This Jimmy Tittle-Designed Mid-Century Is Living The Dream In Abilene
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Coming in at over 5,000 square feet, this house is huge. The only thing bigger than the square footage? The style. It’s a two-owner home with a storied past.
It was constructed for Bill Cree and his wife Amber Cree in 1955. Amber studied architecture at Texas Tech and became enamored with mid-century design. She teamed up with Jimmy Tittle, lead architect at Tittle Luther Loving, to design her dream home.
Abilene’s Barnett & Hill’s John Hill describes the design as exotic mid-century. He said the Crees never had children and that might be one of the reason the rail-less descend into the conversation pit and ascend to the balcony and guest room were able to fly. Though it could occasionally prove tricky for adults too.
Hill said recently on Facebook, an Abilene resident posted this very glamorous picture of Amber Cree at the opening of the Shamrock Hotel in Houston and shared a story about the Crees home. The poster said one time, father may have been a bit overserved at a party at the Crees’ legendary home and resorted to “climbing to the guest suite by scooting on his butt – he was afraid of going over the edge on the stairs and rail-less landing.”
Can you imagine the parties that went on in this place?!? It’s exceptional and the people and STYLE of everyone that attended were, too. UGH, what an era.
Hill went on explain that the second owners and current sellers, Polly Coleman and Charlie Norris, “did the heavy lifting by replacing an asbestos-cement shingle roof and replacing the antiquated chiller system with five (5!!) HVAC units.”
Aside from a primary and guest bathroom renovation, a floor refinishing and light renovation on the St. Charles cabinets in the kitchen, this home is largely original. And why wouldn’t it be? When you nail it the first time, don’t mess with perfection.
My absolute favorite feature of the house? All of it. Every single inch is unbelievable. But my favorite-favorite is the triangle fireplace. I’ve never seen one like it. Back up favorite-favorite? That living room ceiling.
Jimmy Tittle designed an abundance of mid-century buildings in Abilene and he’s still living today. As an animal-loving sidenote, when Amber passed away in 2014, she donated all of her estate to the Abilene Zoo. Just a fun fact to further prove what a fun, lively, and lovely person Amber was. With an eye for design in spades.
Hill has 1450 Tanglewood Road in Abilene listed for $925,000. Not a shocker, it’s already Pending.
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With those stairs, there will be no aging in place.
What a GREAT home!!!
This is stunning. I grew up in Midland, Texas (where Frank Welch did a lot of his early work, including our planetarium, community theatre, and many noteworthy homes), and I can attest to the fact that west Texas has some pretty great architecture. Thanks for posting this stunning home.
This house has made quite the stir on the MCM groups. Rumor was put out there that it is slated to be torn down but I find that SO hard to believe! Please set the record straight so I can stop the madness. Surely the buyers are keeping it standing?
Rumor has it the new owner is going to tear it down! Unbelievable
Today is a sad day because the Cree’s home was bulldozed. Horrible day for Abilene.
Was this house really torn down?
We just drove by. It’s completely torn down. Absolutely devastating!
That is so sad about it being torn down! What a devastating loss.
The new owners tore this house down. Please do not ever remove this most so that these photos are saved for all time. We are thankful that these photos exist.
This house was bought and torn down by the buyers.
Torn down! Just goes to show that some people have more money than brains. Thanks for being so selfish.
I can’t imagine why the new owners would tear down such a wonderful piece of art!! Money doesn’t equal intelligence, obviously!! What a shame!!
For the record, Sam and Lucy Vinson had this home demolished because it was not suitable for their young family, according to the local newspaper. Folks, if you’re lucky enough to have this much disposable money in life, PLEASE find better ways to use it than bulldozing a piece of art and local history. It could easily have been granted a historic designation. It could have been a time capsule of mid-century design and culture. It SHOULD have been loved and appreciated by its new owner. As an architectural designer and friend of Mr. Tittle, I cannot express how sad I was when I heard of this. Simply a crime.
