly became a showplace establishing and promoting the image of gracious living of the Montrose Addition. The Neo-Classical Revival style of this house, by no means typical of the entire neighborhood, became the embodiment of grandeur and opulence that Link hoped might characterize the homes that would be built along the main esplanade boulevards.

Sanguinet and Staats

Founded in 1902 by Carl G. Staats and Marshall R. Sanguinet, Sanguinet, and Staats became one of the state's largest architectural firms, with offices located in Dallas, Waco, San Antonio, Houston, and Wichita Falls. Marshall R. Sanguinet (1859-1936), a native of St. Louis, attended St. Louis University without receiving his degree. Before beginning a two-year course in architecture at Washington University, Sanguinet spent two years in training in the office of the St. Louis architect Thomas Walsh. Sanguinet moved to Fort Worth in 1883 and practiced architecture with a number of firms through the turn of the century, including Sanguinet and Dawson, Haggart and Sanguinet, Sanguinet and Messer, and Messer, Sanguinet and Messer.

Carl G. Staats (1871-1928), born and educated in New York City, moved to San Antonio in 1891 to work for James Riely Gordon. Seven years later he joined Sanguinet in Fort Worth as a draftsman. After founding the architectural firm, the two were responsible for designing numerous commercial and residential buildings throughout Texas, and are best known for their skyscraper designs in Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston. Prominent examples of their work in Houston include the First National Bank Building (1905), the Paul Building (1907), the Old Houston Country Club (1908), the First Methodist Church (1910), the Post-Dispatch Building (1926), and the Old Houston National Bank (1926), and a number of private residences in Courtlandt Place, one of Houston's earliest exclusive residential neighborhoods.

John Wiley Link (1866-1933)

John Wiley Link was born to parents David Lowman and Nancy Emaline (Henry) Link on December 1, 1866. The place of his birth has been confusingly reported as both Epperson Springs, Tennessee, and Gallatin, Texas. As a result of hard times, the family moved to Texas in 1878, stopping first in Corsicana, then settling on a large farm farther west, near Anson. John Wiley Link attended Baylor University in Waco, after which he migrated back to Tennessee to attend Vanderbilt University and Law School. After graduating, Link became a lawyer for the Fort Worth and Denver Railway. In 1889, Link met Ihna Imola Holland, daughter of Judge J. A. Holland of Fort Worth. In 1890, Link moved to Amarillo, where Holland had relocated with her parents. The two married on October 21, 1891, with Link soon after joining the law firm of Holland and Holland. Link moved with the law firm in 1895 to Orange. Elected mayor of Orange in 1900, Link became active in the city's development and instrumental in securing deep water ports in Beaumont and Orange and establishing the Beaumont-Orange deepwater channel.

Recognizing the important role that native forests would play in the lumber industry in East Texas, Link began acquiring large parcels of timbered land in the early 1900s. In 1902, Link purchased a lumber mill from John Henry Kirby and together with friend L. Miller formed the Miller-Link Lumber Company, one of the larger lumber companies operating in East Texas during this period. Link's career in the lumber trade culminated when he became president of the Texas-Louisiana Lumberman's Association a few years later.

Convinced of Houston's future prosperity, Link relocated there in 1910 and formed the Houston Land Corporation. An active promoter of the city, Link served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Houston Chamber of Commerce in 1911, 1912, and again in 1915, and 1916. During this period, Link also formed and became president of the Link Oil Corporation. The Link family moved into the Montrose Addition house in October of 1912. As a successful businessman, with five children, Link and his wife entertained lavishly. The third floor was designed as a ballroom with a clear dancing space of forty feet and doors opening onto the third-floor terraces to accommodate their numerous guests. In 1916, after the wedding of their youngest daughter, the home was sold to oil merchant and businessman Thomas P. Lee, who purchased the home for $90,000, the highest price paid for a house in Houston to that date.

