A Story About Howard Meyer and Glass Bricks

Can you tell I’ve been polishing my power-point presentation for Wednesday’s Agent Reboot? Pretty simple title.  In Journalism School, we were taught that the best story titles and leads are straightforward, so here you go: a simple story about architect Howard Meyer and glass blocks.

You know I toured and profiled 4504 Bordeaux for one of our two Monday Morning Millionaires. (Yes, two treasures, ambitious, huh?) While touring, home owner Mike Renfro — by the way, check out his webpage and blog, 1riot1ranger, told me he thought the glass bricks around his front door were from Fair Park. Note I wrote Fair Park earlier today, did not get specific. That is because Mike was having dinner with Catherine Horsey, an avid and brilliant Dallas preservationist and owner of the 1937 Meyer house (Sanger House) in Lakewood. Here is Mike’s update:

She got to meet Mr. Sanger when he was in his 90s, and he recalled Mr. Meyer buying a bunch of glass brick from a demo booth at the Texas Centennial at Fair Park in 1936. I guess it may have been promoted as a material of the future or some such. Anyway, he apparently bought a bunch then used it in the Sanger House (1937) and mine–The Rose House (1938). Again, attributed to Mr. Sanger.

How cool is that. This glass brick probably came from the Texas Centennial building at Fair Park. So not clear if it was recycled materials or new fangled building materials, but what a cool connection. This is a stretch, but not dissimilar: when I visited Hearst Castle at San Simeon  in California, built by William Randolph Hearst, they told us that the Mosaics in the floor we were standing on were from the time of Christ, that’s how old they were. Actually, it’s from Ostia, and it’s second century AD, and so old you can no longer walk on it. Cannot tell you what that story did to an impressionable 12 year old. Probably the root cause of my obsession with all things Real Estate.

Rosebud!