House at 844 Columbia Street

Built in 1906 on a corner lot in the Houston Heights, this one-story frame cottage reflects a modest, practical type of housing. It has a rectangular plan, a five-bay front, a simple gabled roof, clapboard walls and a composition roof. The attached porch rests on turned posts and is trimmed with flatcut scroll brackets, squared fretwork and balusters, which gives the house its vernacular Eastlake character. A single center door with a transom is flanked by windows with two-over-two lights, and a small addition sits at the rear. The house matters because the form is unusual for the Heights and more typical of rural southeast Texas. It was simple and inexpensive to build, qualities that mattered to much of the working-class population of the early neighborhood. A 1980 survey recorded it in excellent condition and still serving as a residence on a well-kept lot with many small trees. Alterations were limited to one removed front window and some porch detail that may not be original.