Jump to content


Photo
- - - - -

Still trying to locate houses designed by my grandfather


  • Please log in to reply
5 replies to this topic

#1 WileyClarkson

WileyClarkson

    Junior Member

  • Members
  • PipPip
  • 30 posts
  • Location:Walnut Springs, tX

Posted 05 January 2013 - 09:07 AM

I am still looking for homes my grandfather designed.  The following list of homes is based on several letters to potential clients that I have listing homes he had on the drawing board, under construction, or completed.  All help is greatly appreciated!

 

From a letter dated May 12, 1914:

Dr.  I. C. Chase  (no location)

Judge C. K. Bell (no location—described as first residence in 1916 letter)

James Harrison (on Summit Avenue)

Leroy Smith (on Pennsylvania?  Is abbreviated as Penn. in 1929 letter)

W. P. Gage (in Ryan Place)

D. C. Webb, Jr. (in Ryan Place)

H. T. Compton (in Ryan Place)

S. B. Canty, Jr. (in Ryan Place)

 

From a letter dated Oct. 25, 1916:

F. A. Douglas     (in Ryan Place)

George W. Armstrong    (in Ryan Place)

S. B. Canty, Jr.    (in Ryan Place)

W. P. Gage     (in Ryan Place)

D. C. Webb, Jr.    (in Ryan Place)

H. T. Compton    (in Ryan Place)

James Harrison    (no location: described as other work)

Mrs.  L. D. Cobb    (no location: described as other work)

Marvin C. Rall    (no location: described as other work)

Frank M. Weaver     (no location: described as other work)

A.M. Luckett  (no location: described as other work)

George Thompson    (no location: described as other work)

Alex Spear  (no location: described as other work)

Will Bomar  (no location:  possibly River Crest addition)

 

From a letter on Nov. 11, 1922

Elmo Sledd  (Ryan Place Addition)

Zeno C. Ross  (River Crest Addition)

C. H. Bencini    (Ricer Crest Addition)

W. C. Summers  (River Crest Addition)



#2 RD Milhollin

RD Milhollin

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,945 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Las Vegas, NV

Posted 05 January 2013 - 04:03 PM

I wonder if Will Bomar (from second letter) is William P. Bomar Sr.? Bill Bomar Jr. (born 1919) was a noted modern artist and a member of the "Fort Worth Circle" of artists 

 

http://www.cartermus...arch/node/bomar



#3 WileyClarkson

WileyClarkson

    Junior Member

  • Members
  • PipPip
  • 30 posts
  • Location:Walnut Springs, tX

Posted 06 January 2013 - 03:08 PM

I have been wondering the same thing. William Bomar Sr is the only Will Bomar I have been able to come up with who would fall into the date range of the letter.  I lived next door to William Bomar Sr in the 1960's and early 1970's on Hillcrest.  My grandmother told me one that Bill also lived there but I never saw Bill in the years I lived on Hillcrest.  Bill was about the same age as my father.  I do not know how long their family lived in the Hillcrest house before my grandfather purchased the house at 1417 Hillcrest around 1938 or if they moved in at a later date. 



#4 RD Milhollin

RD Milhollin

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,945 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Las Vegas, NV

Posted 06 January 2013 - 10:38 PM

It looks as if the Bomar's Hillcrest house may be the one mentioned in your grandfather's 1916 letter. If that is the house the Bomars lived in in 1943 it is celebrated in the modern art world, well at least on a local basis. "A Halloween costume party set in the stately Fort Worth home of Bill Bomar's parents provided a colorful subject for three female artists associated with the (Fort Worth) Circle. Emily Guthrie Smith's The Halloween Party, Veronica Helfensteller's The Host in the Coffin, and Sara Shannon's Ballet on the Stairs depict their friends as self-conscious poseurs. In the first two images, figures surround the "corpse" of host Bill Bomar, who frostily receives his guests from his draper-swagged coffin. Shannon's painting arrays three of the guests, their appendages forming graceful arabesques, along the sweeping staircase that appears in all three images."

 

Intimate Modernism; Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s. Scott grant Barker and Jane Myers: pp 43-44; plates 24,14, 23.



#5 RD Milhollin

RD Milhollin

    Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,945 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Las Vegas, NV

Posted 06 January 2013 - 11:31 PM

SB Cantey Jr. from the 1916 letter was the father of SBC III who was an important arts patron in Fort Worth in the 1940s and 1950s, serving on the FW Art Association and the Chamber of Commerce Fine Arts Committee. The parties he threw at HIS house doubled as galleries to influence others in HIS circle to patronize the avant garde art being produced by Circle artists while he was simultaneously lobbying for a public art museum in Fort Worth. I imagine some oldsters like Kimbell and Sid disapproved, and most likely Amon as well, but some of the modern work from that period has ended up on exhibit at the Carter and in its collection.



#6 WileyClarkson

WileyClarkson

    Junior Member

  • Members
  • PipPip
  • 30 posts
  • Location:Walnut Springs, tX

Posted 18 January 2013 - 11:57 AM

Have been doing some driving and looking around in Rivercrest.  Mike Nichols sent me a scan from a very early article that had poor but useable photos of the Bencini and Jas. Taylor homes in Rivercrest.  Unfortunately, if they are still there, I was unable to locate them and I think I drove every street in Rivercrest several times!  He found a description of where the Bomar residence was located but no address (two blocks n.w. of the club) which is just about the opposit direction from the Bomar house I lived next to.  A phone book listing for the Rall home gave an address of North part of Alta Dr., between 6th and 7th streets.  Using a satellite image, that allows only two houses both of which have some style properties that "could" be my grandfather's work.  The fun of trying to track down houses from almost 100 years ago directions!






0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users