The McNair House of Brownsville
By
Reba McNair et al.

Brownsville experienced a tremendous growth in population between 1900 and 1930 due to the introduction of large-scale irrigation and the completion of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway in 1904. Farmers from the Midwest attracted by low land prices came to the Rio Grande Valley, and the need for farm labor meant a surge of Mexican immigration accompanied the influx of Midwesterners. The population of Cameron County grew from a little more than 16,000 in 1900 to 77,540 in 1930. As part of the growth Brownsville was experiencing, the Los Ebanos neighborhood was developed in the late 1920s. The Los Ebanos (the ebonies) neighborhood was the first subdivision in Brownsville that included residential lots that backed onto resacas. Resacas are ox-bow lakes formed by an over-flowing Rio Grande River during times of heavy rainfall. The Los Ebanos subdivision was designed with the largest lots facing the palm-lined Palm Boulevard. The subdivision was named after the native Texas Ebony trees that were prevalent in the area. The Los Ebanos subdivision is also significant because it was the first subdivision not to be in a grid pattern. The streets were curved to follow the lines of the resacas. A rock base archway with a clay tile roof went over the sidewalks along Palm Boulevard at the entrance to the subdivision. Two large wood beams rested on two large rock wall sections with a "Los Ebanos" sign between the beams at the Palm Blvd. entrance. A small part of the rock entrance still exists at the corner of Palm Blvd. and Ringgold Street.

The McNair home at 39 Sunset Drive was built on lot 11, block 1 of the Los Ebanos subdivision at the corner of Sunset Drive and Old Alice Road. Malcolm P. McNair purchased the lot on August 8, 1935 and financed $593.63 in monthly installments of $20 each beginning September 8, 1935 at a six per cent annual interest rate. Mr. McNair was also responsible for paying the delinquent state, county and city taxes of $140.12. The restrictions for the subdivision required that not more than "one private dwelling house and necessary servant’s or other outhouses" be built on the lot. Also, according to the deed restrictions, the home could not cost "less than $4,500 and all structures erected hereon shall be built of brick, brick veneer, stone, stone-cote, hollow tile, cement stucco, or other similar permanent construction. No garage or outbuilding on said lot shall be used as a residence or living quarters except by servants engaged on the premises, and except during construction of residence for a period of not more than three months." The home was built by A.W. Neck and A.W. Neck Jr. The contract recorded at the county and dated July 23, 1937 required the home to be complete within 70 working days. The contract was for the amount of $8,572.75. The home was designed by the architect A. H. Woolridge for Malcolm P. (Jack) and Vivian Faust McNair in the Monterey style of a center hall colonial.

"The oldest recorded McNair family member is Duncan McNair who was born in the mid-1700s on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of Scotland. In 1785, he married Katherine McCullem who was born in Loupe, Scotland. Their son, John, was born in Scotland on January 1, 1776. The family came to the United States that same year and settled in St. Paul’s, Robertson County, North Carolina.

John McNair married Mary Graham in 1811. John died May 1, 1873 and is buried at St. Paul’s Church (Presbyterian), Robertson County, North Carolina. Mary Graham was born April 5, 1787 in Cumberland County, NC. She died August 6, 1872 and is buried in the same cemetery.

John and Mary’s son, Duncan was born December 6, 1816, the birthplace is assumed to be North Carolina. He married Bathsheba (Betty) Jan Alford, January 9, 1845. Duncan died September 12, 1897 and Betty died February 13, 1913. Both are buried at St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul, NC.

Duncan had eight children, one of whom was James Preston McNair. James Preston (J. P.) was born July 14, 1860 in Robertson County, NC, and he married Cora Kitching, November 12, 1885 in Aiken, SC. He had evidently moved there earlier. Cora Kitching was born in Aiken, April 19, 1857. She died May 4, 1907. J. P. McNair died in Aiken on June 23, 1942.

J. P. and Cora McNair were the parents of Malcolm Prothro McNair. Cora’s sister, Virginia Kitching was the mother of Edwin Barnwell Faust, who was the father of Vivian Faust. Malcolm Prothro McNair and his wife, Vivian Faust McNair were second cousins. Vivian’s father and Malcolm Prothro (Jack) were first cousins. Jack McNair was the youngest of his generation and Edwin Faust was the oldest of his generation. Jack McNair was born April 7, 1897 and Edwin was born in 1871 and their mothers were sisters.

