Architect of our B-and-B in Granbury, Texas

This wonderful old house, known as The Iron Horse Inn, here in Granbury Texas is the perfect spot for our artistic retreats. The house was built by master craftsmen who took two years to complete the beautiful intricate woodwork in all of the rooms. In fact the original owner, Daniel Cogdell prided himself on having chosen all of the wood himself in East Texas, without one single knot anywhere! The house is truly a work of art, designed by the architect Wyatt Hedrick, who also built one of the finest examples of Art Deco in fort Worth - The Texas and Pacific Railway Terminal.







While researching the work of Wyatt Hedrick I found that he also built the fabled Shamrock Hotel in Houston, which at the time was the largest hotel in America, with the largest swimming pool in the world!. Sadly the hotel was demolished in 1987. It was apparently built for a wealthy oil tycoon in 1949 for the sum of $21,000,000 (or the equivalent of $200,000,000 today)!



Being an Irish woman, I was fascinated to discover that the Shamrock Hotel was opened on St. Patrick's day, had a green roof and had it's rooms painted in 60 shades of green! The original owner was of Irish descent and was known as "Wildcatter McCarthy"

One more interesting tit-bit I found on my web surfing adventures - "Wildcatter McCarthy" was in fact the inspiration for the fictional character Jett Rink in the novel "Giant", who was played in the movie by James Dean.

You never know where internet searches will lead you!