That Was Then: The Opening of Fort Faculty

Baylor's Fort Faculty will close in summer 2010, with all the faculty families moving to new quarters. Here, from the Line archives, is a feature story about the opening of that neighborhood.

Entering Fort Faculty

By Rebecca Key

Baylor Line, March-April 1971

When students planted an “Entering Fort Faculty” sign of Baylor’s faculty housing area last Halloween, one of the residents, Mrs. T.J. Bond, thought seriously about carving a big “Welcome” on it, too.

Behind the high, stockade-type fence that inspired the sign, Baylor administrators, faculty members and employees live in what several have called a model neighborhood, free from many of the problems that plague homeowners in other places.

Traffic is light on the two curving streets, Harrington and Guittard, now that Third Street is closed and no longer carries through traffic to the highway. Children are usually at play in many of the yards, and on warm evenings residents like to walk through the neighborhood or ride their bicycles to nearby Fort Fisher. All utility wires are underground, garbage cans are recessed and individual lights in each yard eliminate the need for unsightly street lights.

Begun in 1964 and situated on urban renewal land purchased for the purpose by the Baylor-Waco, the area now contains twenty-nine one- and two-story brick homes built in a variety of architectural styles.

W.C. Perry, vice president for students affairs and chairman of the faculty housing committee, said the land is leased to the residents for ninety-nine years at a cost of about $700 or $800 a lot. This money is used to pay for utility connections, fencing, sidewalks, and gutters.

The lessees then agree to build a house of not less than 1,500 or more than 2,500 square feet that meets certain other requirements set by Baylor. The prospective resident may build the styles of house he wants, provided the plans meet with the approval of the faculty housing committee.

An agreement within the lease stipulates that if the owner of the house wishes to leave within a thirty-five-year period and cannot sell the house, the university is obligated to buy it; but Perry said this has yet to occur.

Most of the homes, Perry said, are in the $25,000 to $30,000 range, with some as high as $40,000.

“These twenty-nine houses are paying more taxes to the city than were paid by the thousand shacks that were demolished in the area,” he said.

Originally it was thought that the land would provide about fifty lots. The lots were eventually made larger, though, to meet the needs of the residents, and now spaces for 36 homes exist.

Seven of these were created by the recent closing of Third Street. Three of the seven are already spoken for, leaving four now available for building.

Perry said that if the land immediately behind the area, on which now stands low income housing, ever becomes available, the university would like to double the size of faculty housing.    

The primary advantage for most of the area’s residents is that of convenience to the campus. Many of them walk to and from their jobs there, even walking home to lunch much of the time.

Dr. E. L. Dwyer, professor of religion, and his wife, who is Baylor’s credit manager, moved to the area from their home across town because they were on the road to or from campus most of the time.

“When this property came up,” Dwyer said, “it very much appealed to us to be right in the heart of Baylor life. Besides the convenience, it’s so much easier to enter into the activities of the university here.”

Other advantages for the Dwyers, whose son and daughter are both graduates of Baylor, are that they need only one car now—and Mrs. Dwyer is even able to take a 30-minute catnap each day on her lunch hour.

The Dwyers admit that before moving into the area they had some apprehensions, especially fearing a lack of privacy. This, they said, failed to materialize.

“I feel as far removed from the campus here as if I were forty miles away,” Mrs. Dwyer said. “It’s really amazing how you feel so completely away from your work here.”

There is a great deal of independence in the neighborhood, but also a “greater degree of understanding of each other because of our common interests,” Dwyer said.

Another advantage of living so close to the campus, he said, is that “it really is easy for us to do as much as we want to in cultivating the students and having them in our home.”

The huge living area in their home, with its high beamed cathedral ceiling and large fireplace was designed with student entertaining in mind.

“We’ve found that many freshmen are getting a little homesick about a month or six weeks into the fall,” Dwyer said, so they invite all of his classes to visit during the semester. Other groups come for Sunday dinners.

With Dwyer’s large classes, especially, “It sure does help to sit down and visit with somebody,” he said, “to find out about his home and his hobbies.”

The only disadvantage he sees is that “you find yourself wishing the surrounding circumstances could be improved and that something could be done” about the poverty of the neighborhood on the other side of the tall fence.

The Dwyers chose the lot upon which they built six years ago for the view they have from the bock of the house of the large wooded area that stretches down toward the river.

Before Baylor bought the land upon which the faculty housing area now stands, Dwyer said, it, too, was wooded and rather irregular.

“I think it was unfortunate that the landscape artist suggested that they just smooth it out,” he said. “When they leveled it out they filled in around some of these trees three or four feet and they died.”

Several of the residents managed to save some of the big old trees by digging out the earth around them, but Dwyer said, most of the trees had just about lived their lives already anyway and died.

Dr. T.J. Bond, chairman of the chemistry department, and his family live next door to the Dwyers, and they, too, feel the major advantage of living in the area is its proximity to the campus and its availability to students.

