Peden, D. D., House

The D.D. Peden House of 1922-24 is the work of New York architect Harrie Thomas Lindeberg, one of the outstanding domestic architects to practice in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. It is one of five architectural commissions he carried out in the Houston subdivision of Shadyside between 1920 and 1925. The property is nominated at the state level of significance in the area of Architecture, as one of this significant group of works by Lindeberg, and as an example of eclectic American "country house" design of the early 20th century. The D.D. Peden House relates contextually to the development of the American country house and the American garden suburb, and to the eclectic movement in domestic American architecture.

The term "country house" was used in the United States in the 1890s to describe a specific attitude toward domestic architectural design, and it would continue to be used through the 1930s, despite the fact that most so-called country houses were built in the developing suburbs of major urban centers. The American country house had its roots in the late 19th century, developing as a protest against the urban environment and ostentation of late Victorian domestic customs. Within the broad range of reforms being proposed in American architecture in the 1890s, the country house movement was conservative in nature. It harkened back to the idea of the country gentleman and an attachment to the soil. The landscape painter, garden designer, and architect Charles A. Platt formulated the earliest and most persuasive vision of this new domestic form and philosophy in a series of summer houses that he designed for a group of artistic and intellectual associates at Cornish, New Hampshire. Platt dexterously combined elements of New England vernacular buildings with those of Italian Renaissance origin to produce what appeared to be the New England versions of rural Italian villas. He carefully sited these houses and designed axially aligned gardens that spatially extended their principal rooms outdoors. After the turn of the century, several other prominent architects became closely identified with this design trend Howard V. Shaw of Chicago, and the New York architects John Russell Pope, Delano & Aldrich, and H. T. Lindeberg --each designing large, but not pretentious country houses. Stylistically these houses followed a historical vernacular of classically-derived styles, but with the historical models cleverly modified to contemporary patterns of living. vernacular texture of these estates was achieved through the use of large green open spaces, rustic stone, and stylistic references to rural buildings. One particularly popular form was a modification of English farm buildings and Renaissance-inspired gardens. Whether Americanized English or Italian Villa, the resulting product was filled with sentimental and historical associations that were tied to a "gentlemen's class."

Although many "country houses" were indeed built on rural estates or at country resorts, most were constructed in commuter suburbs outside major northeastern and midwestern cities. This trend was a result of transportation developments that allowed elites to move from urban centers to the edge of town where there were large parcels of land available. After 1910, "country house" construction increasingly shifted to new garden suburb communities, planned as arcadian enclaves on the peripheries of expanding American cities.

The Houston neighborhood of Shadyside was one such enclave. St. Louis landscape architect George E. Kessler and Houston civil engineer Herbert A. Kipp designed the neighborhood for the oil operator J.S. Cullinan in 1916. Cullinan was one of the founders of The Texas Company that later became Texaco. Although, at 40 acres, Shadyside was relatively small, Cullinan envisioned it as contributing to an exemplary new civic landscape being created along the southern extension of Main in south Houston. The development of the area was stimulated by the 1912 opening of a new university, Rice Institute, on a 300-acre campus laid out and improved according to the plans of Boston architects Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson. Across Main from this site, a 285-acre tract was given to the City of Houston in 1914 to become the nucleus of Hermann Park. Cullinan was instrumental in the city's retention of Kessler, then the best-known landscape architect and planner practicing in the central United States, to lay out Hermann Park and transform Main into a parkway drive lined with double rows of live oak trees. Cullinan also assisted the Houston Art League in obtaining title to a site on Main at the entrance to Hermann Park. There, between 1922 and 1924, the league built the Museum of Fine Arts, the first public art museum in Houston. The planned residential enclave known as Shadyside was tucked between the Rice campus on the south, the Museum of Fine Arts on the north, and Hermann Park across Main on the east.

At the suggestion of George E. Kessler, Cullinan commissioned St. Louis architect James P. Jamieson to design his family's house in Shadyside, completed on a site facing Main in 1918. Most property owners who purchased in Shadyside, however, turned to prominent local architects such as Birdsall P. Briscoe, William Ward Watkin, and Alfred C. Finn to design the earliest houses in the neighborhood. Investment banker Hugo V. Neuhaus first retained New York architect Harrie Thomas Lindeberg to design a house for his family and then helped procure commissions for two more Shadyside houses in 1921. The D.D. Peden House was Lindeberg's fourth Shadyside commission in 1922. Then in 1925, he designed extensive alterations and additions to the house of Mr. and Mrs. Harry C. Weiss. With five Lindeberg designs, Shadyside became one of the most concentrated expositions of his work in the country.

