The Moody Mansion, Galveston Island TX

Posted by Rose.Sherry December 04, 2020

The Moody Mansion, Galveston Island TX

December 3, 2020

Today we drove to Galveston to tour the Moody Mansion

and the surrounding historic district.

Here we are out front of Willis-Moody Mansion.

"The mansion was commissioned by Galveston socialite Narcissa Willis in 1893. Throughout her life, Willis had asked her husband, entrepreneur and cotton broker Richard S. Willis, to build a grand home. Willis demurred as he preferred to keep his assets liquid to be distributed among his ten children on his death. After Richard Willis' died in 1892, Narcissa had the home she and her husband shared torn down and began plans to build a more opulent home on the site. For this act, Willis was estranged from her family until her death in 1899. Her children never visited the opulent mansion designed to bring them back to Galveston. Willis lived alone in the house with a single housekeeper who was paid $1,000 a year, three times the wages domestics earned at the time."

"Upon Narcissa Willis' death in 1899, her daughter Beatrice put the home up for sale. Libbie Moody, who lived in a home nearby the mansion, asked her husband, William Lewis Moody, Jr., to put in a bid for the mansion. After the Hurricane of 1900 devastated Galveston that September, many of the bidders pulled out of the sale. Moody won the mansion for $20,000, a fraction of the mansion's over $100,000 worth. Moody, his wife and four children promptly moved into the home and celebrated their first Christmas at the mansion in 1900."

The front hall and front doors. The open panel on the left allows the docent to

lock and unlock the door to allow guests in and out.

The front hall continues and includes this lovely Christmas tree.

If the front hall is any indication this mansion is huge.

"The home has thirty-one rooms and five bathrooms. William H. Tyndall, an English architect, incorporated many technological advances of the period including a one-passenger elevator, a dumbwaiter, speaking tubes in the pantry for communicating with the kitchen staff in the basement, heated drying racks in the laundry room, and lighting fixtures using both gas and electricity. The house also has its own rainwater cistern."

The front parlor, designed as the room where the ladies gather.

"The parlor is in an 18th-century French style and is the most opulent room in the house with gold on blue-grey silk wall coverings and gold-decorated plaster friezes. Despite its grandeur, guests did not often stay in this room for long as the Moodys preferred to entertain in the less formal library."

The Christmas tree in this room is from the 1950's

It's an aluminum tree with a rotating multi colored

light wheel shining on to it.

The fireplace and silk wall coverings.

And not to be missed, cherubs on the ceiling.

The adjoining room is the library.

This was the only room on the first floor that

had a barrier to keep you out of the room, not sure why.

At the far end behind the tree was the desk of the homeowner.

All of the furniture in the house is original, no reproductions.

Apparently, when you buy well made pieces they hold up for over 100 years.

The low height of the book shelves was intentional so

the children could reach and use all of the books.

The library fireplace with additional bookcase.

The Christmas tree in the library is from the 1960's.

"Strung on the tree are Delta Electric Co. Bell-Lites circa 1963,

which play holiday music on small bells attached to the lights."

It may have been more pleasant when the lights were new, currently

it was a repetitive playing of high pitched notes for Jingle Bells.

The dining room is across the front hall.

The large mahogany table seats 14.

WL Moody told the prior owner it would cost so much to ship it

back to New York that she should just thru it in, and she did.

Here is the handsome sideboard

The detailed paneled ceiling and decorated gold cove molding.

"The ceiling is coffered and quite heavy. Hidden steel railroad beams support the ceiling."

And yes, there is a tree in the Dining Room as well.

The white poinsettias make a lovely tree skirt.

The carved mahogany bas-relief above the fireplace depicts hunters and hounds.

And a marble fireplace with silver andirons is below.

The ballroom with access to the conservatory sits next to the

dining room at the front of the house.

Here it is decorated for a wedding.

(not my photo)

The cove molding is painted with touches of gold

which suits the hanging chandelier.

The conservatory shows off house plants which was

a hobby of the lady of the house Libbie Moody.

"During parties, musicians would play from the conservatory."

I liked the decorative floral tile on the floor of the conservatory.

The Christmas tree is the ballroom was grand.

It was hung with Mary Moody's personal ornaments.

Back by the dining room was the butler's pantry.

Unlike the butler pantry in homes today this one came with servants.

The aforementioned dumb waiter

inside the workings of the dumbwaiter

the voice tube in the pantry

an 1800's intercom system to speak to the servants.