The McNair family started in Brownsville, Texas when Phillip Kitching McNair, Jack’s older brother, graduated from West Point in 1915, in the same class with Dwight D. Eisenhower. Phillip (Phil) was a 1^st Lt. and Commanding Officer of Company "A" Fourth U.S. Infantry on October 21, 1916. He served at Ft. Brown from 1914 to 1916. While stationed at Ft. Brown, he married a local girl, Ruth Craig. He left Brownsville in 1916 to serve in Europe during World War I.

After the war ended, Phil returned to Brownsville and left the service. Phil and Ruth made their home in Brownsville, and he started a small factory manufacturing khaki pants and denim jeans that he planned to sell in Mexico during the oil boom that developed in the late 1910s and early 1920s around the Mexican port city of Tampico. Jack McNair, Phillip’s brother, finished his high school education in his native Aiken, South Carolina. He attended Davidson College in North Carolina but then left to serve in World War I. When Jack McNair returned from serving as a medical corpsman in the Navy in World War I, he finished college at Clemson University in South Carolina graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Textile Engineering. He moved to Brownsville to join his brother in the new manufacturing business in 1921.

In the early days of the clothing factory, Jack and Phil had as their financial partners Ben Freudenstein, Zade Rosenthal and the Walter Craig Company (Ruth Craig’s family wholesale grocery business). Both Freudenstein and Rosenthal were City Managers of Brownsville during the 1920s and 1930s. The first factory building was located on the northeast corner of East 8^th and Fronton Streets. It was on a lot 50 feet wide and 100 deep that is still owned by McNair & Company, Inc.

Times were hard by the late 1920s and the business was not large enough to support two families plus outside investors. Phil and Jack tried a small factory in Matamoros, Mexico, but it did not prove successful and it was closed. As time went by, Rosenthal, Freudenstein, Walker-Craig, and finally Phil were bought out by Jack, and he became sole owner. During that time, he made return trips to Aiken, SC to visit family and friends and he kept up with Vivian over the years. They had known each other as children and had played together in their Aunt Della Kitching’s home in Kitchings Mill, SC.

Vivian Faust had divorced her first husband, Florian Schweers in 1928 and was living and teaching school both in Augusta, Georgia and North Augusta, South Carolina. Jack and she began corresponding when he found out she was single and they courted by mail. He visited her once or twice and they were married June 11, 1935 at her aunt, Annie Hankinson’s home in Aiken, SC.

Vivian and Jack drove to Brownsville via New Orleans on their honeymoon trip. They lived originally in the Del Francis Apartments on Palm Boulevard in the Los Ebanos subdivision and within a month or so moved to 1248 W. Washington Street in West Brownsville, two houses from Phil McNair’s family. Jack and Vivian and her son Harry Eugene McNair, adopted by Jack, lived on West Washington Street until their new home was finished on Sunset Drive which was finished after Jack and Vivian’s daughter, Nancy, was born in March, 1937. In 1937, the McNair home was the very edge of the city and the countryside was immediately beyond the house. Gene McNair kept a pet horse on the property and the cavalry would ride out from Ft. Brown along Old Alice Road which was not paved."

Jack and Vivian McNair were very involved in social, church and civic activities. Jack was very busy with his business, but he found the time to be an active citizen. Jack served as president of McNair Clothing Manufacturing Company, which was the largest independent manufacturer in the Rio Grande Valley. Jack McNair also served as chairman of the Brownsville Housing Authority where he served for a total of seven years. He was a founding director of the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce. He served on the board for 12 years and as a vice-president of the chamber for one year. He was also a founding director of Pan American Bank that was later acquired by Texas Commerce Bank of Houston, in turn acquired by Chase Bank of New York. He died of a heart attack in 1967 at age 70. The Brownsville Herald in the August 7, 1967 edition editorial honored Malcolm P. McNair as "one of the builders of the Valley who created wealth and employment… it is refreshing to pay tribute to a man who left more in the world than he took from it."

