The childhood home of Clyde Drexler

Some houses are just not photogenic.  They aren’t ugly, exactly, but they are awkward.  The house where Clyde the Glide grew up is just such a place.  The front door doesn’t face the street, for example, which is great for family privacy but not so great for attractive photographs.  Shrubbery and landscaping are minimal, which is great for controlling maintenance costs, but not so great for photos. 

Having said that, we were delighted to discover this out-of-the-way South Acres (Crestmont Park) neighborhood and Elm Tree Drive in particular.  The trees are mature, the lawns are large and the neighborhood is pretty much the same as it was in the 1970s when the Drexler family lived there.  You won’t find any McMansions here, but you will still find plenty of above-the-garage basketball hoops and plenty of little boys and girls taking advantage of them. 

The Drexler house was built in 1961, about a year before Clyde was born.  It has three bedrooms, two baths and approximately 1500 square feet.  There’s a one-car garage and a nice extra-wide driveway.  We can just imagine Clyde, James, Denise and Virginia out there tossing balls, playing chase, and running barefoot in that lovely St. Augustine grass.  Can’t you?

 

 





Bonus:  Here’s a picture of the original Drexler’s BBQ building, Dowling at Gray.

 

All photos copyright 2013 Marie Brannon

 

 

 

 

Houston’s First Ford Dealer Lived in Westmoreland

Every house has a story.  This one isn’t the largest or most impressive house in Westmoreland, but it isn’t the smallest or ugliest either.  Its first residents weren’t famous by today’s standards, but they do hold a small place in local history.  The address 402 Marshall first appeared in the city directory in 1908 (HCAD records indicate it was built in 1904) at the corner of Marshall and Flora, occupied by James Wade Cox, the first Ford dealer in our fair city.

 
The structure was built in the popular Queen Anne style of the day, complete with two bay windows, a ‘witch’s hat’ turret on the front, and a curved wraparound covered porch.  It has two staircases and a grand foyer with exquisite hardwood floors.  Its 4,000 square feet contain four bedrooms and two and a half baths.

James Wade Cox was born in 1863 in Lavinia (Carroll) Tennessee.  He was unmarried when he came to Houston in the late 1880s and set up a bicycle repair shop at 1014 Texas Avenue.  Through the years, this shop also sold pistols and rifles, hardware and supplies.

 

 

In 1903, at the age of 40, he married Eva E. Burts, a daughter of railroad engineer Joseph Burts.  By 1907 the store had moved to 1012-1015 Main and added ‘Auto and Bicycle Sundries” to its list of services.  The couple lived at 505 Tuam until their home at 402 Marshall was ready in 1908. 

Unfortunately, Eva only lived in the house for two years.  She died in 1910, the same year the Ford dealership “rented the entire ground floor of the Sternenberg Building at Milam and Walker for a salesroom and display area". 


In 1908, Harris County was home to “200 automobiles, the largest number of any county in Texas”, according to an issue of Automotive Industries magazine.  There were three automobile dealerships in the city, and our J. Wade Cox was the only one who sold Fords. 

For the next five years, Mr. Cox continued to live on Marshall Street as a widower.  In 1915, he remarried, to Miss Pearle Ray, whose father was a Precinct 1 Justice of the Peace.  With the coming of World War I in 1916, they sold their house and moved in with Pearle’s parents.  J. Wade Cox passed away in 1942. 

Photo by Dennis Pow-Sang

 

 

 

Interior of Ford Dealership on Main, c. 1908

Photo from David P. Rigney 1976