Fulton Mansion, Rockport, Texas

We recently had the opportunity to be in Rockport, Texas where we visited the Fulton Mansion.

George Fulton was from Indiana. When Texas declared its independence from Mexico, Fulton came to lend a hand. While he came too late to fight in any of the "big" battles (weren't they all big?), he did fight. In appreciation of his service, he was granted land, something that Texas had a lot of. 

After the war, Fulton moved to Houston and worked for a guy named Henry Smith. That where he met Smith's daughter, Harriet. They married in 1840. After having three children, they moved to Washington DC. In 1860, George Fulton was part of the engineering team that built the Covington-Cincinnati Suspension Bridge. I've walked across that bridge!

In 1877, George Fulton and his wife built this mansion and named it Oakhurst. It's four stories and it sits on Aransas Bay in Rockport, Texas.

This is the view from the front porch of the house. Beautiful.

So the tour starts in the basement of the house. There's a stairway that leads down to this landing. No door until you actually enter the house, which is a little odd.  In theory, anyone could just come down here and hang out back in the day.

Once you go in, there are several "rooms". This first one was a laundry room. The sign describes what took place here. I don't care to do laundry now. I can't imaging doing it back then. A laundress would use these two hand-crank machines to wash the items individually. Because it was such a tough job, the people that did it were in high demand. According to the sign, Mrs. Rose was the laundress for the Fulton's and was paid $3 per week. She also had other customers that she worked for.

From the laundry room, you walked down the hallway. There were two little rooms down here that were built to hold water. Cisterns. They were built using something called "Shellcrete". It's basically burned and crushed oyster shells to make a concrete like substance. It was used by the Spanish for buildings because it held up better than adobe. This is one of the few shellcrete structures left in the Coastal Bend area.

We're still in the basement. This huge room is the pantry. This is where they would store non-perishable goods. According to the sign, Harriet's son-in-law, Charles Holden, owned a grocery store in Fulton and would deliver groceries to her. Nice.

This room, still in the basement, was used for fuel storage. Servants could fill this room from the outside through the window hatch. Generally, it was wood or coal. Across from this room was the furnace. The servants would take the fuel from this room and feed the furnace or the kitchen stove.

This steep, narrow staircase is the servants stairs into the house. We were not allowed to go up these stairs, nor would I want to. 

Still in the basement, this is the larder where they kept perishable food items. According to the sign, the troughs that go around the three sides were filled with ice and water which would keep the food items cool. The windows would open to allow air flow but would most likely be covered with screens. A Victorian walk-in fridge!

This is the kitchen. This was a servants area so while it was kept clean, it was not decorated. This also served as the dining area for the servants. The Fultons had a chef named Bonaparte Chandler (Bony). He was an African American man from Louisiana and he made $20 a month. The Fulton's also had a scullery maid named Amy. She would have been the chief dishwasher. Note the furniture is up on blocks. This is because sometimes during the high tide, the kitchen would flood. The furniture is original to the house so they don't want it to be ruined.

And finally, the Butler's pantry. This is where all the glassware and silverware were stored. It's also how they got hot food upstairs to the dining room. The box with the open doors on the left is a dumbwaiter. The food goes on the shelves. Ropes are pulled and the box rises to the next floor where a servant is waiting to serve the food. There were no docents down here, only signs, which was fine. 

From here, we walked back the way we came and climbed the stairs to the back entrance.

The front door was blocked by the docent but I wanted to show what you'd see as you came in the front. To the right where John is is the parlor. The archway leads to the stairs to the next floor, the dining room and the back door. The room straight head is Mr. Fulton's study and the door to the right leads to the conservatory.

This is the parlor. According to the documentation, this is where the parties and social gatherings were held. It's a very formal room which would also have served for family special occasions like Christmas.

All the rooms in the house had a bay window like this one in the parlor. The Texas Historical Commission has a series called "Parlor Talks at the Fulton Mansion" where they tells stories here about various subjects connected to the mansion. Give it a listen. Parlor Talks.

All the bay windows were directly across from the corresponding fireplaces. The fireplaces in the house did not actually burn fires. Heat came from the furnace in the basement. A series of ducts went to all the fireplaces from the furnace below to heat the rooms. In the summer, the flue in the fireplace would be opened along with the windows creating air circulation.

This is the conservatory. Harriet loved plants and gardening so this was one of her favorite rooms, according to the signage. It's kind of a small room with a lovely chair and a fountain. I sonder if it was particularly hot in the summer. Maybe the open windows on all sides could be opened to generate air circulation.

This is the library, aka George Fulton's study. It's a lovely room. Note the bay window behind the desk. This room also has the fireplace set up similar to the parlor. George would have brought the gentlemen guests in here after dinner for drinks and smokes, I'm sure.

Hanging in the library is this picture of the Covington-Cincinnati Suspension Bridge that George Fulton helped build.

This is the hallway leading to the front door through that archway. Remember that steep narrow staircase in the basement? This is where it leads. This door on the left is right next to the dining room.

