Building’s new life
Century-old Warrant Building gets a new owner and a makeover
Before and after: Century-old Warrant Building gets a new owner and a makeover.
When Chris Manske brought his interior designer and architects into the 107-year-old building that he hoped to turn into new offices for his wealth management business, he hoped that they, too, could see the possibilities. It was a challenge. “The overall feel before was that it was very dark, had a lot of wood, low ceilings and cramped, small offices,” said interior designer Pamela O’Brien of Pamela Hope Designs. “I compared it to a rabbit warren with all these little dark cubbies.
Called the Warrant Building, it was built in 1910 and originally housed the Star Bottling Works, which closed in 1962. It has had different owners and tenants since, most recently a law firm that had erected even more internal walls in the two-story structure. Paint colors changed with each new owner — until this renovation leaned toward an earthy ’70s-era palette.
By the time the financial adviser, who launched Manske Wealth Management in 2012, bought the building on San Jacinto, it had become a strange mess in need of focus.
From the front door, the design team — Lori Arnold and Ashley LaBauve, architects from Prevot Design Services, and O’Brien — surveyed the scene: A glass-brick receptionist’s desk, a gold wall with dark wainscoting, aging terrazzo tile and a doorway that began with iron bars fronting a wood-and-glass door topped with white mini-blinds.
They knew what to do with all of that, but when they looked up, they weren’t quite sure what they had. An office had been added in an odd place, and what stretched beyond was anyone’s guess. Once they eliminated that office, the new view was something akin to a bell tower: a mishmash of wood planks, brickwork painted green or white or completely left alone, strips of corrugated metal on all sides and big I-beams, painted red.
“When we opened up that second floor — and what I call the bell tower — the beams were very attractive,” O’Brien said. “That’s a huge design trend. People are putting big steel I-beams in their houses.”
An “after” image of the same spot shows a soaring space with pale gray walls topped with a 3-D I-beam structure in a Craftsmanstyle geometric pattern. From it hangs an impressive crystal chandelier in an eight-tier helix.
The new foyer makes a big, welcoming statement: Possibilities live here. Big changes
Sitting happily in the warehouse district, Manske said he chose this site because it’s exactly where he wants to be. Despite the city jail down the street and a smattering of bail-bondsmen shops, this part of town is definitely in transition.
There are artist studios, architecture firms and law offices. James Beard Award-winning chef Justin Yu also has restaurant space in the area (his Oxheart recently closed and is reopening as a new concept).
San Jacinto street is a busy artery into downtown, and an entrance to Interstate 10 is nearby. With talk of more roadwork, Manske sees signs of a prosperous future.
A West Point graduate who moved to Houston after falling in love with a Texan, he’s been a financial adviser since 2000 and launched his own firm in 2012. He is the first to say that historic preservation wasn’t his thing, but he’s deep into it now.
Where once were lots of walls, you’ll now find big open spaces. Much of the glass brick is gone. Wood flooring was refinished or replaced with planks of red oak. Gold tile is gone, and various colors of paint were covered in pale gray. Vacant spaces have art niches.
The stair rail that no longer met code has been replaced with a custom design by O’Brien —the business’ monogram, MWM, is worked into the ironwork.
Surprises popped up throughout the process. Pulling up ugly green shag carpet revealed a rotting floor. Odd colors were everywhere: lime-sherbet sheetrock, purple and pink walls and those red I-beams.
Despite it all, Manske and his team always considered what this building could be.
LaBauve and Arnold saw good bones and had experience with historical building projects. O’Brien saw a new color palette and changes that were both functional and beautiful. Manske saw a concrete area that could serve as a courtyard where he and employees could eat breakfast or lunch in comfortable seating while a fountain trickles nearby.
Rotting windows were replaced with energyefficient ones.
And Manske found something he needed in his life — risk.
“You only live once,”” he said. “My life is about lowering risk. I have four daughters, and I want a lower risk for them. I manage money, and I want a lower risk for my clients. In other parts of my life, though, I want to take risks.” City’s oldest soda bottler
Historical photos show a hint of the evolution of Houston’s oldest soda bottler, Star Bottling Works. An early photo ca. 1910 shows men with broad mustaches sitting in horsedrawn buggies on dirt roads, waiting for crates of bottled soda to deliver.
In another, the former owner in a dapper suit and horned-rim glasses holds a cigarette as he strikes a pose at the front door of the building. Yet another photo from the 1940s or ’50s shows a young man loading bottles of Wyne Punch into crates on the factory floor.
The remains of this longtime bottling company are collectible bottles that once were filled with soda and the last building that housed Star Bottling Works, the Warrant Building.
The company’s history goes back to druggist Robert Cotter and a partner, who in 1880 opened a business at the corner of Congress and Fannin. They made liver pills, chill cures and other elixirs. When they added soda to their lineup, they found a crowd thirsting for their ginger ale and sarsaparilla.
Others joined or bought the business in the decades that followed — W.D. Cleveland, August Baumbach, August Bonner, Henry H. Kuhlman, G. Geaccone and finally Joseph R. Navarro and his son, Roxie. The Navarros owned it for the longest stretch, from 1910 until its closure in 1962.
The company had several locations, too. Even in its early years, the soda-bottling industry was viable and competitive: Charles Alderton invented Dr Pepper in Waco in 1885, and John Pemberton first sold Coca-Cola in Atlanta in 1886.
A new logo for the building pairs its name — the Warrant Building — with a three-tiered tower, a nod to both its history and its architecture. Manske didn’t create its name, but he appreciates its many interpretations.
“Warrant has a legal definition, an insurance definition and, in my world, there’s a special kind of investment called a warrant,” Manske said. “And the building warranted adaptive reuse.”