"Y" as in Galveston YARDS

YIKES!  We're already up to the letter "Y" for Alphabe-Thursday.  Thank you Ms. Jenny for sponsoring Alphabe-Thursday.  I sure hope you're getting to the bottom of things and finding a good treatment for what has been making you feel YUCKY for so long.  I miss your funny posts and want you back!

This week we are studying the letter "Y" as in Galveston YARDS.  Last weekend
 I went down to Galveston on Sunday for the Galveston Historic Homes Tour sponsored by the Galveston Historical Foundation.  The tour takes place on two weekends.  I missed going on Saturday because the weather was perfect for getting some furniture painted in the garage.  I knew the heat and humidity would be coming back and I needed to paint while we had a few good days.  Glad I did because the last couple of days have been miserable.  I'm afraid for us summer is here!

I only had time to visit three of the nine homes on the tour.  This coming weekend I'll try and visit the rest. I've been going on this tour for years and always enjoy it.  If it wasn't for hurricanes I'd buy a home in Galveston.

The first home I visited was a restoration in progress and the YARD hadn't been landscaped yet.  I didn't even think to take pictures. 

The second house I visited was the 1856/1859 John H. and Minnie Knox Hutchings House.  The home was originally built in 1856 and after hurricane damage in 1885 it was remodeled in a Romanesque Revival style.  The house was huge and filled with what I'm sure were very expensive furnishings.  Not exactly my style though.  It reminded me of a museum.  The homes I enjoy the most on the tour are the ones I could imagine myself living in with my dog and cats!  However, I loved this home's huge YARD with wonderful live oaks.  Lots of shade.

 I thought this was kind of cute...

 I wondered if this live oak had been damaged during Hurricane Ike.  There was a large bolt that went through the tree and then chains were wrapped around the trunk to help hold it together.  It was a huge tree and I guess the weight was pulling the trunk apart.

Then I visited the 1909 Fordtran Viotto House.  I would not mind living in this one!  I believe my dog and cats would enjoy the large balcony and I loved the style of this home.  There wasn't a lot of landscaping in the front YARD, but there was a magnolia tree that was blooming.

The back YARD gave me some ideas for what to do with my fence.  I have some old shutters in the garage.

Photographs aren't allowed to be taken inside the homes, so I snapped a few outside with my cell phone.

Now head over to Jenny's blog for a list of this week's participants.  Thanks for visiting...

"Y" as in Galveston YARDS

Last weekend I went down to Galveston for the annual Historic Homes Tour.  It runs for two weekends, so I'll be going down again this Saturday to finish the tour.  However, I managed to take pictures of some of the pretty YARDS I saw last weekend to share with you for Alphabe-Thursday.   I'll try and share the homes another time.

Here we go.  "Y" as in pretty YARDS for Alphabe-Thursday sponsored by Ms. Jenny at Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."  (Hurry and get well Ms. Jenny!!!)

Most of the yards were small.  These people stole my idea.  I plan to hang some boards on a tree with the mileage to all the places we've lived.  I believe these are places they've visited.  It's a very colorful backyard with a tropical feel.

I was all excited about this garden.

Everything seemed to be growing so well.

So I took a picture so I could Google the name later.

I thought the plants were in soil, but they're not.  It's hydroponics and the whole set up cost over $500 plus shipping.  I guess I won't be getting one any time soon.  I'd have to eat a lot of tomatoes to justify the expense.

There were even pretty chickens in one YARD.

And another kind of vegetable garden.

This looked relaxing.

I thought this was kind of cute.

The round thing in the front is actually dishes made into a yard decoration to match the flowers.

There was also some new construction on the tour. These homes were built to look like the older homes.  They face the beach and are built to withstand winds of 150 mph. (If a hurricane was coming I don't think I'd hang around to see if that was true.)  This was the view out the back.  I guess this is called a marsh?  I bet there's good crabbing there.

This can also been seen from the backyard by looking to the right.

Can you see the ships in the distance?

And if you look in the other direction you can see downtown Galveston.

And this is the view to the front.  Behind the condominium is the Gulf.  There are more houses similar to this one to the left and more under construction.

This particular home has been sold.  Otherwise the 2,500 sf  home and YARD with a view could be yours for $1,250,000.

I'd rather have one of the historic homes anyway.

Now head to Ms. Jenny's blog for a list of this week's participants.  Thanks for visiting.

 

What a great weekend! The Galveston Historic Home Tour...

The weather this past weekend was wonderful.  In my wildest dreams I never thought I would be wearing a light weight jacket in May.  That just doesn't happen here.

I headed down to Galveston on Saturday for the Historic Home Tour.  I've probably gone on at least 15 of these tours over the years.  It's usually hot and humid.  Jim and I used to hope for rain because then it would still be hot but the sun would be blocked and conditions would be a little more bearable.  Never did we have a cool day, but this year things were different.

The tour runs for two weekends.  I had originally planned to go this past Saturday and next Saturday, but with the cooler weather I changed my plans and went Saturday and Sunday.  I have a feeling it will be hot and miserable this coming weekend and I wanted to take advantage of the great weather.

It was perfect weather for standing in line although it did warm up a little in the afternoon.

