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Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains and West » North Central Texas » Archer City to Quanah » Wichita Falls (Wichita County) » Lula Kemp and Frank Kell House Museum

Lula Kemp and Frank Kell House Museum

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1909, Jones and Orlopp. 900 Bluff St.

Evan Jones and H. A. Orlopp of Wichita Falls designed this substantial, two-story, red brick house for Wichita Falls businessman Frank Kell. The low-pitched roofs with broad eaves supported on scrolled brackets suggest Prairie Style influence. The house’s most distinguishing features are the tall central portico supported on two pairs of Doric columns and the one-story gallery that runs behind the portico and continues along each side to form rounded porches on smaller Doric columns. The site was a bluff that overlooked the expanding city that Kell and Kemp were deeply involved in developing. The Kell family occupied the house until 1980, when it was purchased by the Wichita County Heritage Society and opened as a museum in 1981. Original furnishings and decorative arts remain in the house. Gardens are being reconstructed as planted by Kell’s daughter Willie May, the last of the family to reside in the house.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

First Baptist Church
Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd
Foundations (Medical Office Building)
Central YMCA
City Hall and Municipal Building (Memorial Auditorium)

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Lula Kemp and Frank Kell House Museum", [Wichita Falls, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-AQ14.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 320-320.

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