This is the dining room. Note the fireplace. The China has a rose pattern with the letter 'F'.

This Gasolier is original to the house. Each of the knobs for the bulbs had to be turned on. The the butler would remove the globe and light each bulb.

The bay window in the dining room. The highchair on the left coverts to a rocking chair and and a stroller. There's a wine chiller there that is a gift from Mifflin Kenedy (of La Parra Ranch and King Ranch fame) given to the Fulton's on their 50th wedding anniversary.

Part of the crown molding in the dining room. This sconce has amazing detail.

This is the butler's pantry on the first floor. It's from here that the butler would serve dinner.

In the butler's pantry is this gurgling fish decanter. When you pour water out of it and then standing up it makes a glugging sound.

This beautiful stairway leads to the second floor. To the right of this stairway before you ascend is a small half bathroom. That's right, this house had indoor plumbing!

At the top of the stairs to the right is this bedroom. The Fultons built this house in their later years and, for the most part, their children didn't live here. However, their daughter would come and house sit while they were away. This was her bedroom. Or, if family came to stay, they'd use this room.

The door in the corner of the bedroom leads this this washroom. 

And the door next to the sink led to this bathroom with a copper tub and toilet. This bathroom had a door that led to the hallway and to another that led to the master suite. There was only one bathroom on this floor but the two family bedrooms had access without leaving their room.

There was also a guest bedroom on the second floor. The notes say that Harriet spent far more decorating this room than the family rooms.

In the corner of the guest room is a built in sink for your morning ablutions. This room didn't have a direct entrance to the bathroom but it was across the hall.

The master bedroom. That canopy bed is where George Fulton died in 1893. Note the writing desk in the bay window. That's where Harriet did all her household business and wrote all her letters.

That bed seems kind of small for two people but I guess that was typical size. That door leads to the bathroom via a wash room. They had hot and cold running water on the north side of the house but not the south. The way the system was set up, there wasn't enough pressure to send hot water to the south side.

The bathroom suite on the second floor. There were two full bathrooms in the house. I assume there was a second bathroom up like this on the third floor. This flush toilet does not look comfy but I bet it beats going to an outhouse. The waste went to a septic tank that was buried on the property. I believe the toilet paper holder next to the lid of the toilet is original to the house.

This copper tub could fill up with hot and cold running water. They had a cistern that caught rain water. George used his engineering skills to design a system whereby the servants could pump that rainwater to a tank on the third floor. Gravity provided the water pressure.

The stairway to the third floor. No visitors. The docent said that it was used for storage. Bummer. I assume there were bedrooms and a bathroom up there where perhaps servants or other guests would stay.

This is the marker was placed on the property in 1936 for the Texas centennial.

This is the Fulton Mansion visitor center. In 1907, the Fulton children sold the house to the Davidson Family who lived there and made a few changes to the house like adding electricity. During the Great Depression, they were forced to sell the bulk of the property. They also opened the house to tourists charging a quarter entry fee. 

In 1943, the Herring Family bought the house. By then there were only 7.64 acres left of the original 60. It was unclear whether they actually lived in the house but they were responsible for the removal of any remaining out buildings.

In 1952, the May family bought the property. They did live in the house. The exhibit room where visitors can see the status of the house prior to the renovations was the room their son, Joe, used. They removed some of the historic items from the basement in order to make room for a restaurant. They also started the development of an RV Park on the property.

In 1960, the Boldin family bought everything. Now there were only 2.3 acres left of the original 60. They did not live in the home but continued the development of the Fulton Mansion Trailer Park.  They did allow visitors to tour the empty house and the they used the basement as a rec center.

The last family to own the property was the Copeland family. They bought the property in 1969. Like the families before, they cared for the house but didn't live in it. They also continued to promote the RV park using the house as a backdrop. I found this photo on the internet. All the RVs are parked on the front lawn! Cringe...

Luckily, in 1976, the State of Texas bought the property using a two cent tax placed on the purchase of cigarettes. I love it! It was around that time that they had historians looking around the state for historic properties and used this tax to make the purchases. They bought the property for $150,000. Then it took $1.6M to restore it. The house was opened as a museum in 1983 and 1,600 came that first month.

In 2007, The Texas Historical Commission took over running the place. They do such a good job. I love them. They really dig in and get to know the place and the people who lived there.

In 2013, a second restoration was was done to the tune of $3.4M. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey, a category 4 hurricane, directly hit Rockport. I can't believe the house survived! I'm sure it was damaged but still.

It's definitely a cool place to visit. It's amazing to me to think that this house is almost 150 years old and of all the modern features it had like indoor plumbing.  The Mansion is open Tues - Sat 10 - 4 and Sun 1 - 4. It's only $7 a person to go in, a bargain really. The other cool thing is they have docents that can and will answer all your questions. It's not a tour but they have documentation to tell you what you're looking at and context. Like I said, a bargain. Check it out!