James B. Shaw House, Pease-Shivers Mansion
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Woodlawn (James B. Shaw House, Pease-Shivers Mansion)
1854, Abner Cook. 6 Niles Rd.
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(Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )
A prominent hill just west of the capitol and downtown became the homesite for longtime state comptroller James B. Shaw, a native of Ireland. The two-story brick house faces east, toward the town, with a six-columned Greek Ionic porch. The central-hall plan is one room deep, with an unusual second, smaller colonnade of three Doric columns on the south side, Cook's first use of the Doric order. This is one of the largest of Cook's houses and Shaw estimated it cost him $20,000. Governor Elisha Pease, elected in 1853, selected Cook to build the Governor's Mansion ( AU4) based on Cook's work here. Pease bought the house from Shaw in 1859, the fourth Cook house in which the Peases lived, renaming it Woodlawn. The family lived here for ninety-eight years. This imposing Greek Revival stone residence sits on several of the original 650 acres that are now surrounded by early-twentieth-century single-family houses. The house was sold to Governor Allan Shivers in 1957, who donated it to the University of Texas in 1975. He lived on the property until his death in 1996.
The Edwin C. Kreisle House (1928) at 5 Niles Road was designed by architect Kreisle for his family and remains one of the most interesting houses in the neighborhood.
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