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LONGVIEW NATIONAL BANK, Houston, (1940, expansion 1959, repurposing ongoing): Here's the best way to save a vintage bank building: Make it the home of an art museum — in this case, the G REENLEE HOUSE, Dallas (1983): Edward Larrabee B a r n e s a n d A r m a n d Avakian's modern masterwork in domestic architecture is sited on rolling, wooded terrain in Dallas' Preston Hollow enclave. It's immaculately detailed with minimalist precision yet is said to feel like a Texas house. Barnes' complex plan owes a debt to Luis Barragán with its deep porches and rambling organization around a courtyard, but each interior space is simple in composition with perfect proportions and light. Melba Davis Greenlee (now Melba Whatley), who was active in the Dallas Museum of Art, commissioned Barnes to design the house at the same time he was at work on the DMA. The house is now owned by art patrons/collectors, who engaged Dallas architecture and design firm Bodron/Fruit for a sensitive renovation. F REEDMEN'S TOWN HERITAGE DISTRICT, Houston (1865): Established on the banks of Buffalo Bayou a century and half ago by more than 1,000 formerly enslaved people, this 40-block Black cultural landmark in Houston's historic Fourth Ward includes seven UNESCO Routes of Enslaved Peoples sites and is also on the National Register of Historic Places. Freedman's Town is one of the few places left that offer physical evidence of an original settlement of people of African descent after the Civil War. Once called the Harlem of the South, only 50 of 568 historic structures remain. Now that Freedman's Town is designated Houston's first Heritage District, highlights such as streets of red brick, made and hand-laid in West African patterns by freedmen and their descendants more than 100 years ago, can be protected and restored. H OTEL EMMA, San Antonio (1894, renovated 2015): H o t e l E m m a — t h e centerpiece of the historic Pearl District sited in the former Pearl Brewery complex — occupies an imposing Second Empire structure by Chicago architect August Maritzen. The hotel's namesake, Emma Koehler, ran Pearl Brewery after her husband's death and made it the largest Texas brewery by 1916. Celebrated NYC design firm Roman and Williams repurposed industrial elements that were salvaged in the renovation. K INFOLK HOUSE, Fort Worth (circa 1900, reborn 2022): This community project/social sculpture is housed in the 100-year-old home of co-founder Sedrick Huckaby's late grandmother, Hallie Beatrice "Big Momma" Carpenter, in Fort Worth's primarily Black and Latino Polytechnic neighborhood. Sedrick and his wife, fellow artist Letitia Huckaby, started the space to honor Big Momma's creative legacy by expanding on the preconceived notion that art is limited to the fine arts and academic scholarship. The Huckabys' dream is for all who walk through the doors to become "kinfolk" who will help mine inherited Black American traditions passed down in this marginalized neighborhood. Kinfolk House annually hosts three rotating exhibitions bringing together artists to create a patchwork of creativity, power, and culture in the best tradition of the Polytechnic neighborhood. FOLEY'S, Houston (1947, expansion 1957, demolished 2013): When Foley's opened its new flagship in downtown Houston in 1947, it was hailed by The New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek magazines as the model department store of the post-war era. Houston architect Kenneth Franzheim eschewed windows on the block-square, six-story (later 10-story) monolith graced by subtle and masterful surface detail. Celebrated American industrial designer Raymond Loewy's NY firm, Loewy/ Snaith, maximized efficiency by placing stockrooms around the perimeter of each windowless floor. The four-foot-wide escalators became a local attraction. The popular downtown department store played a role in the Civil Rights movement: Beginning in 1960, led by TSU students, it was the site of some of the first lunch counter sit-ins and desegregation protests west of the Mississippi River. It was absorbed by Macy's in 2006 and demolished in 2013. STEVE WRUBEL GERALD MOORHEAD FAIA MAX BURKHALTER 25 TEXAS DESIGN ICONS (Continued from page 83) 84