*** PRIVATE PROPERTY ***
This is a private residence that is still in use today and with no fence line around its property grounds, so when visiting this BM please only take pictures of house from the nearby Farm Road about 120 feet away or ask permission before nearing the establishment. Per the
Texas Historical Commission Atlas records:
"The Tunstall-Langhorne House, called Waverly, is a frame, one-story residence, designed in the Greek Revival style. Located on a multi-acre site at the edge of the town of Chappell Hill, the house still retains its rural character, with the original detached kitchen building standing to the north of the house. The south front of the main house, and the later west wing, feature deep, colonnaded porches which serve to screen the summer sun.
The one-story Tunstall-Langhorne residence known since the 1850s as Waverly is a good example in Texas of a small-scale Greek Revival house of the 1850s. Built of local stone, cedar, and pine, the house faces south. The facade of the original section of the house is five bays wide, with the main entrance centrally located. The front doorframe is capped by a small pediment, and is flanked by fluted pilasters. The pilasters define the width of the original pedimented portico, which is supported by a pair of slender Tuscan columns. It is believed that the present columnar porch was added between 1890 and 1900, following the lines of the portico, with matching columns, resulting in the present six-column porch. Entry to the house is by a set of double doors, the upper panels of which contain etched and beveled glass leaded together in an intricate pattern. This decorative glasswork appears again in the sidelights and transom of the main doorway, and is presumably a late l9th- century addition. Two window openings are set to either side of the doorway, each of which has double-hung sashes with nine-over-six lights, and is provided with shutters. The east elevation of the house is dominated by two chimneys of native stone and brick, the larger of which is centered under the peak of the gabled roof. The four window openings of this elevation all feature double-hung sashes with nine- over-six lights, but only the two windows flanking the larger chimney are shuttered. The north elevation features a screened porch 40-feet long, which is a replacement of an earlier porch.
To the west of the original rectangular house is a small wing, approximately 20 feet in length, that was added about 1893 to serve as the medical office of the doctor who then owned the house. The south front of the wing features a columnar porch identical to that on the original section of the house. A single door leads onto the porch from within. The addition of this wing placed an original end chimney within the framework of the porch. The second chimney on the original west elevation was removed at the time the wing was constructed. The west wing is set back from the plane of the front wall of the main house approximately 10 feet. The gabled roof of the wing and the porch across its south front harmonize with the detailing of the original structure.
The plan of the house is laid out around a central hallway measuring 10 feet in width and 19 feet in length. To either side of the hall are two rooms which are 19 feet square. The room to the right is a bedroom and the room to the left is the living room. These two large rooms have matching mantelpieces with fluted pilasters. The hallway ends as it enters the dining room, which is the centermost of the three rooms across the northern half of the house. To the right of the dining room is a bedroom, while the kitchen is set to the left of the dining room. Double doors lead from the dining room onto the rear porch. The west wing contains a single bedroom, which is entered from the living room. At an unknown date, the kitchen was moved from the detached building which was its original location into the house proper, where it took the place of an original bedroom. It is likely that the hallway originally ran unobstructed through the house from south to north.
An early detached kitchen/dining room stands thirty feet from the northeast corner of the house. The structure, which measures thirty feet by seventeen feet, features a porch across the south front, the roof of which is supported by four turned wooden posts. The north side of the structure also has a porch as well as a modern bathroom addition. The building now serves as a guesthouse.
A small frame structure directly north of the main house is said to have been a schoolroom built later in the 19th century for the children of a later owner. The structure measures 8.5 by 15 feet, and features a recessed entry.
Immediately to the east of the house is a large formal garden, with the original kitchen garden further to the east, the two being separated from each other by a picket fence.
Aside from the addition of the west wing and the front porches made in 1893, the exterior of the house has survived with virtually no changes. The relocation of the kitchen within the main house resulted in some slight changes in the plan of the house, but it appears that little historic fabric was removed.
Waverly is a fine example of a small-scale, Greek Revival residence in an excellent state of preservation, retaining an early detached kitchen building. The house is associated with a number of significant figures in the history of the town of Chappell Hill, including William W. Sledge, one of the builders of the Washington County Railroad in the late 1850s. The builder of the house, William Leigh Tunstall, was a prominent physician in Chappell Hill, as was William H. Langhorne, who added the west wing as his medical office.
Tunstall-Langhorne House, also known as Waverly, is characteristic of the symmetrical Greek Revival style residences that were popular in Texas in the mid-19th century. Although it was later enlarged, the house still retains its original simple lines and features, which were copied when the west wing was added. The surviving original kitchen building is an important illustration of the original function of the house with its accessory buildings.
Waverly has been the residence of several prominent citizens of Chappell Hill. The house was built circa 1850 by Dr. William Leigh Tunstall, who advertised his medical practice as being "at Waverly, near Chappell Hill" in a Washington, Texas, newspaper in 1852. Tunstall, in collaboration with his Chappell Hill colleagues, Drs. Lockhart and Swearingen, sponsored the publication of Massie's Eclectic Southern Practice. This massive, 700-page handbook was written by the Houston physician Dr. J.C. Massie. In 1854 Tunstall sold the house to William H. Sledge, who, along with Nathan King and Colonel W.W. Browning, founded the company that constructed the Washington County Railroad. The railroad was begun in 1856, and reached Chappell Hill in the summer of 1859. Built at the cost of $1,000 a mile, the railroad served the county for nearly a century, with the tracks being torn up in 1954. The cotton crop from Waverly was used as a partial mortgage on the construction of the line's bridge over the Brazos River in 1856.
In 1860, Sledge sold Waverly to John Chadwick, whose daughter Mary married Dr. William H. Langhorne. Langhorne, who arrived in Chappell Hill in 1893, added the west wing to house his office. He was in private practice as well as serving as the physician to the railroad.
Waverly was the center of an active cotton plantation before and after the Civil War. The original 600- acre estate was greatly expanded by John Chadwick into a plantation of several thousand acres in the second half of the 19th century, at which time the land was farmed by both Negro and Polish tenant farmers.
The property remained in the Chadwick family until 1954, when it was acquired by Rev. H. Van Watts, a retired Methodist minister. The current owners purchased the property from Rev. Watts in 1966.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Winfield, Nathan. All Our Yesterdays, A Brief History of Chappel Hill, 1969, Texian Press, Waco, Texas.
James E. Day et al. Women of Texas (Miriam A. Ferguson), 1972, Texian Press, Waco, Texas."