“We went through a period of decision, weighing certain possible disadvantages,” Bond sad. They were worried about a lack of privacy among a group of too many people of common interests and also about possible vandalism.

“None of these problems have developed at all,” he said. “Our neighbors are here—we see them, we speak, but we don’t bother each other. All these things have worked out very well so far and we don’t anticipate any change.”

“I think the greatest thing,” Mrs. Bond said, “is that if there’s a need in the neighborhood—such as in the case of a death—everyone is very supportive.”

They had qualms, too, about the area’s becoming a “community of old folks” as the years went by, and they were glad when couples with young children moved in.

The Bonds have three children of their own, a son who is a junior at Baylor, another son on a teaching fellowship at Washington State, and a married daughter.

On the hearth of the early American walk-in fireplace in the living area stands what Mrs. Bond calls her “treasure chest,” filled with candy for the neighborhood children.

The only disadvantage the Bonds have found is the lack of a convenient shopping center, and, Bond said, “The advantages so far outweigh the disadvantages that they are insignificant.”

The Bonds, who are sponsors of the Athenean Club, said that the availability of their home to students justifies, to them, the “extravagance” of building it.

“A lot of kids just like to walk into a home,” Mrs. Bond said, and the Bonds are glad for them to.

The only thing that really bothers them, she said, is the area’s surrounding fence.

“Mrs. Bond wishes that the houses could have faced the campus in some way that would have made unnecessary the source of the “Fort Faculty” nickname.

“I do regret that the kids feel it’s isolated,” she said.

The home of Dr. Jack Herring, director of the Armstrong browning Library and professor of English, and his family is built with a view toward the Brazos out of the kitchen window—and a  view all its own on the inside of the house.

Built around a large outdoor atrium, where the Herrings often eat breakfast and entertain in the summer months, the house gives a feeling of light and air. All four inside walls of the house are entirely glass, with Roman shades that may be lowered when desired.

The Herrings said they had been designing the predominantly Mediterranean-style house for years and knew just what they wanted when they built in the faculty housing area.

Mrs. Herring, who is a staff writer for the development office, said “To me this is kind of a model neighborhood. Everyone is interested in his home, his family, and idea. No one bothers anyone else, but there’s always help when you need it.”

As an example of that kind of help, Mrs. Herring told of the time she had thirty-two pizzas made and ready to slide into the oven when both of her ovens went dead. They called the Coopers next door for aid, then shuffled the pizzas back and forth between the houses until they were all cooked.

“We all sort of take care of each other,” she said.

One of the major advantages of living in the area, aside from convenience, is that “We feel a part of a neighborhood for the first time,” Mrs. Herring said. While living in an apartment building in the eastern United States, she felt no one knew anyone else, she said and “even in other places in Waco we didn’t even know the neighbors.”

Herring said that they are involved socially with some of their neighbors, but they also mix with many professors who don’t live in the area.

The Herrings are able to entertain large groups—as many as thirty-five or so for dinner—by putting tables in the atrium and opening the glass sliding doors into the living area.

In faculty housing, the Herrings said, they feel closer to the campus and university life than when they lived across town.

As far as feeling too close to campus and their jobs is concerned, Mrs. Herring said, “Anywhere in Waco is sometimes too close to campus. You feel sort of a relief when you start to drive out of town.” The Herrings have joined the Dwyers and other of their neighbors in buying a camper to take on trips.

Holiday times in the neighborhood, Mrs. Herring said, are “just great,” with student caroling at night and neighborhood gatherings.

At Christmas, the Herring home glitters with reflections on its glass walls from twinkling white lights in the living area and red lights on the Christmas tree and in the atrium.

Dr. W. R. Dawson, professor of education, and his wife who teaches English at Waco High School, built their two-story home around their large collection of antiques.

Clocks are everywhere, many of them large wooden ones that the Dawsons have restored in their spare time.

“We always have a project going,” Mrs. Dawson said. In the living room is a dramatic wall hanging that she made by mounting ovals of Dawson’s mother’s “second-day dress” and framing them, and in the downstairs guest room hang pieces of antique jewelry with sentimental value mounted on black velvet. Also mounted on black velvet and framed are pieces of tatting from handkerchiefs carried to the Dawson’s wedding by her relatives.

A chair in the den dates from the time when Dawson’s father had a general store, and marks from the whittlers of bygone days may still be seen in the refinished wood.

Dawson is known in the neighborhood for his well-kept yard, and he admits that he loves to work in it.

“Competition never enters my mind at all,” he said. “I’ve just always been a perfectionist about yard work.”

Before building, the Dawsons had a lot on Lake Waco for a year, but, Dawson said, “We figured that we could put more into our home and wouldn’t have so much tied up in a lot” by building on faculty housing.

Usually Dawson walks to class unless the weather is bad or there are errands to run, and both he and his wife walk to the drugstore, the bookstore and to such events as weddings in Miller Chapel or Homecoming festivities.

