Walter and Mae Simms House
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Austin architect Roger Q. Small designed this unique 1935 home for Walter and Mae (Moore) Simms, who established Simms Fish market in 1915 and delivered Gulf Coast seafood to hotels and restaurants throughout Central Texas for nearly forty years. The simplified Classical Revival style house is a side-gabled rectangular plan residence into a sloping lot, with butler brick walls and large multi-light windows. Below the house is an integrated five-bay garage, framed by a rough-cut limestone façade. This incorporation of a garage into the house’s main structure did not become common until after World War II, reflecting the rising influence of automobiles on architecture and urban planning during the early 20th century. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2008
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Architect Roger Q. Small designed this 1935 Austin residence for Walter and Mae Simms, whose Simms Fish Market had trucked Gulf Coast seafood to Central Texas hotels and restaurants since 1915. The simplified Classical Revival house tucks a five-bay garage beneath its main floor behind a rough-cut limestone façade—an integration of the automobile into the home that would not become common until after World War II. Its butler brick walls and tall multi-light windows mark it as a refined product of its era.
Why it matters
The house captures how the rise of the automobile reshaped American domestic architecture and how a family enterprise built a livelihood distributing Gulf seafood inland.
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Related people
- · Walter Simms
- · Mae Moore Simms
- · Roger Q. Small
Themes & tags
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