Lost, Hidden, and Saved Homes

Rembert Home

316 South Fredonia

Date of construction: 1879
Architectural Style: Neo-Classical

Longview’s first millionaire and cotton merchant, Frank T. Rembert, married Kate Womack in 1878 and purchased this home in 1879 for $500 from Mary Bateman.

After visiting the famous World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, famous for the late 19th century trend of classical details and the notion that "white (paint) was right," Rembert began making changes in the home and adapted it from the Queen Anne to the European Neo-Classical style.

In 1910, a fire destroyed the detached kitchen. Rembert moved the kitchen to the north side of the house and built a garage for his 1910 Buick on the site of the former kitchen.

Rembert Home

Rembert improved the quality of life for the people of Longview when he built the Rembert Theater on Cotton Street in 1915, just one week after a fire destroyed Longview’s Grand Opera House, and next door to his Palace Hotel. Following a European vacation in 1907, being smitten with Scotland’s Loch Lomand, he and his wife also helped finance construction of a first class facility for social gatherings, misspelled and commonly referred to as Lake Lamond.

Cotton Street was named for its appearance as "a street of cotton" when Rembert literally lined the street with cotton bales he bought from area farmers.

Upon his death in 1926, Frank left the house to his wife Kate, whose nephew John Womack Harrison, Sr. moved from Plainview with his wife and daughter to live with her. A sun porch was added in 1926 and in 1934 a back bedroom was added to provide a room for newly arrived John Harrison Jr.

The house now belongs to John Harrison and is being lovingly restored.