Clayton House on Caroline

Designed by Birdsall Parmenas Briscoe, an eminent Houston architect, built in 1917.

Sanborn maps of Caroline Street 

In 1958, the philanthropic Clayton family donated the three story Georgian style structure to the City of Houston for use as a permanent library facility. Complete with carriage house and guest quarters, the building provides a fitting historic atmosphere in which to conduct family history research.  

An Historical Marker was awarded in 1988. The application for the marker has this to say about the architecture,

"The William L. Clayton house is a two-story Georgian Revival residence designed and constructed  during 1916-1917. The plan of the house includes a central rectangular block flanked by rectangular wings. The house faces east and is situated on a corner lot. A symmetrical facade includes a wood paneled entrance door surrounded by sidelights. The door and sidelights are beneath an eliptical fanlight. A small front porch is supported by Tuscan columns with paneled pilasters against the wall. The house is of breck bearing wall construction faced with brick in Flemish bond. Windows include Frcench doors on the ground floor of the central facade adn double-hung windows with six-over-twelve glazing in a tripartite grouping on the second floor of the south wind. The main floor windows are surmounted by keystones. Louvered shutters ornament windows and the French doors on the central block of the house. The north wing of the house incorporates a porte cochere on the ground floor with a sleeping porch on the second floor. A double-level iron gallery, later glazed, extends across the length of the west, garden, elevation.  A gable-ended ridge roof caps the central block and south wind of the house. Chimneys are located at each end of the central block and in the west elevation of the south wing. The roof of the facade incorporates three curved fanlit dormers. An Italian marble entrance step with decorative brass railing in centered on the front terrace surfaced in square terra cotta tiles. A central corridor bisects the ground floor, running perpendicular to the main facade. The main staircase returns over the front entrance. To the south is found the living room, and beyone, in the south wing, the library. To the norht is the dining room. All three of these principal rooms contain elaborately carved mantels. the living room walls are decorated with piliasters, and the library includes decorative molded wood paneling.*

The site of the Clayton house included two outbuildings connected to the main house by a landscaped garden. The first of these, to the northwest of the main house and sharing its east orientation, was origianlly a garage and stable. This was remodeled by the original architect, Birdsall P. Briscoe, about 1928 as a two-story guest house. It retains this configuration. During 1936 Briscoe remodled the south wing of the main house, originally a ground-floor loggia, creating the library. Also at this time the central hall was opened to the rear of the house and a double gallery glassed in across the rear elevation. The second out-building, a three-car, two-story garage, was built to the south-west of the house.

The architect of the Clayton house, Birdsall P. Briscoe (1876-1971) was a foremost residential architect in Houston. Briscoe was a seasoned eclectic designer at the time he worked for the Claytons, known for his special facility with historic styles of design. He also became known for his excellent sense of proportion and sumpuous use of ornamental detail. The Clayton house is one of the largest and most distinguished homes erected in Houston's South End residential neighborhood, the leading residential district in the city in the period. The structures and setting are preserved nearly intact as they were designed and built by Briscoe, and as the Clayton family knew them and enjoyed them."

*Houston Architectural Survey, Vol. IV, pp. 860-63.

Artwork in the house:

Loyd Embry: Bust of Mr. Clayton and charcoal rendition of "Lovebirds" photograph

Peter Heinrich Mansbendel: Carved mantlepiece - Cotton buds

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