Ace of Clubs House

Texarkana, United States

Open to visitors

The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

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Located in Texarkana, Texas, the Ace of Clubs House is a distinctive Victorian residence shaped like a playing card club, featuring three octagonal wings and a rectangular wing arranged around a central octagon-shaped stair hall, resulting in a structure with 22 sides. Built in 1885 in the Italianate architectural style, the two-story house includes a 20-foot tower and spiral staircase. According to local tradition, its original owner, Confederate veteran and early Texarkana mayor James Draughon, commissioned the eccentric design after winning $10,000 in a poker game featuring an ace of clubs. The house passed through several owners—William Lowndes Whitaker, Sr. (1887–1894) and attorney Henry Moore, Sr.—before Henry Moore, Jr. and his wife Olivia Smith occupied it from 1920. Following Olivia's death in 1985, the house was bequeathed to the Texarkana Museum System and reopened as a museum in 1988 after refurbishment, with each room restored to represent different periods between 1880 and 1940. It is both a National Register of Historic Places property and a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

Movement

Italianate architecture

Built: 1988
Type: historic house museum
Heritage: National Register of Historic Places listed place, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark
Place: Texarkana, United States

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Location

33.42411, -94.04418