Progressive former governor James Stephen Hogg moved his business headquarters to Houston in 1905. For seven decades, his children Will, Ima, and Mike Hogg used their political ties, social position, and family fortune to improve the lives of fellow Houstonians. As civic activists, they espoused contested causes like city planning and mental health care. As volunteers, they inspired others to support social service, educational, and cultural programs. As philanthropic entrepreneurs, they built institutions that have long outlived them: the Houston Symphony, the Museum of Fine Arts, Memorial Park, and the Hogg Foundation. The Hoggs had a vision of Houston as a great city—a place that supports access to parklands, music, and art; nurtures knowledge of the "American heritage which unites us"; and provides social service and mental health care assistance. This vision links them to generations of American idealists who advanced a moral response to change. Based on extensive archival sources, The Hogg Family and Houston explains the impact of Hogg family philanthropy for the first time. This study explores how individual ideals and actions influence community development and nurture humanitarian values. It examines how philanthropists and volunteers mold Houston's traditions and mobilize allies to meet civic goals. It argues that Houston's generous citizens have long believed that innovative cultural achievement must balance aggressive economic expansion.

In the early twentieth century, developers from Baltimore to Beverly Hills built garden suburbs, a new kind of residential community that incorporated curvilinear roads and landscape design as picturesque elements in a neighborhood. Intended as models for how American cities should be rationally, responsibly, and beautifully modernized, garden suburban communities were fragments of a larger (if largely imagined) garden city—the mythical “good” city of U.S. city-planning practices of the 1920s. This extensively illustrated book chronicles the development of the two most fully realized garden suburbs in Texas, Dallas’s Highland Park and Houston’s River Oaks. Cheryl Caldwell Ferguson draws on a wealth of primary sources to trace the planning, design, financing, implementation, and long-term management of these suburbs. She analyzes homes built by such architects as H. B. Thomson, C. D. Hill, Fooshee & Cheek, John F. Staub, Birdsall P. Briscoe, and Charles W. Oliver. She also addresses the evolution of the shopping center by looking at Highland Park’s Shopping Village, which was one of the first in the nation. Ferguson sets the story of Highland Park and River Oaks within the larger story of the development of garden suburban communities in Texas and across America to explain why these two communities achieved such prestige, maintained their property values, became the most successful in their cities in the twentieth century, and still serve as ideal models for suburban communities today.

"This ambitious study of Staub's work by architectural historian Stephen Fox goes beyond a description of Staub's houses. Fox analyzes the roles of space, structure, and decoration in creating, defining, and maintaining social class structures and expectations and shows how Staub was able to incorporate these elements and understandings into the elegant buildings he designed for his clients. In the process, he contributes greatly to a fuller understanding of Houston's emergence as a premier American city."--BOOK JACKET.

Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens in Houston, Texas, houses one of the world's great collections of American furniture, paintings and decorative arts. The collection is displayed in the historic residence of Texas philanthropist Ima Hogg (1882-1975). In

Bayou Bend Gardens in Houston, Texas, is one of the most beautiful public gardens in the United States. Originally conceived in 1926 by the legendary Texas collector and philanthropist, Miss Ima Hogg (1882-1975), to surround Bayou Bend, her magnificent home, the gardens are a splendid oasis along Houston's Buffalo Bayou. An active and adventurous gardener, Miss Hogg supervised the plans for the eight formal gardens that are set among the woods and ravines bordering the estate. The gardens feature a variety of native and imported plants, including the azaleas, camellias, magnolias and crape myrtles for which Bayou Bend has become famous. Bayou Bend is situated in the heart of River Oaks, which was a remote and tranquil suburb of Houston when it was originally developed in the 1920s and is now a stately enclave in the nation's fourth-largest city. In 1957, Miss Hogg bequeathed her home and gardens to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Fully renovated and conserved, the house displays one of the nation's premier collections of American fine and decorative arts from 1620-1870. This exquisitely illustrated book will bring this Southern garden to life through gorgeous photography and an in-depth history of how the gardens were created, from the first phase of plantings to today's full glory. It will appeal to a wide audience of people who are interested in gardening, garden history, social and design trends, the decorative arts, Texas and the history of the American South. David B. Warren, the author of the book, is the founding director emeritus of Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens. David B. Warren, the author of the book, is the founding director emeritus of Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens 89 colour & 49 b/w illustrations

A Garden Book for Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast preserves its historic background of information on plants and growing conditions for this area while updating planting charts and tables to help you be a more successful gardener.

The first book to document the Rienzi house, gardens and collection.

Chronicles the history of Houston, Texas from 1836 to 1946 by tracing the genealogy of Houston's first families, and discusses how those people affected the city's development.