Sam Houston Park is a tranquil, 20-acre greenscape that doubles as an open-air museum. As the city’s first municipal park, it holds a collection of Houston’s oldest homes, preserved and managed by The Heritage Society. Among its lineup of historic structures is the Kellum-Noble House.
Standing as Houston’s oldest surviving residence, the two-story Greek Revival brick house was built by Nathaniel Kellum in 1847 with bricks made on-site from nearby Buffalo Bayou clay. It remains the only antebellum home in Houston still on its original foundation and is designated both a City of Houston Protected Landmark and a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Over the decades, the property has served multiple roles in the city’s history. Zerviah Noble and her daughter Catherine Kelley opened a private school for young ladies in the house in 1851 and ran it intermittently for about 30 years; in 1877 it became one of Houston’s first public schools, with Zerviah Noble as principal and first-grade teacher. The site later became part of Houston’s first municipal park and zoo.
Saved from demolition in 1954 by the then-newly formed Heritage Society—the organization founded specifically to rescue this house—the structure was restored and opened as a period museum in 1958, with further work completed in 2019.
Today, visitors can tour the house to see its antebellum architecture and furnishings up close and learn the stories of early Texas settlers, from military captains to the pioneer women who taught inside its walls; local reporting also lists it among Houston’s haunted sites, citing claims of bottles falling on their own, sounds of a child playing upstairs, and an apparition of a former manager at a window.
Guided tours of the Kellum-Noble House run Tuesdays through Saturdays at 10:00 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 2:30 p.m., with check-in at The Heritage Society’s museum gallery at 1100 Bagby Street; tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors (62+) and students with ID, and free for members and children under 5.
Sam Houston Park itself is open daily from dawn to dusk, but interior access to the historic homes is available only during Heritage Society tour hours.