I will never recover from this act of disrespect for a brilliant piece of art. What next? Tear down Notre Dame?
Amber Cree was my Aunt. My Mother’s oldest sister. My sister and I played in that house as kids. We probably made my Aunt crazy when we came. We were into everything. My nephew is a contractor and I gave him the drawings for the house when he expressed an interest in building it someday. Amber had given me drawings years ago at my request.
My sister and I were crushed when we learned that the house had been demolished. It was truly a piece of art and history.
We are hoping we can get a complete set of the plans and build it again.
I had the pleasure of touring this house when it was on the market in late 2014. I was interviewing in Abilene for a job that did not come to fruition. However, I was far enough along in the process that the potential employer had flown me to Abilene twice, and I was house shopping with full anticipation of moving in the next month or so.
I initially saw the house on a gorgeous fall day, but the realtor was unable to gain access. Fortunately, we were able to go back the next day and tour the house.
The pictures do not do the house justice with regard to scale or presence. Although it was not furnished as in the above pictures when I toured it, it was overwhelmingly obvious how special and unique the architecture was, and how much time and effort had gone into the details.
As I recall, I had some concerns about the roofing over the garage (including questions about asbestos abatement that would have probably been required), and the HVAC system on the main level was reportedly original to the house (so 1955 vintage and VERY early for home central air), but had asked the realtor to follow up on those issues.
If I recall correctly, asking price then was either mid 350s or low 400s…and it was hard to know if that was a bargain or only the beginning of bucketfuls of cash that the house would have needed to be brought up to a reasonable state. Aesthetically, it was in decent shape at that time, but as mentioned, roofing and HVAC issues could have quickly doubled that budget.
Several days after flying home, my prospective employer in Abilene decided that they in fact did NOT have a position (for me or anybody – apparently they had made some mistakes in calculating demand for services), and so I ended up elsewhere in Texas later that year.
Ever since, however, I have considered the Cree house “the one that got away”, and would check online periodically to see if it had gone back up for sale. This year, when I checked, I was *quite disappointed* to find that it had been demolished. Based on some experience with older properties in neighborhoods like Highland Park in Dallas, sometime the property IS worth much, much more than than the house that stands on it…but I can’t imagine was the case here, and that other similar local property could not have been acquired instead.
As can be seen from google maps, the lot backs up to a commercial district. and you can see parking lots and buildings easily through the backyard…noise from nearby businesses was one of my concerns when considering the house back in 2014.
I hope that the underlying truth is that the house was simply too expensive to bring up to code or there were other prohibitive issues that could not be reasonably overcome discovered after the sale. That would have put the house in a tough spot – can’t exactly turn it into a museum, but also perhaps unlivable for code or other reasons.
The alternative – that the house was purchased with the intent to demolish it. and no thought given to _just buying another piece of land_ is unfortunate to consider.
Ms. Owens, if you happen to read this, I’d love for you to reply to this post – if it were somehow possible, I’d love to facilitate making a copy of any of the architectural plans or drawings you might still have in your possession as they would likely make very cool artwork. I am not signing my full name here for internet/privacy reasons (and I still live in Texas), but it would be great to get in contact if you’d like.
I was so sad to learn that this beautiful home had been bulldozed. My sister and brother-in-law were the previous owners and we spent so many wonderful times there with them, other family and my parents.
Polly really bought the home to be near my parents during their golden years. It was there we had my Father’s 90th birthday party, family reunions, headquarters for planning my father’s funeral and another sad gathering for my mother’s ultimate decline and passing.
I know it made Polly and Chuck sad, also, they put so much into bringing the home up to modern standards. It was my father’s pet project for the better part of two years, while my sister and Brother-in-Law were still living in Gonzales.
It was such a special home, and I heard so much about Miss Amber and her times. The wood and the bricks may be gone, but the memories will live forever.