Bringing “O’Keeffe!” to Malakoff at an affordable admission price is a good enough public service all by itself. But what we’ve got going here is a wonderful “two-fer” or maybe even a “three-fer.”
NEWS FLASH: AS THE SATURDAY PERFORMANCE IS NEARLY SOLD OUT, A MATINEE HAS BEEN SCHEDULED FOR SUNDAY, APRIL 13, AT 2:00 PM. CALL 903 681 2880 FOR TICKETS OR MORE INFORMATION.
I promise you, this performance is well worth the $20 you’ll pay to see it, plus every one of those dollars (after we pay for the production) will go straight into fixing the Bartlett house veranda. It will take a ton of money to restore the house, money we are far from raising. However, this year we are going to make some big strides towards getting the place to the point where we can enjoy some outdoor functions this spring and fall, and at least keep it looking respectable all year long. A tiny group of people, let by Cheryl Kutscherousky had the grounds looking great last spring, but then summer came and we ran out of money and energy. (Cheryl didn’t run out of energy, but there’s only so much one woman can keep going.)
We have put on some great fundraising events in the past—people loved them and they really showcased the art in our part of East Texas. The problem is, somehow they ended up costing us more money than we made.
But this is the year of the two-fer. We are still going to bring you something so good you will be glad to pay for it, and then take that money and immediately—well, nearly immediately–spend it where you can see it. Real quick. And if this turns out as well as we think it will, we will turn around and find something else as great to bring you. That will be the three-fer: starting a tradition of bringing professional theater and music to Malakoff.
A little about the Bartlett House—It was completed in 1930, as the home of the T. A. Bartlett family. Founder of the Malakoff Pressed Brick Plant, Mr. Bartlett fired its brick in a buff color, which was never duplicated while he owned the company. All walls were solid brick set with concrete mortar and are 18 inches thick. The roof, built flat for parties and dancing, is laid with brick on top of cement with railroad steel reinforcement. Ceilings were set in molds of white set in steel. Floors were poured concrete on the ground level above a huge basement. It was built by the “Cubies” as my brother Grover called them, the Morgado brothers from Cuba, who are also responsible for several other unique buildings around town. In the thirties the Bartlett’s well supplied water to the town and they had a lake between the house and the brickyard where the public could swim for a small price, which offered showers and swimsuit rentals.
The Bartlett family lived in the house until the late fifties, then held on to it for some years after it. In 1965 the Fletes family bought the house, which by then was in disrepair, with its marvelous gardens overgrown with weeds and bushes. They cleared the brush and did some repair, but were not able to bring it back to its original glory.
Those innovative steel and concrete walls had proved to be a mixed blessing as nearby blasting for clay finally caused a huge crack that ran through the house. I suppose that is what caused the basement to flood. It stays full of water now.
In the early seventies, Mr. Fletes’ work caused the family to move elsewhere. For years they kept the house and visited it. However, it finally deteriorated to the point it was not livable.
In 2004 a full page in This Old House magazine asked readers to “Save this old House.” It was offered for sale for 50,000. People from all over the country were interested, but all found the cost to repair it far too high.
In 2008 the price was lowered to the point the Malakoff Area Garden Club was able to buy it. Our hope is to restore the grounds, which are still full of plants from the house’s glory days, when it was the showplace of the town, and Mrs. Bartlett had two full time “yard boys” keeping it immaculate. We plan to use the funds from “O’Keeffe!” to fix the veranda which stretches around the east side and part way around back of the house. We think we’ll get the gardens in a lot better shape this year, and get a maintenance plan in place. We hope we’ll get the west side of the fence done this year, and perhaps start to repair and enclose the beautiful arched garage in back so that we can have one permanent and safe building until the day we can find a very wealthy benefactor, or write a very ambitious grant and get the house repaired. Oops. I’ve used up my words and then some. More later.
