HistoricSiteMarkers
Progressive & Modern Era

Rockwell House

Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Situated in Los Ebanos estates and purchased by city engineer Fayette L. Rockwell, this house was designed by architect Roscious Newell waters and built by S. W. Mckenzie in 1930. Enjoyed by the Rockwell family through the 1960s, it is a two-story, brick veneer, Spanish revival house with an l-front plan and a red tile roof. The house is marked by its rectangular chimney stack built outside of the exterior wall with protruding flues and prominent metal sailboat figure. Greatly involved in the city, Rockwell served on several boards and was engaged in citrus cultivation. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK – 2017

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Brownsville city engineer Fayette L. Rockwell built this two-story Spanish Revival house in the Los Ebanos estates in 1930, designed by architect Roscious Newell Waters and built by S. W. McKenzie. Its red tile roof, exterior chimney stack, and prominent metal sailboat figure gave it a distinctive silhouette that the Rockwell family enjoyed through the 1960s. Rockwell served on several city boards and was engaged in citrus cultivation.

Why it matters

The house reflects the civic leadership and citrus economy that shaped Brownsville between the world wars.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Fayette L. Rockwell
  • · Roscious Newell Waters

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Pitt House

Brownsville, TX

English immigrant Arthur Pitt arrived in Galveston in 1909, found work at a citrus nursery, and by 1918 had founded a Rio Grande Valley citrus-tree business he would run for sixty years. In 1930 he and his wife, Evelyn Roper Pitt, commissioned architect E. Guy Holliday—who had worked with El Paso's Trost & Trost—to design this Spanish Revival home, whose custom tilework and cross-patterned foyer window nodded to Pitt's British heritage.

McNair House

Brownsville, TX

Brownsville architect A.H. Woolridge designed this Monterey-style home in 1937 for Jack and Vivian McNair. Jack had come to Brownsville in 1921 to join his brother in clothing manufacturing, eventually building McNair Clothing Manufacturing Company into the largest private employer south of San Antonio before selling to Levi Strauss in 1972. The house remains a fine local example of the Monterey style, with its second-story balcony, shuttered windows, and low-pitched roof.

Hinojosa House

Brownsville, TX

Built in 1950, the Hinojosa House stands in Los Ebanos, a Brownsville subdivision laid out in the 1920s with curved streets tracing the resacas—oxbow lakes left by the flooding Rio Grande. Ramon and Consuelo Hinojosa bought the last two lots developed there, broke ground in March 1950, and moved in that May, into a late example of the California-Monterey style marked unusually by a cantilevered second story in place of the customary balcony.

Juan H. Fernandez Store

Brownsville, TX

Juan H. Fernandez came to America in 1875 at age fourteen as a ward of his uncle, an Asturian merchant from Pendueles, Spain. Following the family trade, he opened his own store in 1883 in the classic 'border brick' style, using clay fired in local kilns called hornillas, and prospered serving the ranch and farm country around Brownsville. In 1921 he bought the 6,000-acre Noriega Plantation, known as Rancho Viejo.