Light House
300 Argyle Ave, Alamo Heights, TXThe Light House, designed by Brooks Martin with Harold Wong, is one of the finest midcentury modernist residences in the San Antonio area. Constructed in 1961, the house appears as a glass jewel box floating in a garden at the northwest corner of Argyle Avenue and Morton Streets in Alamo Heights. Martin employed slender steel columns on an innovative concrete foundation to support a flat roof with deep overhangs, shielding the home's interior from the hot Texas sun filtering through its glass walls. Utilizing principles common to modernist residential dwellings of the first half of the twentieth century-especially those built in southern California Martin's design seamlessly blends the Light House with its designed landscape, considering the placement of large trees in his site plan and cutting spaces for them in the overhanging roof eaves. The house opens to patios and gardens on all sides. In 1962 the Texas Society of Architects recognized Martin with an AIA Award of Merit for his design of the Light House, and the house is featured in the publication A Guide to San Antonio Architecture. The one-story Light House is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under Criterion C for Architecture, as an exemplary modernist residence designed by San Antonio architect Brooks Martin.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.