There were big houses and little houses.  This one was huge.  It was built in 1889-1890 and is called Open Gates.  It's owned by The University of Texas Medical Branch and now used as a conference center.  I kind of liked the flower pot up there.

This little cottage was built in 1888 and I believe they said it was 835 square feet.  Isn't it cute?

There were 10 homes on the tour and one was a restoration in progress. The restorations in progress are actually my favorites.  Usually they'll have the finished home on the tour again within a few years.  I took loads of pictures of this year's restoration, but I'll save them for another post.  That's the only home where you can take pictures of the interior.

There were some pretty yards.  Very tropical looking.

 I also took some time to walk along The Strand.  I love the old stores and it was a perfect day for a stroll.

The Carnival Magic was in port.  Hope they'll all have an uneventful cruise!

Look at this pretty street.

I'd love to live in Galveston, but then I remember Hurricane Ike and what the city was like for a long time afterwards.  (Most of the homes on this year's tour flooded during Ike.)  I wrote about our trip down to Galveston four months after the storm here.  I must admit that the city has come back which I thought would probably never happen when I wrote that post back in early 2009.  However, if I was living in Galveston I'd be a nervous wreck every time there was something brewing in the Gulf.  When you live on the Island you have to evacuate!  I don't want to live any closer to the coast than I am right now.  I'll just get my Galveston fix with short day trips.

ALPHABE-THURSDAY..."G" as in GALVESTON

Welcome once again to this week's edition of Alphabe-Thursday sponsored by our teacher, Ms. Jenny over at the Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent" School for Wayward Bloggers.  This week we are studying the letter "G" as in GALVESTON.

We recently went down to GALVESTON once again for the 2011 Historic Homes Tour.  I love old homes and there really aren't too many old homes where I live.  Considering our town is over 100 years old you would think there would be many old homes, but there aren't.  This area grew when NASA built the Johnson Space Center in the early 1960's and probably 99.9% of this town was built since then. 

However, GALVESTON has a lot of beautiful old homes.  Pretty remarkable when you consider the 1900 hurricane which is still considered the worst storm to ever hit the United States.  The storm surge swept across the island and 1/3 of the city was completely destroyed (more than 3,600 buildings), and approximately 6,000 people died. 

What I've always found amazing is that the people left on the island then went about raising the island.  They jacked up most of the remaining houses and raised the island 8 feet overall...and 17 feet by the newly built seawall.

Here's a picture of them raising the houses so they could fill in with sand.

This shows how they built the seawall to hopefully hold the Gulf waters back in future storms.  Then they filled in behind it with sand.

Today, homes that survived the 1900 storm have special plaques signifying that they survived the Great Storm.  Of course, in 2008 Hurricane Ike came ashore and flooded 75% of the island in spite of the seawall.  The population of GALVESTON went from 57,247 in the 2000 Census to 47,743 in the 2010 Census because of Hurricane Ike.  After Ike I really thought Galveston wouldn't be able to come back, but it has and things are looking better and better every year.  I originally wrote about GALVESTON Island four months post Ike when we drove down to see how much progress had been made.  You can read that post here.

Although many of the beautiful old Live Oaks were lost when the salt water flooded the island, some are finally coming back.  It's taken all this time, but this one looks like it's going to make it.  Many had to be cut down and I've written about how they were repurposed and turned into wood carvings in an Alphabe-Thursday post last year.  You can read about it here.

Now on to the 2011 GALVESTON Historic Homes Tour.  I could only take photographs of the outside of the homes since interior photos are not allowed.  I don't have photos of all the homes...just my favorites!

The was my absolute favorite...The 1871 Walter and Caroline Ansell House.  I liked it inside and out because it was a home I could actually picture us living in.  Some homes on the tour look too much like a museum to me and I prefer the lived in look.

The only thing I didn't like is that this home is right across the street.  (That's my husband in the picture.)

I've found this a lot on GALVESTON Island.  People go in and restore homes and they're beautiful, but they're sometimes surrounded by run down homes.  But, some blocks have most of the homes restored and they're beautiful.  I guess that's the hope of everyone that takes a chance and restores a home in a so-so neighborhood.

This is the 1876 Lemuel and Julia Burr House.

They were selling framed prints of the homes out front.

This was the view from this home.  I guess it's one of the GALVESTON schools that was closed after Hurricane Ike.  That round dome is the background is the Catholic Church.

Every year they have a restoration in progress home on the tour.  This is the 1891 John Charles Harris House and one that we could probably afford at this point.  It's definitely a fixer upper because there had been a fire in this home back in 2005 and it's been empty since.  The brick porch was added to the original home in later years and would have to be removed in order to restore it properly.  Anyone interested?  It's now owned by the GALVESTON Historical Foundation and is for sale.

And this is the 1898 Joseph Goldstein House.  It's the one that had the Live Oak previously mentioned in front of it.  The house next door looks really nice too.

This was another favorite of mine.  It's the 1924 Alex and Hortense Shoomer Bungalow.  I love the old bungalows!

I thought this was clever.  They had Jasmine growing up the side of the house and used this old rusty wheel as a trellis.

There were other homes on the tour, but I thought I'd just show you a few of my favorites.


Now report to Ms. Jenny's classroom for a list of this week's participants and information on how you can register for class.