Lindeberg displayed his considerable versatility by designing the Shadyside houses in a variety of styles, English Cottage, Mediterranean, Regency, and Georgian Revival. This collection of houses by an acknowledged master of the American country house genre endows the small neighborhood with considerable architectural significance.
Lindeberg's virtuosity as an architect is evident in the D.D. Peden House in the way that climatic responsiveness and domestic planning were reconciled with architectural composition. The southeasterly direction of the prevailing breeze dictated that the principal rooms face the Main. Lindeberg, therefore, oriented the principal block of the house toward Main, but treated that frontage as a private garden rather than a front yard, following the precepts of Charles A. Platt. The primary entrance to the house was placed on the northwest elevation where it faced the side property line rather than Longfellow Lane (the access road to Shadyside off of Main). Lindeberg designed a motor court, entered from Longfellow Lane, that was the focus of the entry facade. A brick wall bounding the motor court is broken by a gateway aligned with the entrance drive of the house and serves to reorient the visitor to the formal entrance facade. The entrance bay itself is engaged in a complex visual relationship with the principal block and the service wing that allows the status of each of these segments of the house to be architecturally identified. This ability to transform contradictory requirements of comfort and propriety into a witty architectural exercise precisely marked Lindeberg's talent.

Lindeberg's characteristic architectural preferences are quite visible in the D.D. Peden House. It is a Georgian Revival design augmented with Regency detailing. The dominant hipped roof with its continuous eave line and symmetrically organized chimney stacks, and the prevalence of square-sectioned proportioning, give the house a sense of massiveness. This effect was favored by American country house architects influenced by the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Yet Lindeberg avoided any suggestion of heaviness with the light, often attenuated character of his ornamental detailing. His eclectic fluency allowed him to combine such picturesque details as the oriel bay and the low, sloping parapet of the motor court with the high-style Georgian formality of the entrance bay in a complex but lyrically expressive design. Lindeberg's subtle sense of material and color is fully evident in his use of narrow Belgian brick for the walls of the house. These elements make the D.D. Peden House is a particularly compelling example of the ideas and techniques associated with the eclectic movement in 20th-century American architecture.

Harrie Thomas Lindeberg (1880-1959) obtained his architectural training in the office of McKim, Mead & White where he worked from 1900 to 1906. In that year he opened his own office in New York and quickly developed a practice grounded in the design of country houses. He worked extensively in New York City and its New Jersey and Connecticut suburbs but also produced designs in Cleveland, Lake Forest, and Minneapolis. His work was extensively illustrated in the American architectural press from the 1910s through the 1930s and was the subject of a monograph published in 1940. As Howard Barnstone wrote in his book on the architecture of John F. Staub:
One of the most brilliant exponents of the eclectic tradition was Harrie T. Lindeberg... Although he did commercial and institutional work, his forte was the country house, the exurban retreat of the urban rich. Lindeberg's working philosophy was that an elegant house need not be an ostentatious house; a simple, traditional design, richly textured and carefully proportioned, was more beautiful than the most magnificent palace. . . As the architectural critic Royal Cortissoz put it: "A typical Lindeberg house has a fresh, new-minted quality, delightfully unspoiled by derivative influences. It does not make you think of a French chateau or an Italian villa." (Barnstone, 1979, p. 4)
In response to the number of commissions he obtained in Houston in the early 20s, Lindeberg maintained a branch office there from 1921 to 1923. The Houston office was under the direction of a young associate whom he sent from New York, John F. Staub. Staub supervised the construction of the D.D. Peden House and one other residence in Shadyside. Once these homes were built, he left Lindeberg's firm, but remained in Houston to begin independent practice, becoming its foremost exponent of eclectic design and leading country house architect.

The D.D. Peden House was designed and built between 1922 and 1924. Chris J. Miller (1872-1954), a Danish-born Houston builder who specialized in the construction of fine houses, was the general contractor. The house cost approximately $116,000 to build.

At the time that he had his house built in Shadyside, Dickey Dantzler Peden (1874-1958) was vice president and treasurer of the Peden Iron and Steel Company, a hardware business established by his brother E.A. Peden in 1890. D.D. Peden served as president of the company from 1929 to 1941 and thereafter as chairman of the board of directors until his death. The Peden Iron and Steel Company actively engaged in wholesale and retail trade throughout Texas and neighboring states and was one of Houston's major commercial enterprises during the first half of the 20th century. Peden and his wife, Celia Gehring, had three children. The Peden family occupied the house until 1936, then leased it to several different families for six years. 1942 Mr. and Mrs. Harry C. Wiess bought the house for their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, Lloyd Hilton Smith.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith chose John F. Staub's firm, Staub, Rather & Howze to carry out the first major addition to the property in 1951. No one was more familiar with the house than Staub. His first-hand knowledge of the house and his skill in creating modern historicism enabled him to design a complementary and sensitive addition. This 1951 addition was just one of many successful commissions in Houston. After leaving Lindeberg's firm Staub began his independent Houston career by designing model homes for the new elite subdivision River Oaks, beginning in 1922. His custom homes include Bayou Bend (1926-28; NR 1979), built for River Oaks founder Will Hogg. His career flourished, enabling him to experiment and expand the vocabulary of the country house.

The Smiths also commissioned the Dallas landscape architect James Dalrymple to plan the gardens in 1954. They are also responsible for the 2nd-story south wing addition of 1962 by Highford Griffith. Following Mrs. Smith's death, Mr. Smith sold the house to its present owners in 1987. They have maintained the house with only minor alterations.