First House

From almost the beginning of our marriage the American dream of having a house was on our minds and in our goals.  When I transitioned to full time with Technology Incorporated with NASA in May of 1969 my salary was $1000/month.  We could possibly have made mortgage payments on a house but would stretch to furnish it.  We absolutely did not have the money for a down payment.  So for our first four years of marriage we were apartment dwellers.

Although we lived in Webster, we aspired to move to Clear Lake City.  This was a hot new subdivision targeting NASA folks developed by Friendswood Development, an Exxon subsidiary.  It is interesting that the whole area around the Manned Spacecraft Center had originally been owned by Exxon.  Exxon cleverly deeded land for the MSC to Rice who, in turn, gave it to NASA with some property rights provisos (for example, if NASA left the site, Rice would own the improvements).  With the influx of scientists and engineers there was a hot market for homes - homes built on Exxon property and sold through Friendswood Development.  Who says the Exxon leadership is stupid?

We kept staying out of a house for the lack of a downpayment.

At some point Kathy’s dad, Art Lucas, had invested some of Kathy’s money in a company called Volume Shoe.  In 1971 the stock took off, Art Sold and we ended up with a nest egg of about $3000.  Unfortunately that still would not get us into a Clear Lake City house.  We worked with a realtor in League City, I forget her name.  In August she showed us a new 2000 sq ft three bedroom home in Pecan Forest in League City.  It was great.  We loved it and made an offer.  

The offer was rejected because the house had sold earlier that day.  We were dejected.  Our realtor took us to the builders trailer across from the house we hadn’t bought.  The builder, Thurel Howlett,  agreed to build the same floorplan on the lot across the street with a different facade for the same price.   We committed to it.

The following sequence of photos shows how the building progressed over the Autumn of 1971.

The lot with the builder’s shack

Foundation

Framing almost done