Macatee, Leonard W., House

The circa 1915 Leonard W. Macatee House is one of the earliest built in the Southmore neighborhood of Houston and is named after the original owner, Leonard Macatee, a successful building supply merchant. Designed by the architectural firm Green and Finger, the Mediterranean style of the house may have been influenced by the architecture of the nearby Rice University campus. The Macatee Residence is eligible under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance as an excellent example of early 20th-century Mediterranean-style architecture.

The Macatee house was one of the earliest homes in the posh Southmore subdivision of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas an area currently known as the Museum District, or Midtown. A drawing of the house appeared in the October 23, 1913, Houston Daily Post with the notation that it was being built for Dr. T. L Blayney, a professor at nearby Rice University. However, there is no evidence that Dr. Blayney ever lived there, the house appears in the city directory for the first time in 1915 as the residence of Mr. L. W. Macatee. Therefore it is assumed that the house was completed circa 1915 and that Macatee was the first owner.

The house was also featured in a 1917 brochure promoting the Hermann Park and Rice Institute sections of Houston. The brochure, produced by the developers, describes an exclusive neighborhood with the advantages of being close to the university and downtown:

Penetrating the center [of the neighborhood] is the Main Street Boulevard, now under construction, a wide, beautiful thoroughfare, with a handsome esplanade in the center and with promenade walks of unusual width, and street lights on the sides. This Boulevard will lead directly from the Rice Institute and Hermann Park, without a turn, through the best residence section of the city to the heart of the business section.'

Immediately west of the new neighborhood was Rice Institute (now Rice University). The school's campus had been designed in a regional eclectic style by the Boston architectural firm of Cram Goodhue and Ferguson in 1912.

Deeming the traditional Colligate Gothic inappropriate for Texas, the firm drew on a combination of Mediterranean and Italian Renaissance styles to regionalize the campus design. It is possible that this local example of high-style architecture influenced the design of the Macatee house. Rice's 1914 Residential Group for Men with its red tile low-pitch roof, deep overhangs, and less ornate classical detailing, seems a likely inspiration for the Mediterranean style of the Macatee house. Regional eclecticism was first developed in the 1880s by eastern architectural firms designing in the southwest border states.

These architects sought to revive a more regionally appropriate historical style by drawing on the architectural traditions of the missions and Spanish Colonial style." Buildings were often loose interpretations of traditional architecture and generally featured red tile roofs, stucco, arches, and sometimes stepped parapets. These styles were popularized for homes during the eclectic revivals of the early twentieth century. Features of the Craftsman and Prairie styles, which were contemporary movements, were often incorporated as they are in the interior of the Macatee House. Although the Mediterranean style was popular in Houston between 1910 and 1940, the Southmore neighborhood is dominated by other revival styles, particularly Georgian.