Morton Kuehnert’s January 22 Fine Antiques and Decorative Art Auction will feature collections and estate furnishings, featuring a portion of the estate from three generations of the Proctor family, all prominent Texas attorneys. The Proctor estate includes furniture, sterling, crystal, toys, books, paintings and other items to be auctioned beginning at 11:00 am, Sunday, January 22, at4901 Richmond Ave.,Houston, 77027. Also featured in the auction are personal collections from family estates in Houston and Austin, including hunt and safari trophies, wildlife statuary and fine antique furniture and decorative art. See entire catalog here! Judge Frederick C. (F.C.) Proctor, 1866-1935, General Counsel for the Gulf Oil Companies from 1905-1919, was a prominent figure in the early days of oil development in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. He was a prominent South Texas lawyer who practiced in Victoria and Cuero before becoming general counsel of the Gulf Oil Companies in 1905. Proctor and his wife Lucy Wofford moved to Houston in 1916 when Gulf transferred its headquarters from Beaumont. He is credited in creating much of the comprehensive law relating to oil and gas. The family history is quite impressive. He was the son of David Cogswell Proctor, 1835-1908, an early pioneer to Texas from Shelby County, Kentucky, who was educated at Yale (Master’s) and Harvard (Jurisprudence), and served in the Confederate Calvary as a Colonel during the War Between the States. Over the years, David Cogswell Proctor was known as a man of “unimpeachable character” and when he died he was the Dean of the Cuero Bar Association.
As his practice evolved with various partners, the foundation of that practice has endured and is now the oldest existing law firm in the State of Texas, located in Victoria. Judge Proctor’s son was David C. Proctor Sr., 1890-1950, and he too was an attorney, receiving his undergraduate degree at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and his law degree from the University of Texas in Austin. Judge Proctor and his wife built their final home during 1926-1928 at 2950 Lazy Lane, next door to Houston philanthropist Ima Hogg, owner of Bayou Bend. The Proctor home was built by distinguished Houston architect Birdsall P. Briscoe. According to Stephen Fox, a Houston architectural historian, the two homes shared a driveway. The Proctor House site contained the Clock Garden, planned by the Kansas City landscape architects Hare & Hare, and was the oldest designed landscape in River Oaks. The home was later bought by Mike and Alice Hogg, Ima’s brother, and was dubbed “Dogwoods”. The Judge was a friend of Governor James S. Hogg, the father of Will, Ima, and Mike Hogg. It is said that he built the house on Lazy Lane to support the Hoggs’ efforts to develop River Oaks and especially Homewoods, the most elite subdivision within River Oaks. John F. Staub, the architect who designed Bayou Bend, told his biographer Howard Barnstone that he and Briscoe were asked by both the Hogg siblings and Judge
and Mrs. Proctor to collaborate on the designs of their adjoining houses. The two architects agreed that Briscoe would design the Proctor House and Staub would design Bayou Bend. Dogwood was demolished in 2005, much to the dismay of River Oaks residents andHoustonhistorians, to make way for construction of a new home on the Lazy Lanesite. The January 22 auction will be an opportunity to buy a piece of Houston and Texas’ rich history. For more information, please visit our website at www.mortonkuehnert.com and please leave your comments below. We want to hear from you!!
















