Heights property owners picked for Good Brick Awards

Jan Rynda Greer said she and her husband, Tyson, are spending nearly a year away from their well-known and historic home in the Heights.

Before they left Houston for Stavanger, Norway, earlier this month, they received a going-away gift of sorts.

The Greers were selected to receive a Good Brick Award from nonprofit Preservation Houston in recognition of their work to restore the turreted Victorian mansion at 1802 Harvard St., which was constructed in the late 1800s and also is known as the Mansfield House. They bought the four-story, 3,879-square foot home in March 2019, moved in six months later and have made renovations both inside the house and on the surrounding property while maintaining its historic character.

“Very, very thrilled to receive a Good Brick Award,” Jan said in a text message from Norway. “It’s ‘the one’ I really wanted because I have so much respect for Preservation Houston.”

The owners of 16 historic properties across the city were recognized this year for being good stewards of their homes, places of worship or buildings, ranging from industrial structures to those at Rice University and Hermann Park. The Mansfield House was one of two Heights properties to be honored, with the other being a pair of neighboring, 99-year-old bungalows on Tulane Street that were restored by Neal and Karen Dikeman and their real estate investment company, Old Growth Ventures.

The Dikemans and Old Growth Ventures also were awarded a Good Brick for rehabilitating a shotgun house in Freedmen’s Town that was built in 1913. Nancy J. Simien received one for restoring a Victorian-style cottage in Near Northside that was constructed in 1907.

David Bush, the executive director of Preservation Houston, said the 2022 Good Brick Awards were announced about a month ago and are scheduled to be presented at an awards ceremony scheduled for 6:30 p.m. March 4 at River Oaks Country Club. The winners were selected by a panel of seven jurists, which were a group of former Good Brick winners, preservation professionals and neighborhood leaders who were picked by Preservation Houston.

“For all of (the winners), there’s a common thread and the jury considers how extensive the project was,” Bush said. “It can’t just be, ‘Paint the place.’”

Bush said the Dikemans’ neighboring homes at 1217 and 1219 Tulane St. were a “no-brainer” for the award, because they were added to the National Register of Historic Places last December. The property also provides four different rental units, because garage apartments were added behind each one-bedroom house as part of the restoration.

Neal Dikeman said last year that he was renting the houses for $2,450 per month.

“Part of it was the multi-family aspect of it,” Bush said. “It’s housing that’s affordable for the neighborhood. That was important.”

Sentimentality played a role in the Good Brick Award for the Victorian mansion on Harvard Street, Bush said, because it previously was owned by Preservation Houston co-founder Bart Truxillo, who lived in the house for 30 years before his death in 2017.

The Greers, who have caretakers staying in the home while they are overseas, have made a series of modifications to the house without modernizing it. Among other changes, they installed an antique sink and faucet in the kitchen, created a second bathroom for their two kids by relocating a tub and sink from other parts of the home and installed a three-story laundry chute.

The restorations have been completed despite the home flooding during Tropical Storm Imelda in September 2019, according to Jan.

“It’s one of the few big, original houses left,” Bush said. “It’s pretty much iconic in the Heights.”