Thank you for touring the home of C. Homer and Edith Fuller Chambers, and their daughters Ruth and Florence. The house was originally built in 1907 by a local lumberman named Hardee Turner. He built the home using local pine and lived here for 7 years before selling it to the Chambers family in February 1914. The oldest daughter, Ruth, was 11 at the time, and Florence was 16 months old. Both sisters remained unmarried their whole lives and never had children, which is one of the reasons why Florence left this house to us through the C. Homer and Edith Fuller Chambers Foundation she started in her parents’ honor. She left instructions for her family’s belongings to be cared for by us at the Beaumont Heritage Society and convert her home into a museum!

As you explore the museum, you’ll see many items that were almost entirely owned by the family, and we’ll point out the few items that we bought or replaced. None of the family’s belongings were ever thrown out or donated, so we are still going through the collection almost 20 years after Florence’s passing. Currently, the home is staged to reflect the changes made in the 1924 remodel through the 1940s. This means we have nearly 100 years of family history stored inside, 100 years frozen in time.

When the Chambers House was built, Calder Avenue was a beautiful residential street. There were large oak trees, white picket fences, and the street wasn’t even paved in the early 1900s. Eventually, the street was tarred, followed by a layer of crushed shells and finally wooden blocks. These blocks floated away after a major flood in 1923, so Calder Avenue was paved shortly after. Mr. Chambers was actually so worried about a big oak tree that used to be in front of the house that he stood guard so it would not be damaged during road work.

To the right of the Chambers House was once the Keith Mansion. The nickname for the home, Arbol Grande, or Big Oak, literally means “big tree”. Since Mr. Keith was a lumberman who eventually started his own lumber business, the name makes sense, not to mention that the street used to be full of them. Also, we might speculate that Mr. Keith wanted to draw attention to the fact that his home was the biggest by far. It had 3 stories, with a 3rd-floor ballroom so large that the family used to host theater productions. There was also a swimming pond located between the Keith and Chambers homes that was said to be large enough to fit the Chambers home in it 4 times over. Following his death, Mr. Keith's widow lived in the house until October of 1948, when she sold the property to Weingarten’s for a supermarket. The house was demolished and the building that now stands was built in its place.

This large space on the other side belonged to Judge Duff and his family. When Judge Duff died and his family sold the home for demolition in 1968, it is thought that the Chambers sisters bought the property in order to not have businesses directly on either side of the home. The sidewalk on that side stops abruptly because that used to be where the Chambers' driveway began. They'd park their cars in the garage, which is now our office.

The Chambers House was renovated in 1924, the only major update while the family lived here. Mr. Chambers wanted the home to seem grander and match the neighboring homes. He had the large white columns installed and the upper roofline extended to create a full second-story porch, but he left the smaller columns behind. This is just one of several examples where you’ll see that Mr. Chambers was frugal by nature and mostly concerned himself with renovating the portions of the home that guests would notice.

The second floor windows lift up into the third floor walls, like pocket doors. The windows come all the way to the floor so you can easily step out onto the porch.

An east wing was also added with a sun parlor on the first floor and a sleeping porch on the second floor, and he enclosed the upstairs back porch to create a linen/storage room and a second bathroom above the new butler’s pantry.

Overall, the changes made were seen as a more coastal form of architecture, similar to what you might have seen in grand Galveston homes.

The sconce you see here is just one of several exterior renovations and restorations which have been completed over the years. Prior to 2004, the house was graying and falling apart. The metal on the sconces had severe paint chipping to reveal rust damage underneath. This is how they looked before. We sent the sconces away for a couple of months to a repair expert who was able to get them looking good as new!

We are always reviewing each nook and cranny of the house in order to provide the proper upkeep it deserves. We are grateful to the C. Homer and Edith Fuller Chambers Foundation for funding the museum's existence and repair costs.