The decorative vent covers that are throughout

the house really stand out in the pantry.

No detail too small.

And in the back of the first floor is the designed billiard room

that the Moodys used as a family room.

It was the family gathering place to sit and play games.

The tree here is decorated as it would have been in 1900-1910.

They celebrated their first Christmas here in 1900 just

3 months after the Hurricane in September of 1900

that killed 6,000 people in Galveston.

They had 4 children at that time Mary 8, William III 6,

Shearn 5 and Libbie 3

Time to go check out the upstairs.

Good shot of the stairway leading upstairs

(not my photo which is why it's not dressed for Christmas)

The newel post at the base of the stairs.

Red poinsettia line each stair.

And the original stained glass window

sporting the family motto "Welcome Ever Smiles"

They must have adopted that motto from the window as it was here when they bought the house.

Rumor has it that Mrs Willis had the faces of the children look like her grandchildren in an effort to get them to come visit her from New York where they lived.

The ballisters also caught my eye,

apparently I am a nut for details.

The upstairs hallway is as ornate as the first floor.

With aluminum dusted reliefs on the coffered ceiling.

Several of the bedrooms came with its own bath.

Toilet, bidet, tub and sink

pretty fancy for the early 1900s.

Marble sinks, of course.

The window looks into the attached bedroom.

This is the master bath, because the water cooled before it got all the way up here

a boiler was put in to heat the water right before it filled the tub.

Note also the shower is a rain head shower.

The house was designed for a gentleman's bedroom and

a ladies bedroom with adjoining master bath

but the Moodys preferred to share a bedroom,

very forward thinking.

Another voice tube was in the master bath,

you just don't know when you will need the staff I guess.

Here is the fireplace in the master bedroom.

The small box on the mantel is from a candy shop.

William had a sweet tooth, his daughter recalls that when

she was tall enough to reach the candy box, her dad began

to place it on top of a vase so she could not get the candies.

Here is my self portrait in the gentleman's wardrobe

in his dressing area. They shared a bedroom but did have

individual dressing areas. You can also see Jim in his red fleece

in the reflection as well.

One of the bedrooms was set up as an exhibit of Mary Moody's clothing.

The dress on the far left was her debutante ball gown.

A soft pale pink with rosettes.

She would have worn this in 1908.

Does she look like anyone you know now?

Mary Moody was quite the conservationist.

She saved these doors from her grandfather's house

as well as restoring this house and leaving it to her foundation

to be shared with others as a museum to the cultured lifestyle of the

family of one of the top 100 richest men from the 1900s.

The front porch is expansive and ornate

Up to the porch and front door.

Ironwork decorations on the side of the house where carriages would drive up.

A colorful tile pattern on the entire porch.

The side entrance where carriages would drop off arriving guests.

And so that concludes our tour of the Moody Mansion,

it was nice, I could see myself living there, plenty of space,

nice woodwork, just like my house.

But wait there's more. We took an urban trail, called the

Moody Mansion Wellness Walkabout, and saw a few other interesting historic buildings

all within a 1 mile stroll here in the historic district of Galveston.

Open Gates

"George Sealy House that Sealy built is listed on the National Register of Historical Places. It is also a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. Named "Open Gates", the house survived the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and residents of the house saved Galvestonians by pulling them out of the floodwaters. Open Gates was donated to the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1969, and it eventually was used as the George and Magnolia Willis Sealy Conference Center.

Ashton Villa

"On January 7, 1859, Colonel James Moreau Brown, a prominent hardware merchant and banker, purchased four lots at the corner of 24th and Broadway in Galveston, on which to build a home. Referencing architectural pattern books current at the time, he modified several plans to design his future home. Using slave labor and European craftsmen, Brown proceeded to build one of the first brick structures in Texas. The three-story house was built in Victorian Italianate style, with deep eaves, long windows and ornate verandas that were topped by lintels made of cast iron. The brick walls were made thirteen inches thick, to help protect against humidity and add strength to the structure. The interior of the home was laid out and designed around a central hall floor plan. Brown's wife, Rebecca Ashton, named the home in honor of one of her ancestors, Lt. Isaac Ashton, a hero in US Revolutionary War."

St Mary's Cathedral Basilica

It is the primary cathedral of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and the mother church of the Catholic Church in Texas, as well as a minor basilica.

Rosenberg Library

The library was established in 1900, and the building constructed a few years later. In 1905 it absorbed the collection of the defunct Public Library (est. in 1871 as the Galveston Free Library).