M.S. and Cora Alice Perry House
Bay City, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
An architectural hybrid incorporating colonial revival and Queen Anne style elements, the M. S. (1872-1919) and Cora Alice (1883-1970) Perry House was erected in 1917 and 1918. A prominent community leader, Perry was the principle owner of Le Tulle Mercantile Co. The Perrys designed the home with their builder, George Schultz. The home, intended to resist turbulent coastal weather, was constructed of layered 1" x 12" boards and concrete stucco. After years as apartments, it was restored in the 1970s. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1917-18 for merchant M. S. Perry and his wife Cora Alice, this Bay City home blended Colonial Revival dignity with Queen Anne flourishes. Perry, principal owner of the Le Tulle Mercantile Co., helped design the house with builder George Schultz, using layered board-and-stucco construction meant to stand up to Gulf Coast storms. After years divided into apartments, it was restored in the 1970s.
Why it matters
It reflects the prosperity of a small-town Texas merchant class in the early twentieth century and the coastal builders who engineered homes to survive hurricanes.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the late 1910s, Bay City was a prospering seat of Matagorda County, the kind of small Texas town where a successful merchant could build a home that announced his standing. When M. S. and Cora Alice Perry raised their house in 1917 and 1918, they were building at the confident edge of the Progressive era, when commerce and civic ambition were reshaping towns across the Gulf Coast.
This was a period when a rising small-town merchant class had both the means and the desire to build well. Popular architecture of the day loved to mix styles, and the Perry house is a case in point—an architectural hybrid blending the balanced dignity of Colonial Revival with the picturesque flourishes of the Queen Anne style. Such a home was as much a statement of arrival as any storefront.
But this was the Texas coast, where prosperity always shared the horizon with the weather. Any family building near the Gulf in these years built with hurricanes in mind, and the Perrys were no exception.
People & events
M. S. Perry (1872–1919) was a prominent community leader and the principal owner of the Le Tulle Mercantile Co., the kind of general merchant enterprise that anchored a small town's economy. A man in his position needed a home that reflected his role, and he set about creating one with unusual care.
Rather than simply hiring the work out, the Perrys designed the house together with their builder, George Schultz—a genuine collaboration between owners and craftsman. And they built for endurance as much as elegance. To stand up to turbulent coastal weather, the house was constructed of layered one-by-twelve boards sheathed in concrete stucco, a robust method meant to shrug off the storms that regularly battered the coast.
The home outlived its builders and changed with the times. M. S. Perry died in 1919, only a year or two after the house was finished; Cora Alice lived until 1970. Over the following decades the house was divided and used as apartments—a common fate for grand old homes—before being restored in the 1970s. In 1997 it was honored as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Its place in the American story
The Perry house tells a story that played out in small towns all across early twentieth-century America: the emergence of a confident local merchant class whose success was written into the architecture of Main Street and the fine houses just off it. The man who owned the mercantile store often owned one of the best homes in town, and that home became a marker of the whole community's prosperity.
Its eclectic, style-mixing design is thoroughly American of its moment. The blending of Colonial Revival and Queen Anne elements reflects a national taste that prized both dignity and ornament, and that felt free to combine historical styles into something new and personal.
There's a distinctly regional lesson here too. Along the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast, building was always an act of engineering against the weather, and the layered-board-and-stucco construction shows local builders adapting national styles to hard local realities. The house's later life—subdivided into apartments, then lovingly restored—mirrors the arc of countless historic American homes and the preservation movement that eventually rescued many of them.
If you visit
Give yourself a moment out front to read the house as the mix it is. Look for the calm symmetry and classical touches of Colonial Revival playing against the busier, more romantic details of Queen Anne—two design languages sharing one roof. Once you see the hybrid, you can't unsee it, and it's the key to the building's charm.
Then think about what you can't see: the layered boards and concrete stucco beneath the surface, engineered to face down Gulf storms. It's a reminder that on this coast, even a gracious merchant's home was built like something meant to survive a hard blow.
As a restored landmark, the house is best appreciated with respect for the fact that it may be a private residence—admire it from the public way rather than intruding. It makes a rewarding stop on an architectural stroll through Bay City's historic fabric, a single well-built house that opens a window onto the ambitions, tastes, and hard-won practicality of a Texas coastal town a century ago.
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
- · M. S. Perry
- · Cora Alice Perry
- · George Schultz
Themes & tags
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