Vivian McNair was a founding member of the Junior Service League and Brownsville Community Concerts. The Junior Service League members continue to work as volunteers in Brownsville. They contribute greatly to the community and they exist because Vivian McNair and a group of her friends founded the Junior Service League. For more than 40 years, Brownsville Community Concerts brought different professional musical artists from around the world to perform in town. During World War II, she volunteered with the Red Cross. She volunteered at St. Margaret’s Guild at the Church of the Advent-Episcopal and sang in the church choir for more than 35 years. She was president of the Women of the Church of the Advent. She was a member of the Brownsville Learner’s Club and the Daughters of the American Revolution until her death at age 100 in February 1999.

Their son, Harry Eugene "Gene" McNair lived in the home until after he graduated from college. He served as a 2^nd Lt. Bombardier/Navigator in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He flew bombing missions over the South China Sea, Borneo. After graduation, he moved back to Brownsville and joined his father in the family business. He expanded the business from a small regional company into a national manufacturing company with more than 1,000 employees shipping clothing throughout the United States and to many foreign countries. McNair Clothing Manufacturing Company was a major supplier of uniforms to the United States government during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. At one time, McNair Clothing Manufacturing Company was the largest private employer south of San Antonio. Gene sold the clothing company to Levi-Strauss in 1972.

Gene served his community first on the Board of City Development, a civic organization geared to enticing new industries to the area. In 1959, Gene was elected a city commissioner. During his term as city commissioner, the city organized the Public Utilities Board to provide water, wastewater, and a stable, electrical source. On November 13, 1961, Gene was elected mayor by a two to one majority. During his term as mayor, a "Food Welfare Board" was established to oversee the dispersing of free federal food commodities to needy families. He was a member of the Public Utilities Board, Director of the Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Brownsville Airport Authority, director of the Valley Zoological Society, and for 20 years he served as chairman of the Historic Brownsville Museum. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Gene served as president of the Advisory Boards of Sacred Heart School, St. Joseph Academy, Villa Maria High School and St. Mary’s Elementary School as well as the Board of Education of the Diocese of Brownsville.

In 1950, Gene married the former Sarah "Sherry" Ward Grider, the great-granddaughter of Simon Celaya, an organizer in the early 1870s of the Rio Grande Railroad that was the second railroad (the first being a military one) in the Rio Grande Valley and connected Brownsville with Point Isabel (now Port Isabel). They had eight children: Karen, Karol, John, Harry Jr., Michael, Stephen, George and Mary. Harry E. McNair, Jr. continues today as president of the McNair family business. Gene and Sherry McNair wrote a cookbook of Mexican food recipes "An Adventure from South of the Border" which was distributed nationwide. He also wrote his autobiography that he completed in 2004. When he died at age 80, the Brownsville Herald published news of his death on the front page of the November 8, 2005 edition. The City of Brownsville renamed St. Charles Park as Harry E. McNair Park in 2006. On February 26, 2007, the Texas Senate adopted Resolution No. 340, to honor Harry E. McNair, Sr. for his lasting imprint on Brownsville.

Harry E. McNair, Jr. and his wife, Reba Cardenas McNair purchased the McNair family home in 1999 from his father and aunt. Harry E. McNair, Jr. has served as a city commissioner in Brownsville for three different terms. During his 10 years as a city commissioner, Harry was a vocal advocate of historical preservation particularly in the downtown area. During his terms as city commissioner, the downtown and Los Ebanos neighborhood historic overlay districts were created. He served as chairman of the board of the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation. He has served on the board of the Good Neighbor Settlement House and as president of the North Brownsville Rotary Club. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was vice-president of Big Brothers-Big Sisters. Harry is president of McNair & Company, Inc. that is a property management and warehouse rental company.

Reba Cardenas McNair has served as chairman of the board of the Brownsville Chamber of Commerce. She was appointed by Gov. George Bush to serve on the Texas Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service and served one year as chairman of the commission. She has served as chairman of the Mitte Cultural District, the cultural and arts district in Brownsville. She served as president of Brownsville Community Concerts for eight years. She has served on the boards of Camille Lightner Playhouse, the Dean Porter Park Renovation Committee, the Valley Zoological Society and the Palmer Drug Abuse Program. She is vice-president of the Los Ebanos Neighborhood Association. She is president of Cardenas Development Co., a real estate development firm.

The home at 39 Sunset Drive is a two story painted brick home built in the Monterey (California) style of a center-hall colonial designed by A.H. Woolridge, a Brownsville architect. According to Stephen Fox, architectural historian at Rice University, the McNair home has the following Monterey style attributes: "an L-front plan with the wall plane of the bay to the left of the front door advanced forward from the rest of the front wall plan, a second-floor balcony inserted in the recessed portion of the front wall plane above the front door, shuttered windows, a painted brick exterior finish and a low pitched shingle roof."