The success of the Houston Land Corporation, as well as the Montrose Addition can be directly correlated to the business acumen of John Wiley Link. After selling his interest in the Houston Land Corporation, Link moved back to Beaumont briefly to organize the Beaumont Ship Building and Dry Dock Company. Returning to Houston in 1920, Link in 1921 became vice president and general manager of the Kirby Lumber Company and president of the Lamella Trussless Roof Company. During this time, Link also served as president of the Link-Ford Investment Company, the Polar Wave Ice Company, and as a director of the Union National Bank, the San Jacinto Trust Company, and the Bankers Trust Company. In 1926, Link, along with Gus S. Wortham, B. F. Carruth, and R. W. Ford, formed the American General Life Insurance Company, with Wortham as president and Link chairman. Known today as the American General Corporation, the company evolved into one of the largest insurance and holding companies in the country. In 1929, Link left the Kirby Lumber Company to become president of the parent company of the Dr. Pepper Company and was instrumental in the re-organization and expansion of that company. Link continued as a business leader in Houston until his death on March 18, 1933.

Subsequent Owners of the House

Born in 1871, Thomas P. Lee began working in the oil fields of West Virginia at the early age of sixteen. Lee married his first wife Elizabeth Mann in 1892, who died shortly after the birth of their daughter in 1895. Lee remarried in 1900 to Essie Mabel Horton of Savannah, Georgia. In 1903, the couple moved to Sour Lake, Texas and Lee began working for the newly formed Texas Company as a general superintendent of production. Associated with the Texas Company for ten years, Lee was actively involved in the company's growth and development in the oil industry. Together with J. S. Cullinan, Will C. Hogg, James L. Autry, and E. F. Woodward, Lee formed and became president of the Farmers Petroleum Company in 1913. In 1915, Lee provided the initial capital for the formation of the Yount-Lee Company in Beaumont. This small company grew rapidly into a million-dollar business after the discovery of oil at Spindletop and remained in operation until sold to the Standard Oil Company in 1933 for $41.6 million. A year later, Lee and his associates formed the American Republics Corporation, an oil exploration and production company, where he served as vice president and director. That same year, Lee moved to Houston and acquired the Montrose Addition house from J. W. Link.

Lee, his wife, and six daughters, soon found their home in Montrose too small. In 1922, Lee commissioned noted Houston architect Alfred Finn to design an addition to the northwest corner of the house. Finn's design included enclosing an existing first-floor sleeping porch located on the southeast corner of the house and constructing a second-story bedroom above the existing kitchen. These additions altered the floor plan of the original house, including the number of rooms and location of stairways, to its current appearance. The house remained in the Lee family until 1946 when Mrs. Lee sold the house and property to the Catholic Diocese of Galveston on behalf of the Basilian Fathers of Toronto to establish a university.

Chartered on April 28, 1947, the University of St. Thomas became the first co-educational Basilian university in the United States, as well as the first co-educational undergraduate catholic university in Texas (University of St. Thomas, 9). The university opened its doors on September 22, 1947, with fifty-seven students enrolled. The university grew from the original building to a fifteen-acre campus with thirty-six buildings, including a multiple-building complex designed by architect Philip Johnson. Since 1947 the Link-Lee House has been continuously used as the Administration Building for the university.

Soon after completion, the Link-Lee House gained recognition as a landmark in southwest Houston and remains today an important architectural and cultural resource for the city, conveying a strong sense of time and place. The building stands boldly among its neighbors as a reflection of early twentieth-century architectural tastes and styles and as a showpiece of the Montrose Addition, an important segment of Houston's early twentieth-century development. As one of the few remaining original residences of this magnitude along Montrose Boulevard, the Link-Lee House retains a high degree of its integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and associations to remain architecturally and culturally significant. For these reasons, the Link-Lee House is nominated at the local level of significance in the area of Architecture, for its design and association with the architectural firm of Sanguinet and Staats, and in the area of Community Planning and Development, for the role it played in the development of the Montrose Addition.