1404 S Adams – Yard of the Month (February 2018)

February Yard of the Month winners are Jason Amon and Rodney Wade of 1404 S. Adams. The Craftsman bungalow, a designated historic Texas landmark since 1978, has sheltered Amon, Wade and their young children, Nathaniel and Hannah for about 10 years.  1404 S. Adams was the first structure built in the Swastika subdivision in 1907 by developer John W. Broad (Fairmount Driving Tour).  At that time, the Swastika was an ancient Sanskrit symbol meaning harmony, with no ties to any hate group (Holocaust Teacher Resource). The home’s second owner, Charles K. Lee, practiced law, just as Amon does today.  Lee founded Galveston County’s chapter of the Bar Association in 1896, and later moved to Fort Worth to serve as President of the Texas State Bar (The American Lawyer, vol. 4). Lee bought the home in 1914 from retired banker George Baker for $5000, adding the unique porte-cochere and sleeping porch to the home’s southern side in 1915 (Tarrant Deed Cards).  In December 1944, daughter Lucie C. Lee sold the home to widow Gunhild Weber.  Gunhild Weber, born c. 1898 in Norway, shared her name, meaning “woman warrior,” with a celebrated soprano who recorded Bach sonatas with the Berlin Philharmonic (Arkivmusic.com).  Fort Worth’s Gunhild Weber immigrated as a teenager and met her husband Arthur Weber, an Iowa native. The Weber’s daughter Kathleen was born in 1922 at 240 Worth Athletic Field in Fort Worth (1930 US Census).  Kathleen Weber donated the home to Historic Fort Worth, Inc. when she passed in 2002, which oversaw its restoration (Historic Fort Worth).

1404 S. Adams is at the more embellished end of the Craftsman spectrum, rivaling some of Fairmount’s Victorian painted ladies in decorative flourishes.  The beautiful golden oak front door has a horizontal oval beveled glass window, much rarer than the vertical oval so common in the suburbs today.  A dramatically pitched roofline features a pair of gabled dormer windows, with diamond upper lights, under exposed beams. Just above those windows, we see another exceptional feature, a triangular oriel attic window.  Oriel windows (those supported by corbels or brackets, and sometimes with Juliet balconies below) are common in San Francisco, where builder J. W. Broad lived for a decade before moving to Fort Worth (Fairmount Driving Tour).  This particular oriel has unusual spider web muntin bars, and is angled so that the mullion, or vertical supporting piece between the panes of glass, juts out toward the street, and the flat window-fronts recede.

For many years, 1404 S. Adams was painted a solid dark green with white trim (Fairmount Photo Archive).  The landscaping was rather straightforward:  a green lawn with shrubs, mostly boxwoods, flanking the porch.  Recently, with the assistance of Fairmount resident Stacy Luecker, the Amon-Wades selected several paint hues for asparagus-green exterior walls, to biscuit and bronzed ochre trim, and Roycroft suede brown brackets:  overall, the home evokes Victorian majolica, with rich earth tones dramatically highlighting the façade’s many angles and planes.  Neighbor and past YOTM winner Bob Zetnick designed the landscaping.  The garden is grounded by two sturdy oak trees, planted asymmetrically, with one in the parkway, and the other on the North side of the lot.  Drought-tolerant groundcovers have replaced the sod grass. The former lawn has been bisected with a gravel path, punctuated in the middle by a low concrete planter filled with the sedum “Himalayan Skies,” whose pleasing blue-green spires of drooping foliage circle a yucca plant.  Red is an anchor color used as a counterpoint to the home’s greens:  red yuccas are interspersed throughout the front beds, ending near the driveway in a “Firepower” nandina bedded under a weeping yaupon holly, an evergreen shrub with vermilion berries, which provides winter food for winged friends.  A twisting cobalt planter holds more succulents near the porch. Several varieties of creeping junipers, such as blue rug (wiltonliil juniper) are banked near the rosemary bushes lining the paths.  More vertical elements include ornamental Mexican feather grasses, presently wearing their winter golds, and a Japanese maple shaded under one of the oaks.  A little later this spring, two circular beds of bearded iris and several native lantanas will be adding to the color palette in this lovely yard.

Our thanks, and a $25 gift certificate to Calloway’s Nursery, go to the Amon/Wade family.

The Yard of the Month committee members are Leah Suasnovar and Bonnie Blackwell.