Magnificent Mansion in One of Houston’s Most Beautiful Neighborhoods Turns Heads — a $12.2 Million Shadyside Stunner
Rare Listing Harkens Back to Another Era
BY Shelby Hodge // 10.19.20The residence at 2 Longfellow Lane in Shadyside is on the National Register of Historic Places and is on the market with Douglas Elliman Real Estate for $12.2 million. (Photo by Nathan Schroder/Douglas Elliman)
Not only is Shadyside one of Houston’s most regal and beautiful neighborhoods, but it is also one of the city’s most historic, established by oil baron and Texaco founder Joseph S. Cullinan in 1920. With only 16 lots and magnificent manor houses designed by prominent architects of the era, the venerable residences seldom come on the market. Thus, the recent listing of 2 Longfellow Lane is of major import.
Marc Allen Ziegler with Douglas Elliman Real Estate has the listing for the 12,808 square foot dwelling, circa 1921, that is included on the National Registry of Historic Places. Famous New York architect Harrie T. Lindeberg and his protégé John F. Staub, designed this English Georgian style home, which today is swathed in a cloak of aged oaks and meticulously manicured grounds. (Staub went on in 1927 to design Bayou Bend, which is today the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s house museum for American decorative arts and paintings.)
Considering the era in which the mansion was built, it was clearly the desire of a wealthy Houstonian to make a mark in this exclusive corner of the city next to Rice University and adjacent to Main Street. Indeed, the Shadyside dwelling was originally built for David D. Peden, president of the Peden Iron and Steel Company, the largest hardware and supply house in the Southwest.
Imagine that in 1921, the house was built with six bedrooms, six bathrooms and three half baths, seven fireplaces, an over-sized three-car garage/carriage house and a swimming pool for a total of 12,808 square feet under roof. If those walls could talk! Imagine, the city’s high rollers opting in for this secluded enclave, eventually to be gated as it remains today.
Common knowledge holds that the 16 lots sold out within six weeks as Cullinan stacked the Shadyside neighborhood with his exceptionally wealthy friends, many of them oil barons.
It is a beautiful home that salutes the architectural riches of the era with soaring ceilings, expansive mullioned windows and in the dining room a complete set of Zuber’s panoramic wallpaper which depicts all five scenes of the Views of North America rarely seen outside of museums and the White House, where first lady Jackie Kennedy had similar wallpaper block print panels installed in the ’60s.
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Conventional wisdom holds that the 16 lots sold out within six weeks as Cullinan stacked the neighborhood with his exceptionally wealthy friends, many oil barons.
Three years ago, the home was on the market for $16.5 million making the current asking price of $12.2 million sound like a true bargain.
