George Sealy-Robert Smith Mansion At 822 Tremont St.

[Highrise Tower]

I learned some cool Galveston history early in the week.

Credits:

https://www.galvestonmonthly.com/homes/sealy-smith.html

After the war, the couple returned to the Island and built an impressive home at the corner of 23rd Street (Tremont) and Avenue I (present-day Sealy St.) where they became the parents of two children: Etta Jane “Jennie” Sealy (1868-1938) and John Hutchings Sealy Jr. (1870-1926). The house was large enough to comfortably accommodate the small family and four relatives.

Additional renovations were made to the Sealy mansion. Between 1892 and 1899, the rear section of the home was extended and the servants’ quarters were enlarged to 20’x52’.

In 1896, Jennie Sealy married Robert Waverly Smith (1865–1930), the Galveston city attorney, on September 29 at the Imperial Hotel in New York City. That same year, Smith hired local architect George B. Stowe to design and build a wood frame Queen Anne style house at 3017 Avenue O (now known as the Smith-Rowley House). While the couple’s home was being built, they lived with the bride’s mother Rebecca at the Sealy mansion.

Electric wiring was added to the stable and servants building in 1908, and Jennie hired two new housemaids: one for the upstairs of their home and one to tend solely to the dining room.

John Sealy Jr. and his sister Jennie Sealy Smith contributed an estimated $1 million to John Sealy Hospital and a woman’s hospital built in 1915. The two later established the Sealy-Smith Foundation to ensure the continued prosperity of the hospital.

The empty Sealy Smith mansion was loaned to the Red Cross in January 1940 to be used for first aid classes and space for volunteers to make surgical dressings for the military. Maco Stewart, Jr. purchased the property at the end of that month, but never intended to reside in the home. Instead, on February 5, 1940 he presented the deed to First Baptist Church pastor Dr. Harold Fickett as a memorial to Maco Stewart, Sr.

Given the name of the Stewart Memorial Center, the upstairs bedrooms of the large home were used for Sunday school classrooms and the downstairs areas for lectures and meetings. In 1944, Galvestonians had their last chance to glimpse the once elegant interiors of the former Sealy Smith mansion when it was included on the Oleander Trail Homes Tour.