This Old President's House

Renovation Recasts historic home as residence for Rice’s First Family

By Dana Benson
Photography: Tommy LaVergne

Imagine a large party being held at a stately home. Guests are milling about in a spacious reception hall and outside on a beautifully landscaped terrace and yard. Now imagine a family sharing an intimate meal around their dinner table or playing games in their den. Picture children reading their favorite stories while curled up in a patch of sunlight on a window seat.

Such snapshots of family and social life have been absent from the Wiess President’s House for a long time, but now they are regular sights again. The 1920 home, originally owned by Harry Carothers Wiess and his wife, Olga Keith Wiess, has been renovated to serve as a private residence for the Rice president and a public space for university events.

The Wiesses raised their three daughters in the home at the corner of Sunset and Main, and they also hosted gala events attended by some of Houston’s most important residents.The family donated the home to Rice 30 years ago, but until recently it had seen little use, and some of it had suffered water, termite, and other damage. But the Wiess House and Gardens Renovation Project, which was launched in January 2003, erased any signs of damage and restored the beauty and elegance befitting one of Houston’s most historically and architecturally significant homes. President David W. Leebron, his wife, Y. Ping Sun, and their children, Daniel and Merissa, moved in last June.

“There is a lot of history in that house,” says Joe Buchanan, who oversaw the renovation as project manager in Rice’s facilities, engineering, and planning department. “I love a lot of things about it, but my favorite is that we’ve made it a home again; a place where more memories can be made.”

When the renovation began, the search for Rice’s president was under way, and planners did not know just who would be living in the house. They considered all the different types of families that might occupy it, including ones with small children. “It’s a house made for entertaining,” says project architect Bill Neuhaus, “but we made sure that it was designed so that family life would not have to grind to a halt while an event was going on.”

The design, says Neuhaus, principal of the Houston firm W.O. Neuhaus Associates, is similar to the White House in that the first floor is primarily public space while the second floor is mostly private living space. Already, President Leebron has opened the house to students, faculty, and other members of the Rice community for many events. In fact, he already has hosted functions at the house. But, he says, “It’s still our house,” and the family has filled its rooms with personal touches, including a Chinese chest in the living room and an ancient Chinese instrument called a gu zeng.

Neuhaus emphasizes that the Wiess President’s House project was not a historic restoration or preservation. Instead, he calls it a modernization. “Our contribution to the house was in the strategic moves,” he says. “It was certainly a well-built house. All the bones were there; we didn’t have to completely remodel.” The house today blends the old and the new seamlessly. It offers the conveniences that one would expect in a new home, including an informal living room and a modern kitchen, which were added in a new wing, and spacious master baths with ample closets. And yet there are many vestiges of the old home. Much of the original wood flooring was saved, along with fireplace mantles, candelabras, bathroom basins, wall sconces, and other fixtures.

“We used everything that we could from the old home,” says Lee Hage Jamail, who was a member of the Rice Board of Trustees until May 2004 and served as its representative on the project, “even some things that we didn’t think we’d be able to.”
“We took what was really good about it, and we moved on from there,” Neuhaus adds. “You know it’s an older home, but it doesn’t feel dated. Most importantly, the house feels like a home again.”