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25 THE BAKER HOTEL AND SPA, Mineral Wells (1929): The celebrated Baker Hotel opened at the end of the Jazz Age as an international luxury spa destination that drew Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and Will Rogers. Economic decline led to closure and decay, but the preservation- minded development company La Corsha Hospitality Group — including individuals behind revivals of The Adolphus and The Stoneleigh in Dallas, The St. Anthony in San Antonio, and The Driskill in Austin — is working with the city of Mineral Wells to restore and reimagine the 14-story Spanish Colonial Revival tower, which is set to open spring 2026. Between the Baker's revival and the town's recently reopened Crazy Water Hotel, Mineral Wells is living up to its new official designation as the Wellness Capital of Texas. T HE BIG TEXAN COWBOY, Amarillo (1960): The 60-foot- tall Big Texan Cowboy neon sign looms over the home of the 72-Ounce Steak Challenge — a Texas-sized restaurant sprawling along Interstate 40 just east of Amarillo, a frontier welcome to those traveling through the Texas By Cynthia Toles. Additional reporting Catherine D. Anspon, Billy Fong, and Rebecca Sherman. O ur third annual portfolio series celebrates 25 Design Icons of Texas — people, places, objects, and art that have the power to engage and inspire. From Paul Rudolph's One Brookhollow Plaza in Dallas, the first all-precast concrete building in the Southwest, to Hotel Emma anchoring San Antonio's historic Pearl District, and the crusade to preserve Houston's Freedmen's Town, this sweeping survey took countless hours to compile as we poured through hundreds of possibilities, helped along the way from colleagues in the art, architecture, and design worlds. Ed Ruscha's Standard Station, 1966, at Los Angeles County Museum of Art ALICE KERLEY © ED RUSCHA, PHOTO © MUSEUM ASSOCIATES/LACMA 74