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 Petty House Posted by:  Metro2
N 29° 26.129 W 098° 28.921
14R E 550238 N 3256346
This historic house is now a VFW post in San Antonio, Texas
Waymark Code: WM10A8N
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 03/31/2019
Views: 7
This Queen Anne style home was completed in 1895 and renovated with Neoclassical features in 1910 and 1911.
Marker Number: 18597
Marker Text:
San Antonio in the late 1800s was a city quickly changing from a frontier town to a metropolis. Soon to become the largest city in Texas, a claim it held for three decades. Mary Francis Drake (1845-1915) arrived in San Antonio in 1890 with her two youngest children and began purchasing property, including this lot along the San Antonio River, an area known as Milam Bend near the Crystal Ice & Manufacturing Company. The neighborhood at the time consisted of one-and-two story residences and a few underdeveloped lots. Mary Drake built a two-story house with Queen Anne style architectural features. Completed in 1895, the home's architect is unknown but historic photographs show an asymmetrical facade with a cross-gables roof and prominent turret, spindled balustrades along the front porch and patterned masonry chimneys. The Drake Family sold the property in 1901 to William Alexander and Louisa Fitch, who lived here a short time.
Bastrop native Van Alvin Petty, Sr. (1860-1929) and his wife, Mary Cordelia (Dabney) Petty (1861-1943) purchased this house in November 1901. As President of Olive-Sterneberg Lumber Company, Petty operated a thriving business while also investing in San Antonio's real estate market since the 1890s. In 1910 and 1911, Petty undertook a major renovation of the house, designed by noted architect Atlee B. Ayres and under the management of General Contractor Otto Lindau. Neoclassical architectural style was applied to the home, bringing symmetry to all sides and adding a new gallery on the second floor, an extension to the rear, and two-story Corinthian columns. In 1947, the house was sold to Sam Houston Post 76 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2017
Marker is Property of the State of Texas
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