    We entertain groups of students a lot,” Mrs. Dawson said, but most of their other entertaining is done at Christmas.

Both of the Dawsons have bicycles and love to ride or walk around the neighborhood in the evenings.

“Since they closed Third Street,” Mrs. Dawson said, “we can walk around the block without getting run over.

She said the one complaint they have is that there are no restaurants or shopping centers nearby.

Dr. William Cooper, a professor in the philosophy department, and his wife, an instructor in the school of Music, would like to see a shopping center built near the area, too.

The Coopers have three children, the youngest fifteen months of age and the eldest eight. Two go to Gurley Elementary School, one of the closest schools to their home, with the school-age children of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Evans.

The Coopers, like others in the area, are looking forward to the completion of the Lake Brazos recreation area, which will be within walking distance of the neighborhood.

The eight-year-old is allowed to walk to the drugstore, the Strecker Museum, or the Lloyd Russell Gymnasium by himself now, and in the summertime the Cooper children take advantage of the swimming pool in the Rena Marrs-McLean Gymnasium that is open to faculty members in the afternoons.

Cooper and his wife frequently entertain student groups, and the grand piano in the living room makes it a good setting for musical meetings.

Mrs. Marcus Evans, wife of an associate professor in the political science department, said that living in the faculty housing area is similar to living on base when Evans was in the Air Force.

The Evens lived in southern California for eighteen months, then in Arizona, and they liked the Spanish architecture they saw there.

When they came to Waco in 1968, they decided to build a large Spanish-style stucco house, complete with arches, patios, balconies, lots of tile, and other distinctively Spanish touches.

While the house was being built, the Evans shipped in Laredo for paintings and part of the furniture.

Every room in the house except the youngest child’s has an outside door, with the upstairs rooms opening onto two balconies, one of which extends into a sundeck built over the garage.

Adjoining the master bedroom upstairs is a sitting room furnished with a sofa, large armchairs and a fireplace.

Mrs. Evan said their prime reasons for building in the area were that city buses provide easy transportation for their housekeeper, and that, “We couldn’t have bought a lot and built this house, too.”

Being near the campus has special advantages for their three children, also in the way of museums, children’s symphony and a day camp.

Mrs. Evans said the new University-Parks Drive route to the highway makes her job as a registered nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital more convenient, and is especially handy “when you need to go somewhere and classes are changing.”

“It was such a relief to have Third Street closed to traffic,” she said, since the street with its heavy through traffic ran close to their house.

Since the Evans live so near the campus, they get to see many friends who are alumni of Baylor that they wouldn’t see otherwise.

Much of the Evans’ social life is spent with the parents of their children’s friends and with the activities of Taurus, the men’s social club that they sponsor.

Dr. Cecil Edwards, medical director of the Baylor Health and Counseling Center, and his family live in a five-bedroom, two-story home that was originally built by Zula Zon McDonald, associate professor of library science.

The Edwards have five of the neighborhood’s twenty or so children, and will take a foster child into their home soon. Edwards’ elderly father also lives with them.

Mrs. Edwards said the main advantage to living in the area for them is that her husband is near the Health Center.

The doctor is on call twenty-four hours a day; and in case of emergency, living close by saves a trip across town.

Their home’s location is good for the children, she said, because the campus offers so many things for them to take advantage of.

“If you can’t be a rich doctor and belong to the country club,” Mrs. Edwards said, laughing, “You can live on the Baylor campus.”

The faculty housing area is convenient to their church, too, and they enjoy the fellowship they have with their neighbors.

“It’s not everywhere you have the cream of the crop for neighbors,” she said.

The only qualm the Edwards had about moving into their home was that the children, who were accustomed to roaming on the land surrounding their home in Louisiana (where Edwards had a private practice until two years ago) wouldn’t adjust to living in a residential area.

“They’ve learned to take that into consideration,” Mrs. Edwards said, and no problems have arisen.

Mary Norman, assistant to the dean of instruction, built her home in faculty housing in 1968.

“As soon as they announced they were going to have this, I signed up for a lot,” Miss Norman, who has worked in the same office in Pat Neff Hall since 1945 said.

She was delayed from building right away because of some complications involved with selling her other home, but as soon as that was taken care of she built her house on Harrington.

Miss Norman enjoys her home’s proximity to her job and to such cultural events as the theater and symphony.

The faculty housing area is made up of families with widely differing interests and needs, all bound together by their ties with Baylor. Most enjoy the feeling of being a part of campus life that comes from living near it—they like hearing the band practice behind their neighborhood during football season, and seeing the lights from Pat Neff Hall from their windows at night, as they Herrings do. Or, like Mrs. Bond, they enjoy watching Baylor men play with a model airplane for hours at a time in the fields behind the campus.

As Miss Norman said, “You really couldn’t ask for a nicer neighborhood to live in.”