Port Arthur Pompeiian Villa reopens after three years of restoration
A ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the reopening of Port Arthur’s historic Pompeiian Villa was held Thursday. The Villa, the oldest building in the city, has been closed for three years for restoration. The Villa, designed by Chicago architects George C. Nimmons and William K. Fellows, was built in 1900 for Isaac L. Ellwood at a cost of more than $50,000, or about $1.4 million in today’s dollars. Ellwood, known as the “Barbed Wire King,” intended it to resemble the villas of the Roman city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The Villa is a one-story house with a three-sided peristyle courtyard. “It's identical to all those villas in Pompeii with the door columns and the support, and the lattice work and the trim you see around the outside of the building,” Tom Neal, Port Arthur Historical Society president, said. “The design is repeated through the gate-like trim you see around the roofline of the home. The windows are larger at the top at the bottom than they are at the top. All this matches the Roman influence.” The Villa is on the National Register of Historic Places, so there are strict standards to follow when restoring
