McCardell, William Keenan and Nancy Elizabeth, House

Built in 1887 at 705 North Beatty in Livingston, Texas, this one-and-a-half story cypress house served as both the family residence and medical office of Dr. William Keenan McCardell. It features a hexagonal front room, a wraparound porch with turned columns and fretwork, shiplap siding, decorative shingles in the gables and a cross-gabled roof. A separate front-room entrance let patients be seen privately, and the original medical sink and towel rack survived into the 1990s. Local tradition says the cypress boards came from a riverboat, though the form says this cannot be documented. Dr. McCardell followed his uncle into medicine, and the family stayed in the house until 1997. A restoration in the 1990s kept most original fabric, with changes limited mainly to the chimney, the roof material and an enclosed back porch. A stone-lined cistern also survives on the grounds. The house is recognized as a good local example of Queen Anne architecture and as a site tied to community health care.