Edward L. and Margaret Seewald Roberts House
Amarillo, Potter County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Edward Llewellyn (1886-1983) and Margaret Seewald (1896-2001) Roberts house was designed by Harold Walsh in 1949 under heavy input from the Roberts. A student of Georgia O’Keeffe while at Amarillo High School, Margaret went on to achieve national recognition as an etcher and sculptor. Built as a nod to Santa Fe, New Mexico, architecture, the home features an irregular ranch-style floor plan. Notable features of the home include Santa Fe motifs such as exposed beams and woodwork carved by Roberts herself. The southwestern theme is rounded out with stucco fireplaces and stone floors. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2016
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Designed by Harold Walsh in 1949 with heavy input from its owners, this Amarillo home was built as a nod to Santa Fe architecture, with an irregular ranch-style plan, exposed beams, stucco fireplaces, and stone floors. Its co-owner, Margaret Seewald Roberts—once a student of Georgia O'Keeffe at Amarillo High School—earned national recognition as an etcher and sculptor and carved much of the home's woodwork herself.
Why it matters
The house is a personal work of art by a nationally recognized woman artist, linking a small-town Texas home to the wider currents of American Southwestern art.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the mid-twentieth century, Amarillo had grown from a frontier railhead into a confident modern city, and its residents were building homes to match. The postwar years brought new money, new materials, and a fresh appetite for regional style — and few styles spoke to the Southwest like the adobe-inspired look of Santa Fe.
This was an era when Americans across the country were rethinking what a house should be. The sprawling, informal ranch plan was becoming the signature of postwar living, favoring easy indoor spaces over the formal rooms of earlier generations. In the Southwest, that impulse often met local tradition halfway.
Into that moment stepped a couple with the taste and confidence to shape a home to their own vision. The result, completed in 1949, was less a builder's product than a personal statement — a house designed as much by its owners' imaginations as by its architect.
People & events
The house is tied to Edward Llewellyn Roberts and his wife, Margaret Seewald Roberts. When they set out to build in 1949, they turned to architect Harold Walsh — but the marker is clear that the design came under heavy input from the Robertses themselves, making this very much their creation.
Margaret's story is the heart of the place. As a student at Amarillo High School, she studied under Georgia O'Keeffe, who taught art in Amarillo's public schools in the early 1910s before becoming one of the most celebrated painters in American history. Margaret went on to national recognition of her own as an etcher and sculptor.
That artistry is built into the house. The southwestern interior is finished with exposed beams and woodwork that Margaret carved with her own hands, alongside stucco fireplaces and stone floors. A home shaped by an artist became, in effect, one more of her works.
Its place in the American story
This house connects a quiet Amarillo street to two of the larger currents in American art and architecture. The first is the deep national fascination with the Southwest — the pueblos, adobe walls, and warm light of New Mexico — that drew artists and homebuilders alike, and that this house consciously honors with its Santa Fe motifs.
The second is the thread that runs back to Georgia O'Keeffe. Long before she became a defining figure of American modern art, O'Keeffe was a young teacher in Texas, and her time in Amarillo left a mark on students like Margaret. That a local pupil carried the influence forward into a nationally recognized career shows how art travels through personal encounters, not just museums.
Recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 2016, the house stands as evidence that significant American art is not confined to big cities. A woman's hand-carved woodwork on a Texas ranch-style home ties this place to the wider story of women artists claiming their place in the century.
If you visit
This is a private-looking residence, so admire it as a work of design from the street rather than expecting a tour. Even from outside, the intent is easy to read: an irregular, ranch-style plan and a southwestern character that nods to Santa Fe rather than to the more familiar house styles of the plains.
If you know the story before you arrive, the details take on meaning. Imagine the exposed beams and carved woodwork within, shaped by an artist's own hands, and the stone floors and stucco fireplaces that complete the theme. It is a reminder that a home can be a canvas.
Fold it into a walk through Amarillo's older neighborhoods, where architecture becomes a way of reading the city's history. Let this house be the stop where you think about the people — especially the artist — who turned a floor plan into something personal and lasting.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Margaret Seewald Roberts
- · Edward Llewellyn Roberts
- · Harold Walsh
- · Georgia O'Keeffe
Themes & tags
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Roberts House (Margaret Roberts)
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