The John Nance Garner home is located at 333 N Park Street in an elegant, leafy neighborhood in Uvalde. Garner built the home in 1920, and lived here through his years in Congress as vice president United States and in retirement. In 1952 he and his son Tolly Garner deeded the house to the city of Uvalde. In 1999 city deeded it to the University of Texas, which established the Briscoe Garner Museum in this historic property.
From the US National Register nomination form, which we found on the Texas Historic Sites Atlas: (
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"Narrative
From 1920 until his wife's death in 1952, John Nance Garner made his permanent home in this two-story, H-shaped, hiproofed, brick house, which was designed for him by architect Atlee Ayers. Also included within the nominated acreage is a one-story, white-painted, frame house that the Garners occupied from about 1900 to 1920 and in which he lived from 1952 until his death in 1967. This structure stood originally where the brick residence now rests, and to make room for the new house, Garner moved the older one back about 75 additional feet from the street. The frame dwelling remains in the Garner family (contact Mrs. John Currle, Route 2, Box 44A10, Amarillo, Texas, 79101) and serves presently as a rental property. The principal Garner residence, the brick house, was donated by Garner to the city of Uvalde in 1952 as a memorial to Mrs. Garner. It housed the community library until about 1973, but now it functions as both a Garner and a Uvalde County museum. Although library officials removed some key upstairs partitions, they did not disturb the stairway or the first story, and the exterior remains almost exactly as it was in Garner's day. Only one other extant Garner residence is known: Hotel Washington at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Garner occupied an apartment there from 1931 to about 1940. Clearly, the Uvalde property commemorates the former Vice-President best.
Constructed of variously shaded tan brick, the east facing Garner House sits on a stone foundation and over a full basement. The structure derives its H shape from a three-bay-wide central block that is flanked on its north and south sides by a pair of rectangular ells. Each roof section is covered with dark wood shingles, and each crest is highlighted by a row of red clay tiles. A plain, boxed cornice with paneled soffit decorates each roof eave. As with all exterior woodwork, this trim is white-planted. Two tan brick exterior chimneys pierce the roof overhang. One stack rises along the rear wall of the central block, while the other soars upward along the rear wall of the south ell. In addition to the two end ells, there are three other appendages to the house. All were part of the original construction, but Garner may have made slight changes in them during his residency. None of them have been altered by the city. A small, two-story, hip-roofed, brick and frame wing or sunporch attaches to the rear two thirds of the south end of the south ell; a similar but smaller wing abuts the west or rear end of the north ell; and a one-story, shed- roofed, enclosed porch passes across the rear of the central block and connects to each of the ells.
Fenestration in the Garner House is varied--basically according to section--but throughout the house, windows are rectangular in shape and set within white-painted wood surrounds. Almost all windows in the central block and two ells are six-over-six sashes, and have white painted stone lintels and brick sills. A double window flanked by two single ones light the second story of the central block's front facade, while triple windows illuminate both the first and second stories of the ells' front facades. Elsewhere window placement is somewhat irregular. The north side of the north ell displays four regularly placed single windows on the second floor, while on the first story, there are three single openings and one small double window, which is positioned at the west end of the facade. The two-story sunporch along the south side of the south ell features eight one-over-one sashes on the top level and seven two- over-two sashes on the ground floor. The rear sunporch has eight one-over-one sashes, four aligned along each side of a center-placed, single, rear door.
Main entrance to the Garner House is through a recessed, three-bay-wide, front porch sheltered by an overhang of the central block's second story. Two cross shaped brick pillars support the flat- and stone-arched overhang. Three full-width brick steps ascend from a concrete front walk to the porch's red tile floor, and brick corbeling decorates the central block facade just above the arches. Above this decor on the central bay hangs a sign identifying the houses as the "Ettie R. Garner Memorial Building." From the front porch, five stone-linteled doorways give access to the interior. Opening into the central block are three double, glass doors. Each pair is framed by wood surrounds and topped by a six-light transom, and each individual door consists of six horizontal rows of three glass panes. At each end of the porch, a single but similarly designed door provides access to its respective ell. Other entrances, in addition to these and the above noted rear sunporch door, are a single door with transom and side lights in the first story of the south ell's rear facade and a single, rear door in the ground level of the north ell's rear wing.
The three double, front doors open into a single, rectangular-shape, north-south receiving hall. Here, as in the remainder of the house, the walls and ceilings are white- painted plaster and the floors are 14 inch-wide strips of pecan wood. At each end of the hall, a double, glass door-- similar to the front entrance doors but without a transom-- opens into an ell, and along the rear or west wall of the room, a carpeted, double-flight, open-string, balustraded stairway mounts to the second floor. The area underneath the stair is closed and contains a closet and half bath.
At the north end of the front hall, the double door leads into what served formerly as Garner's dining room. It now houses his collection of gavels as well as sundry other personal memorabilia. From this room a short corridor near the center of the ell's north wall leads past a pantry and enclosed basement stairway and into the former kitchen at the rear of the ell. This room now houses artifacts related to Garner's hunting and fishing interests. Beyond the former kitchen is a small rear entrance foyer formed by the rear wing.
The double door at the south end of the receiving hall opens into the Garner living room, which fills the entire first story of the south ell. Here now are some Garner and some period furnishings, a brick fireplace, and a collection of Garner's hats. Near the center of the south wall, a single door opens onto the tile-floored sunporch, where Garner usually conducted his various business affairs. Behind or west of the receiving hall is the rear sunporch, which is accessible from the former kitchen and from a single door near the south end of the front hall's west wall. This room is structurally unaltered, but the museum has placed a photographic display board temporarily across the west side of the room and against the eight rear windows and door.
Before the city library tore out the upstairs fixtures and some of the partitions, the second floor contained at least four bedrooms and Garner's study, which was in the west end of the south ell. Despite these needless alterations, the original configuration of the second floor is still clearly indicated, and the stairway's second-floor railing is intact. Most of the space here will soon be utilized for a Uvalde County museum. The attic remains unfinished and is accessible by an enclosed stair near the center of the north side of the north ell.
The Garner House sits on a large, grassy, live-oak- shaded lot and near other dwellings about the same age. A short distance from the northwest corner of the house stands a one-story, hip-roofed, brick, four-car garage erected the same year the house was built. Directly rear of the 1920 residence stands Garner's one-story, gable roofed, white- painted, frame house. It is east-facing and T-shaped, with the stem pointing southward. A small, shed-roofed wing attaches to the east side of the stem; an enclosed, shed- roofed porch abuts the opposite or west side of the stem; and a narrower, longer wing adjoins the west, gabled end. Recently a tree fell on the house's front porch, forcing its removal, but the structure appears to be in good condition and otherwise unaltered since Garner's death.
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