"The Monterey style takes its name from the central California coastal community of Monterey. In the mid-nineteenth century Anglo-American newcomers to the Mexican town of Monterey added such elements as suspended wood-framed and roofed balconies to existing plaster-faced adobe houses. In the late 1920s southern California architects formulated the "Monterey style" as a California regional vernacular. The most influential version of the Monterey style house consisted of a house front with a portion of the front wall projected forward of the rest of the façade. The balcony was supported on second-floor level joists projected through the front wall rather than on freestanding vertical wood posts. The Monterey style was immensely popular in the 1930s and ‘40s. In the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, this style was especially associated with the famed Weslaco architect R. Newell Waters. Waters’ most famous Monterey style houses were the Larry F. Lightner House at 2020 Palm Boulevard (1936) in Los Ebanos, the same Brownsville subdivision where the McNair House was built, and the F. E. Knapp House in Weslaco (1939). A. H. Woolridge, in collaboration with Frank E. Torres, designed the grandest Monterey style house built in Brownsville, Casa Poinciana, for Mr. and Mrs. Hubert R. Hudson (c. 1941)." A variant on the Monterey style changes balcony columns, railings and balustrades made of wood for columns and railings of cast or wrought iron such as in the McNair house. This variation is sometimes called French Creole.

The home was originally built with four main rooms on the first floor. When a person walks through the front door, he enters into the center hall with a staircase that goes to the second floor. To the right through an arched opening is the living room with a fireplace and to the left is the dining room. Beyond the living room was the sunroom and beyond the dining room were the kitchen and a small breakfast room. Off the center hall through an archway was a half-bath. In the 1950s, Jack and Vivian McNair added a larger sunroom beyond the original sunroom and a large utility room next to the kitchen. Upstairs, were two bedrooms that shared a bathroom between them and a master bedroom with sitting area and a master bathroom. The windows and doors of the first floor facing Sunset Drive and Old Alice Road are paired with the windows and French doors on the second floor. A detached wood-frame, two-car garage with attached servants’ quarters and a laundry room was built at the same time as the house. Later a greenhouse was built in the back yard. Also in the 1950s, the McNair’s purchased some additional land from their neighbors, the Pipkins, to increase the size of the backyard and to have more lake frontage along the Town Resaca.

In November 2002, Harry and Reba McNair began an extensive renovation of the home updating all the plumbing, electrical and air conditioning systems, expanding the kitchen to include the breakfast room, expanding the master bedroom and bathroom upstairs and expanding the sunroom downstairs. All changes were to the rear of the house. The original detached wood-frame garage was demolished and a new detached brick garage/guest house was built on the additional land purchased in the 1950s. The new garage/guest house design is compatible with the architecture of the original house and the Los Ebanos subdivision.

The Los Ebanos neighborhood was the first neighborhood in Brownsville to earn the historic overlay designation. The subdivision was developed in 1926 by Los Ebanos Estates, Inc. and sold by James-Dickinson Co., Inc. Realtors. In The Brownsville Herald on February 2, 1928, the realtors advertised "Buildings being erected are substantial and beautiful…Today we do not know of a single purchaser who would take what he paid at the time he bought." Later in 1928, they advertised "There never was a better or more economical time to build. There is just the one picturesque different and beautiful Los Ebanos. Native ebony trees, winding streets, finest development, everything." In the City of Brownsville Historic Resources Survey, the subdivision is referred to as "Brownsville’s first elite ‘garden’ subdivision." The neighborhood has many architecturally significant homes as well as homes that belonged to important members of the community. The homes of Brownsville philanthropists Dean & Gladys Sams Porter and Larry and Camille Sams Lightner are located on Palm Blvd. The Porters and Lightners through the Sams Foundation contributed to many charities in Brownsville. The most significant contribution was the building and stocking of the Gladys Porter Zoo. The Fausto Yturria Sr. family home belonging to a prominent ranching family is also located on Palm Blvd. Most of the homes in the Los Ebanos neighborhood are built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style like the Yturria home. As mentioned before, the Lightner Home and the McNair home are in the Monterey style.

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