HISTORICAL COMMISSION RECOGNIZES NETTLES HOUSE

The construction of the two houses took place on the bayou a couple of miles apart; the Nettles place built on the West Fork of Double Bayou and the Haynes place established on the East Fork of Double Bayou.  The waterway was the main transportation route and functioned as the life pulse of the community which ebbed and flowed with the tide. Connections to Galveston , across the bay, were strong.  These decendents of William Arthur Haynes navigated, The Ella , across the bay delivering farmer’s goods and produce while picking up mail and other supplies for the return trip to the community.   

The Haynes House was built larger than the Nettles house and had a dog trot due to the kitchen burning several times which caused extra trips to New Orleans for additional wood.  The structures were similar in floor plan with the rooms in the Haynes house being 17x17 and the Nettles house 14x14 and slight differences evident from the outside of the two houses.  

When hurricanes threatened, people stood their ground. The Nettles family rode out many storms in the strong house.  The family secure upstairs in the solid cypress, double walled, tongue and groove home discovered a surprise in the aftermath of the 1915 Storm.  When the water subsided and they started the trek downstairs to view the damage and begin recovery, an alligator was reclining on the dining table.  They found it very necessary to take time to wrestle the alligator off the table and out of the house before further clean up could commence.  They accomplished this task and life continued on the bayou.  

W. Clyde and Modena  E. Kruger Sullivan returned from The Great War and after Willie Belle died, they bought the house from the Nettles Estate.  Thomas Howard was Modena ’s grandfather and Willie Belle was her aunt.  The Sullivan family purchased the house in 1950 and moved it from its long time location in Oak Island , up West Bayshore Road , approximately one mile to its present location. 

When Warren Sullivan and his sister, Andrea McClelland began the process of recovery on the house after Hurricane IKE, older watermarks were discovered high in the walls strongly indicating that two major floods had occurred prior to IKE.  These two major antique watermarks are possibly the marks from the storms of 1900 and 1915 when the house was located on the bayou.  

It is fact that debris was removed from around the porcelain and glass door knobs when the house was remodeled in 1961 and  seemingly the only way this debris could have been lodged was through surges and wave action during previous storms.  It is further known that during Hurricane Carla in 1961, water entered the house at only three inches, a minor intrusion.   

All in all the property is very peaceful.  The past few hurricanes have changed the landscape and many old growth trees have succumbed.  The barn was rebuilt after Rita, but did not survive IKE and the fences continue to be repaired.  However, the stately, old house has once again, against all odds, survived another major hurricane. IKE hit her hard, but she remains strong, resolute and restored to her former old Texas Pioneer farm house grandeur.  The house has supported generations of marriages, births, deaths, and reunions.   She has bore witness to the daily lives of her inhabitants, ebbing and flowing like the tide that has always surrounded her.  Strength prevails and the old Nettles/Sullivan place is once again, more than a house, it is a home.

Modena Sullivan currently owns and lives in the house with her daughter and son-in-law, Andrea and Bob McClelland.