Niels Esperson Buiding, Houston, Texas
Posted by: 
JimmyEv
N 29° 45.539 W 095° 21.893
15R E 271330 N 3294422
Mellie Esperson built the Beaux Arts Niels Esperson in 1927 as a memorial to her husband. The three double front doors are encased with Italian Renaissance molding, but the doors themselves, with their metal work, are more of the Art Deco variety.
Waymark Code: WM1PDK
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 06/16/2007
Views: 110
Yes, it might be the story from a bad romance novel, but yet it’s true. Mellie Kennan moved with her parents from Kansas to Oklahoma, where she met Danish immigrant Niels Esperson. The two were married in 1893. Together they moved across the American West, settling in Houston by 1903, where Niels began his career in the nascent oil industry. Over the next two decades, oil made the couple rich. In 1922, Mellie lost her partner. Mellie married Harry Ewing Stewart, twenty years younger than her, three years after her husband’s death, but this didn’t stop her from using her fortune to build a monument to her first husband.
Mrs. Esperson engaged the services of Niels’s favorite architect, Austrian John Eberson. Together, with Mellie giving much input, they designed the exuberant, over-the-top Niels Esperson Building. The lit cupola crowning the building, along with the Gulf Building, defined the Houston skyline for three decades. Now ringed by even higher skyscrapers, the cupola is only glimpsed, most unexpectedly, peeking between. Roof gardens grace the 17th, 22nd, 25th and 29th floors. The keystones on the lower floors look somewhat like Texas longhorns, but are actually Roman ox skulls. The interior retains some of their 1930s detail – the metal grills on the elevators, the linoleum floor, and the light fixtures. The Art Deco detail carries over to the basement.
Skyline District
Next:
Mellie Esperson Building
| Previous:
JPMorgan Chase Tower