Play The Texas Coast September - November | Page 32

to the Magnolia Mansion, at Upper Broadway
and Lipan. The house was an Italianate villa
painted in three shades of olive green, with a
tower that soared 65 feet above the roof line.
Designed by architect, Alfred Giles, it featured
alternating projections and recesses of porches
and bay windows to reflect the patterns of light
and shadow occurring at different times of the
day. The interior was finished with walnut, oak,
mahogany, cherry and cypress. The trim on the
grand stairway was polished mesquite from the
Kenedy ranch, La Parra. Acetylene gas was produced in a small building in the back for the 200
gas lights in the mansion. The house was described in the newspaper as “one of most complete in the state, and is furnished with all the
modern improvements that can make a home
comfortable.”
Three weeks upon completion, Petra Kenedy,
Mifflin’s wife died after a long illness. She had
moved into the house in February 1885 and died

in March. Almost to the day, 10 years after his
wife’s death, Kenedy died in the mansion following a heart attack on March 1895. Kenedy’s
daughter, Sarah Josephine, and her husband, Dr.
Arthur Spohn, moved into the house in 1899. In
1938, Mifflin Kenedy’s mansion was torn down
and the materials taken to the La Parra Ranch at
Sarita to be used in building a church.
The month after Petra Kenedy died in her new
mansion on the bluff, Richard King, the greatest cattleman of the West, died in San Antonio
of stomach cancer. Eight years after his death,
his widow, Henrietta Chamberlain King, built a
house north of the Magnolia Mansion. The turreted and castle-like King home was built in the
1850’s. In front of the mansion, across Upper
Broadway, were wooden steps with a hand railing that led down the bluff. Living with Mrs. King
in the mansion were her daughter and her husband, Robert J. Kleberg Sr., and their five chil-

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dren. One of the reasons for building the house
and moving from the ranch was so Mrs. King’s
grandchildren could attend school in town. Another grandson, Richard King, moved into the
house with Mrs. King after his home on North
Beach was destroyed in the 1919 hurricane.
Mrs. King died in 1925 and the mansion was torn
down in 1945. The materials were used to construct four small duplexes, three of which are on
Up River Road.
These grand mansions were the epitome of the
golden age of the cattle barons and their homes
stood on the east side of the bluff, on Upper
Broadway. Best view of the city, the bay and beyond, AND the best address in town!
It was sad when the mansions were gone. The
Rabb, Kenedy, Spohn, King and Kleberg families
were all instrumental in the early development
of South Texas and their legacies continue today.