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John S. Chase – The Chase Residence

A beautifully illustrated and contextualized chronicle of the Chase residence—one of Houston’s finest modernist houses—designed by John S. Chase, the first African American licensed architect in Texas

John S. Chase—The Chase Residence

DAVID HEYMANN AND STEPHEN FOX

DAVID HEYMANN Austin, Texas

Author of My Beautiful City Austin, architect David Heymann is the Harwell Hamilton Harris Professor at UT Austin and a contributing writer for Places.

STEPHEN FOX Houston, Texas

Author of AIA Houston Architectural Guide and The Country Houses of John F. Staub, historian Stephen Fox is a lecturer at Rice University and the University of Houston and an Anchorage Foundation Fellow.

Tower Books

release date | august 12 x 9 inches, 40 pages, 21 photos, 16 drawings

ISBN 978-0-934951-32-6 $35.00 | £27.99 | C$52.50 hardcover The low-slung brick home that architect John Saunders Chase completed for his own family in 1959 was Houston’s first modernist house with a true interior courtyard, a form with which other progressive architects were only starting to experiment. It was equally radical that he built it at all. When Chase graduated from The University of Texas School of Architecture in 1952—the first African American to do so—no Houston architecture firm would hire him. Chase petitioned the state for special permission to take the licensing exam, becoming the first African American registered as an architect in Texas. By 1959, he ran his own thriving firm and had established a position of remarkable influence in Houston’s social, political, and economic life. The Chase Residence, in both its original version and after a fundamental alteration undertaken in 1968, is a testament to Chase’s accomplishments.

Beautifully illustrated, John S. Chase—The Chase Residence examines how the architecture of this seminal but little-known house frames the life lived within it. It places the house in the larger context of Chase’s architectural career. The bookhis times, and is also intended for readers broadly interested in the relationship between American architecture and society.

Opposite page: John S. Chase and family in front of his home.

Clockwise from top: Oveta Culp Hobby, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and William P. Hobby Sr. in the Oval Office, April 1953 (Hobby family); Will Hobby with his five-year-old son, Bill, in 1937 (Hobby family); Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby in Egypt during her inspection tour of Women’s Army Corps stations in North Africa, January 1944 (Woodson Research Center, Rice University).

This dual biography chronicles the lives of Will and Oveta Hobby; their impact on local, state, and national events; and how their marriage and media empire helped shape twentiethcentury journalistic and political history

THE GOVERNOR AND THE COLONEL

A Dual Biography of William P. Hobby and Oveta Culp Hobby

DON CARLETON

The Governor and the Colonel A Dual Biography of William P. Hobby and Oveta Culp Hobby

DON CARLETON

William P. “Will” Hobby Sr. and Oveta Culp Hobby were one of the most influential couples in Texas history. Both were major public figures, with Will serving as governor of Texas and Oveta as the first commander of the Women’s Army Corps and later as the second woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. Together, they built a pioneering media empire centered on the Houston Post and their broadcast properties, and they played a significant role in the transformation of Houston into the fourth largest city in the United States. Don Carleton’s dual biography details their personal and professional relationship—defined by a shared dedication to public service—and the important roles they each played in local, state, and national events throughout the twentieth century.

This deeply researched book not only details this historically significant partnership, but also explores the close relationships between the Hobbys and key figures in twentieth-century history, from Texas legends such as LBJ, Sam Rayburn, and Jesse Jones, to national icons, including the Roosevelts, President Eisenhower, and the Rockefellers. Carleton’s chronicle reveals the undeniable impact of the Hobbys on journalistic and political history in the United States. DON CARLETON Austin, Texas

Don Carleton is executive director of the Briscoe Center for American History and J. R. Parten Chair in the Archives of American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

release date | december 7 x 10 inches, 800 pages, 100 b&w photos

ISBN 978-0-9997318-5-7 $39.95 | £33.00 | C$49.95 hardcover