Revitalizing the heart of St. Thomas
University president’s wife chairing committee to restore Link-Lee Mansion to former grandeur
Marianne Ivany picked up the sliver of darkened terra cotta and held it out in front of her.
“This fell off of the building one day and almost hit my husband on the head,” she said of this exterior piece from the Link-Lee Mansion, which is showing its age some 104 years after it was built.
Ivany’s husband, Robert Ivany, is the eighth president of the University of St. Thomas. Less than a year from his retirement, this first lady is deep into what will likely be her final project here.
The grand mansion at Montrose and West Alabama needs serious work. Marianne Ivany is chairing the committee that will raise money and execute the restoration and renovation project.
On the exterior, you can swipe a finger and watch mortar sprinkle out from between the yellow brick. Glazed terra cotta ornamentation, too, is crumbling away in some places.
Evidence of water damage is everywhere — ceilings, roofs, walls, windows and pillars. It’s caused by a leaky roof but also by one of the mansion’s unique features: a hidden gutter system that pipes water through its decorative pillars. Those pipes have eroded to nearly nothing, and water seeps out through any crack it can find or create.
In addition to moss and mildew on every surface, some brickwork and terra cotta are so moist that tiny ferns grow from it. At a glance, the ferns add to the building’s charm, but they’re actually a visual cue that something is very wrong.
This building gave the university its start in 1947, when it had 40 students and 10 staff members. Everyone worked and learned together.
“It was the cafnegymnatorium,” joked Howard A. Rose, who as associate vice president for capital projects and facilities at St. Thomas is deeply involved in assessing and addressing the structural problems. “It was everything, the president’s office, the cafeteria, the classrooms. It’s been a remarkable achievement when you think of what the fathers have done.”
Since then, the campus has grown to include many buildings, where 475 full-time faculty and staff teach, and 3,411 students learn.
The Ivanys are asking former students and others to give back, to help the Link-Lee Mansion begin again.
The Links and Lees
By the early 1900s, a hurricane had left Galveston in shambles, Houston’s port was thriving, and the city was flush from the booming oil industry.
From 1900 to 1910, the city’s population nearly doubled to more than 78,000. John W. Link was one of the many drawn to the opportunities here.
He’d already worked as a lawyer and prospered in the lumber industry in Orange. But the masses moving to Houston meant one thing: The city would need more housing.
Link connected with established businessmen, including John Henry Kirby, H.B. Jackson, R.E. Brooks, W.T. Carter, Niels Esperson and C.L. Neuhaus.
With their backing, he launched the city’s first largescale subdivision: Montrose. Lots of various sizes were plotted, and the first home built would be Link’s, a $60,000 mansion to be used in advertising for home sales.
The Neoclassical-style home was finished in 1912 and had nearly 10,000 square feet, with a massive living room, a second floor filled with bedroom suites and a ballroom on the third floor, where Link’s daughters held dances. Made of yellow brick with a striking green, glazed-tile roof, it had steam heat, built-in fire extinguishers and an in-wall vacuum system.
In 1916, Link sold it to T.P. Lee, an oil-industry executive, for $90,000 — making it the most expensive home in Houston at the time.
As large as the home was, Lee and his wife had six children, so they enclosed the porch to create one more bedroom.
For 30 years, the Lees lived there, until they sold it to the Basilian Fathers of Toronto to launch the first Basilian university in the U.S. In fact, the $120,000 for the purchase was borrowed from Rice University, Marianne Ivany and Rose said.
The project
In 2014, the university’s board agreed to create a committee to assess the building’s needs and begin fundraising.
Barry Moore of the Gensler architectural firm was hired as lead architect for his vast experience in historic preservation projects. His many works include the 2011 restoration of the Julia Ideson Library downtown.
Ivany described the plan as an effort to return the building, inside and out, to its original beauty and, to a large degree, its original purpose. Already, the Link-Lee Mansion is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Texas Historic Landmark.
“We’re very proud of the efforts underway to bring back its elegance and at the same time make it very functional,” Robert Ivany said. “The fathers have kept it up inside, and now we’ve got to do some things on the outside.”
Once a home to the Link and Lee families, the building will become the home of a future university president and his family. The first floor will be used for president-level functions and entertaining, with the second and third floors used for living space.
Ivany’s team has already raised $1 million and done some work to show before-and-after examples of what can be accomplished. Their goal is to raise $7 million, starting work once they’ve raised at least $2.5 million. The project would take at least a year, Ivany and Rose said.
Construction would include an addition to the back of the house for a two-story elevator and an improved staircase. Some parking space will return to lawn space, where tents could be erected for outdoor functions.
In addition to new plumbing and wiring, the building will get a new roof. Perhaps the most overlooked element of the mansion is air conditioning: They’ll toss out all of its window units, and central air will finally be installed.
Not her first rodeo
Marianne Ivany brings experience to this role.
Her husband came to St. Thomas in 2004 with a résumé of military service dating to the Vietnam War, where he was wounded in action and decorated for valor.
A West Point graduate, Ivany was commandant, or president, of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn., and was a major general when he retired.
His high-level experience gave Marianne Ivany experience championing similar restoration projects elsewhere: one at the war college and another at Fort McPherson in Atlanta.
“I’ve had this experience,” she said. “I get here and think, ‘Wow, this is what the university needs.’ ”
Now, she said, there isn’t a great place to host large groups for presidential functions. “It’s beneficial to the image of the university to have breakfasts, lunches and dinners in a place that can showcase the university.”