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HISTORIC
HOMES TOUR
By Super
Handyman Al Carrell
Even though I was the co-founder and regular participant in the Discovery
Channel TV show, YOUR NEW HOUSE, I still have a love for old homes. Because
of this, my wife Jean, better known in the Carrell family as the Queen Mother,
headed down to Galveston Island for the 26th  Galveston
Historic Homes Tour 2000.
Of the seven
homes on the tour, our favorite was the George Sealy Mansion, called Open
Gates. Except for the four days of tours, the many gates around the mansion
were all closed and locked. We were able, however, to get in for special
pictures of the magnificent structure.
Shortly before
his death in 1979, Commodore Robert Sealy, one of the heirs and his family,
presented the house to The University of Texas Medical Branch as a memorial
to the Sealy family.
Incidentally,
the Queen Mother was a roommate of Jean Sealy when they both attended the
University of Texas.
An interesting
fact we learned in visiting some of the smaller houses on the tour was that
many homes of the era were not built on a foundation. This meant that the
houses could easily be moved from one location to another. The disastrous
hurricane of 1900, swept some homes several blocks away from their original
sites. There is also a record of houses actually being stolen because they
were not anchored to a foundation.
Galveston is
a wonderful old town with lots of history. If you travel into south Texas,
make it one of your stops. |