S ome houses in Houston are icons, while others are absolute legends . The historic River Oaks mansion at 4019 Inverness Drive is the latter. Not only in lore, but in name itself. The house, completed in 1959 at the end of the Eisenhower administration and now an official City of Houston Protected Landmark, has been dubbed LEGEND. With good reason.

The Mrs. Knox B. Howe House is a metaphor for a Houston that has mostly vanished. Its intertwined architectural and ancestral provenance begins much earlier than 1959, dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century in Houston and traveling back even further to the heady days of the Republic of Texas.

This legendary River Oaks house was designed for the Howe-Briscoe family by Birdsall Parmenas Briscoe, FAIA . The home’s original owne

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