Norwood House
Navasota, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built to serve as the first residence of Ewing and Mattie (Brosig) Norwood, this house was completed in 1898, while Ewing Norwood was president of the First National Bank of Navasota. Designed and built by local architect Ernest Lord, the home exhibits Queen Anne influences in the entry and porch detailing and features a depressed arch and a balustrade over the entryway. The house remained in the Norwood family for more than sixty years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1984
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When banker Ewing Norwood built this Navasota home in 1898, the town was a bustling cotton-shipping and railroad hub in the heart of post-Reconstruction Texas. As president of the First National Bank, Norwood commissioned local architect Ernest Lord to design a fashionable Queen Anne residence, its depressed-arch entry and balustraded porch signaling the prosperity of a new commercial class. The house stayed in the family for more than six decades.
Why it matters
It captures the confident, banker-built domestic architecture of a Gilded Age Texas railroad town, when local commerce translated into ambitious homes.
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Related people
- · Ewing Norwood
- · Mattie Brosig Norwood
- · Ernest Lord
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sangster House
Navasota, TX
Built in 1902 by Robert Andrew "Buck" Sangster with part of the winnings from a lottery ticket, this twelve-room Queen Anne home mixes Classical Revival details on the exterior with curly red pine woodwork inside, designed by architect Ernest Lord. Purchased in 1929 by Buck's brother W.W. Sangster, it stayed in the family until 1965. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1974.
Robert A. Horlock House
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Alabama-born Robert Augustus Horlock arrived in Navasota in 1871 and rose to become one of its leading merchants and civic figures. In the early 1890s he and his wife Agnes built this ornate home in the Eastlake and Stick styles, all corner porch, arched windows, and finely turned woodwork. It stayed in the Horlock family for nearly a century.
Joseph Brooks Home
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Joseph Brooks left England for Texas in 1853 with his wife Mary Ann, and after Civil War service he settled in Navasota—surviving the deadly 1867 yellow fever epidemic that swept the Gulf region. He rose to become a leading local lumberman and, in the 1870s, built this family home in the ornate Victorian fashion of the day. Decades later his daughter Mary Elizabeth reworked it with classical revival detailing, layering one generation's taste over another's.
Steele House
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