Houston Chronicle 2

Preservationists hope to rescue West mansion

Oct. 14, 2008, 5:06PM

Linda Sansing, a teacher in Clear Lake, worries about the possibility of a new Great Depression: "I tell my husband, 'We may never be able to retire.' "

"But there's a silver lining," she says brightly. "This economy could save the mansion."

By "the mansion," she means a house she doesn't own, a house that a teacher can only dream of living in. For years, as Sansing drove down NASA Road 1, the West Mansion struck her as the embodiment of elegance and history, a jewel among strip centers and ticky-tacky townhouses. Built in 1929, the enormous Mediterranean-style house has sat empty for decades. Sansing and her friends imagined bringing it back to life as a tourist attraction, something like the grand plantation houses she visited in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Two years ago, a real-estate company controlled by former Houston Rocket Hakeem Olajuwon bought the mansion with plans to subdivide its 41 acres for sale to developers. At one point, the mansion seemed about to be razed. At another, it seemed likely to become the centerpiece of a luxury complex for retirees.

But as of yet, no deal has solidified. And that's where Sansing finds a strange upside to talk of a new Depression: With credit tight, it seems unlikely that a for-profit developer will swoop in.

So maybe a teacher has time to save a mansion.

In 1929, the year the stock market collapsed and the Great Depression started, J.M. West finished building his astonishing, sprawling country house. Born a poor boy, he'd made several fortunes, first in lumber, then in real estate, cattle and oil. By West's standards, his 35,000-acre ranch in Clear Lake was puny: He owned several ranches that were at least five times as large.

But the Clear Lake property was special to the taciturn, hat- and boot-wearing millionaire. He kept a packed bag in his office, and when he grew sick of work, he'd head to one of his ranches, pretending to his staff that he'd been summoned on an urgent business trip. This ranch, close to his headquarters in Houston, would be his most comfortable. He conceived of it as one of the hunting lodges he'd seen in England and Scotland.

Architect Joseph Finger designed West the kind of palace that a poor boy might dream of owning: 17,000 square feet divided into 40 rooms, white stucco with a roof of green handmade tiles. There were murals, floors and walls inlaid with marble. There was an art deco fireplace carved with birds; there was an indoor fountain; there was a nine-car garage. The mansion faced Clear Lake, but because West didn't like its salty water, he dug a separate freshwater lake at the side of the house.

West didn't lose much in the stock market crash, and with oil discovered on his properties, he actually grew richer during the Depression. Rich and feeling no pain, he opposed FDR's popular New Deal, saying he feared "the collectivism of the Roosevelt administration." He even supported Roosevelt's Republican challenger, Alf Landon, one of the least popular presidential candidates in history.

In a speech to his fellow cattle raisers, West showed an astonishingly tin ear. After acknowledging that "the bottom has fallen out of the livestock industry ... and mankind stands bewildered and perplexed," he seemed poised to feel the cattlemen's pain. But instead, he exhorted them to buckle down, work hard and stop wishing for the disastrous market to improve. Reading the speech now, you hear an eerie echo of Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners."

Texans reviled West's politics, but oddly, they loved his mansion. On Sundays, Depression-battered locals would travel down the farm road that led past the sprawling house, hoping to glimpse a grand garden party.

That reaction shows Joseph Finger's genius as an architect: He was able to harness the mansion's over-the-top luxuries into something cohesive and beautiful. Instead of Graceland, he created grace.

Driving past the West Mansion now, it's easy to identify with those Sunday gawkers. The mansion is the kind of house you'd like to imagine you'd build if you were filthy rich. Instead of resenting its owner's incredible wealth, you identify with him. His mansion, in a strange way, is ours.

Linda Sansing's nonprofit group, Preserved in Time, aims to raise $100,000 in earnest money, so it can make an offer on the mansion and some of its grounds. She figures that, ultimately, the group will need $11 million to buy the mansion and some of its land. Some of that money could come from opening the mansion to the pubic for rentals and tours. Some could come from grants. But she knows she has a long way to go.

Her best shot, she figures, is this new Depression, which she hopes will slow developers more than her potential contributors. She knows firsthand that regular people are hurting.

But hard times are precisely when you most crave a mansion. When the bottom has fallen out, when you're bewildered and perplexed, that's when you need to dream of elegance.