Preserved in Time was originally created for the sole purpose of protecting and restoring the Jim West Mansion in the Clear Lake area of Houston , Texas . The old mansion is currently listed on the Greater Houston Preservation Alliances Endangered Buildings List. It is also listed on the National Registry of Historic Places and is listed as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. Please see the Greater Houston Preservation Alliances website for additional information.

 

James Marion West, Sr., began planning and constructing the stately Italian Renaissance mansion following a European family vacation in 1924. Designed by architect Joseph Finger, the 17,000 square foot structure was completed in 1930. It took 3 years to complete at a cost of $250,000.00. The mansion boasted 6 bedrooms, a sleeping porch, 12 bathrooms, a solarium, a mahogany paneled study, ballroom, huge dining room, music room, two-story living room and a private barbers room. Rare Dresden work decorated some of the mantels. It stood on a 30,000 acre ranch that stretched from what is now Ellington Field to what is now Toddville Road . On Sundays motorists would drive slowly past the mansion to view its splendor. Following Jim West’s death the family honored the wishes he had outlined in his will and vacated the property with a few belongings. Vagrants and vandals ransacked the mansion during the 1940s and 1950s. The furniture, furnishings, linens left on the beds and utensils left in the kitchens slowly disappeared.

 

Mr. West was born in Waynesboro , Mississippi in 1871. His family relocated to Trinity County , Texas when he was 9 years old. In later years he started on his road to fortune when he took on a partner and established a lumber mill in Westville , Texas . He died in Kansas City during a business trip in 1941. Prior to his death, Jim West had owned 8 lumber mills, produced oil, raised cattle, and purchased two newspapers. He bought the Dallas Dispatch-Journal and changed the name to the Journal. He also purchased the Austin Tribune. Among many other civic duties, James Marion West was the 16^th president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association.