It dawned on me the other day that I never explained why I've named this blog, "This Old Potter House" or "Potter House" as family, Joe and I refer to it as.
For starts, it was a bit of a debate on how to reference each house, or home(s) we live in. For as long as I've lived at Joe's childhood property that we now own, we've always referenced it as, "the farm" and when we purchased the house in Texas, it was a question of "well, what do we call it? It's 40 acres but has no animals, so is it a ranch? farm? homestead?..." and the question was answered when a lovely neighbor came over and said, "I would have loved to purchase this ranch." So I guess that solves that - according to our neighbors, we all own 'ranches.'
Moving on..
When the Potter House was listed on Realtor.com, it was incorrectly listed as a Historical Home built in the 1950s. When we arrived at the house, the sellers had left us the history of the house written out on a piece of paper, the original printed 'Rules' of the Potter House and a framed collage of original textiles that dawned the home before the remodel.
The History:
The house was built in Tyler's Azalea District in 1932 by one of the cofounders of Trinity Mother Frances, Dr. Howard Bryant. It served as The Potter House in Tyler for some-time.
People who needed treatment at the hospital or had a family member staying at the hospital could say at the house free of charge.
See the information / rules while the house served as The Potter House:
And these amazing textiles!
Excuse the photo quality, I took these during the 1 hour viewing we had of the house. All of us (Joe, Brandon, Hannah, our realtors ) were running around trying to see each part of the house / shop / land / forest and I snapped these so I could send them to my Mom and best friend.
I was so happy to see that the sellers left both frames behind and I can't wait to find the perfect place to hang them.
Once we were in contract, it took me a few weeks to be convinced I could start a blog ( who am I?!) and I came up with the blog name fairly easy, without much thought. I wanted to pay homage to the houses historical story.
After a quick search of the internet, there are many different kinds of Potter Houses and how the serve local communities. They are also still active, more on that one later!
Till next time!