Escape to the land of C.S. Lewis and Wilde right here in Houston!
Houston isn’t exactly known for its prominence of British culture. While one might not be all too surprised to happen upon a British pub in Montrose, say, one would register a more a delightful wonder to discover an English village in Northwest Houston complete with a 17,000-square-foot University of Oxford-inspired library, train, and cobblestone street. [Featured image: @tailormadeitineraries]
The Lanier Theological Library was opened in 2010 by Mark Lanier, a lawyer and CEO of his eponymous Lanier Law Firm. As a fan of architecture, Lanier had a hand in all of its design features, which borrow heavily from the University of Oxford. On Lanier’s 35-acre estate, the library encompasses 17,000 square feet, equipped with plenty of nooks and crannies to cozy up and study, research, and/or get lost in one of its 100,000 volumes. Its burnished wooden shelves contain a comprehensive collection of books, historical documents and artifacts, and periodicals – including letters by CS Lewis, first editions, as well as an originate fragment from the Dead Sea Scroll.
Adjacent to the library is a stone chapel, an impressive reconstruction of a Byzantine church in Turkey circa 500 AD. The rest of the grounds on the estate all feature cottage-like houses, a cobblestone road, lush greenery, as well as a picturesque-garden gazebo.
The Lanier Theological Library is open to the public from 9 am to 5 pm on Mondays through Fridays, except for Tuesdays when it is open until 9 pm. Children 12 and under must be accompanied by a parent. The library is located at 14130 Hargrave Road in the Willowbrook area. For a more detailed description on how to get there, you can visit their website here.