Phillips-Sale House
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
New York native Alexander Hamilton Phillips (1804-1880) moved to Texas in 1837. He served in both the Congress of the Republic of Texas and the Legislature of the State of Texas. He moved his law practice to Victoria in the 1840s, and in 1851 hired local building contractor Richard Owens to build this house. Constructed of bricks made by slaves and fired at Owens' brickyard on the Guadalupe River, the house became a center of social activity in Victoria. During his 1857 campaign for Governor, Sam Houston attended a ball and reception here and made a speech from the front porch. Attorney Samuel Dabney purchased the house in 1893 and hired noted local architect Jules Leffland to remodel it. Leffland's changes, which included the application of stucco over the original brick exterior, reflect the popular interest in Colonial Revival architecture during the 1890s. Walter Wynne Sale (1887-1967), a medical doctor and decorated World War I veteran, bought the property in 1932, and it has remained in his family. Among the house's prominent features are a broad two-story porch with Classical columns, and a front entry with sidelights and elliptically arched transom. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Alexander Hamilton Phillips, a New Yorker who came to Texas in 1837 and served in both the Republic's Congress and the state Legislature, built this Victoria house in 1851 from bricks made by enslaved workers at a nearby Guadalupe River brickyard. It became a social hub: during his 1857 run for governor, Sam Houston spoke from its front porch. A 1890s remodel by architect Jules Leffland stuccoed the brick in the Colonial Revival taste, and the family of World War I veteran Dr. Walter Wynne Sale has held it since 1932.
Why it matters
The house layers Texas political history, the labor of the enslaved, and generations of architectural fashion into a single Victoria landmark that reads like a timeline of the state's growth.
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Related people
- · Alexander Hamilton Phillips
- · Sam Houston
- · Jules Leffland
- · Walter Wynne Sale
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Victoria
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On May 15, 1852, a small band of eight men and women—among them an enslaved person—organized the First Baptist Church of Victoria on the Texas coastal plain. In its early years the congregation shared a Methodist meeting house and later built a frame sanctuary above an Odd Fellows lodge hall. A steeple bell recovered after a storm scattered the port town of Indianola has followed the congregation through each new building since 1878.
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When Victoria voted to create an independent school district in 1898, its plan laid bare the era's racial order: eight schools, four for Anglo children and four for African American children. Prominent architect Jules Leffland designed the imposing three-story building completed on this site in 1902, later renamed to honor early trustee J.D. Mitchell. Fires in 1935 and 1943 cost the school its top floor, but the building endured and still serves as an educational center today.
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