Esperson Buildings

Nearly all of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance monthly walking tours don’t have access to buildings. This month’s walking tour was the exception. The Esperson Buildings walking tour not only showed interesting detail of the interior, but also went to the observation deck of the building. You might wonder how the photo below is created without Photoshop. The little temple on top of the Esperson building got reflected in the modern building accross the street, next this reflection gets reflected in the window over the door in the Esperson building.


Today, the Esperson building with 32 floor and a height of 410 feet is one of the smaller sky scrapers. You might wonder why the photo above mentions multiple building. In 1927, Mellie Esperson had the first of the two buildings constructed for her husband, Niels, a real estate and oil tycoon. Mellie hired a theatre architect, named John Eberson, which resulted in Italian Renaissance architecture.


In the early 1940s Mellie build a building for herself, this time she chose an Art deco style.




The highlight of the day was the visit to the observation deck. One of the people who attended the walking tour mentioned that the deck was open for the public until the 1970s. These days the Esperson Buildings are surrounded by taller sky scrapers.







What I didn’t know was that one of the buildings at the intersections of Travis and Walker Street has a swimming pool on the upper floor.


This was a very unique walking tour from GHPA, and I’m gratefull that the volunteers at GHPA take the time to organize the monthly tours.