Galveston Bishop's Palace
— the house that held the storm.
Not only on a wall.
Galveston Bishop's Palace, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Walter Gresham's stone house on Broadway, designed by Nicholas Clayton and finished in 1893. Rusticated granite, limestone, and red sandstone rise three stories above a deep porte-cochère. It survived the 1900 hurricane that took most of Galveston, and sheltered hundreds in its halls that night. The Catholic Diocese bought it in 1923 and gave it its working name.
The place, in three passes.
Bishop's Palace stands at 1402 Broadway in Galveston, Texas, in the East End historic district about three blocks north of the Strand. The house occupies a full corner lot on the boulevard that runs the length of Galveston Island. It was originally called Gresham's Castle for its owner, Walter Gresham, a railroad attorney and U.S. congressman. The American Institute of Architects has listed it among the hundred most architecturally significant buildings in the United States, and it is a National Historic Landmark.
Architect Nicholas Clayton drew the house in the Châteauesque manner, with elements of Victorian Romanesque, and finished it in 1893. The exterior is rusticated granite, white limestone, and red sandstone in alternating courses, with steep slate roofs, stained-glass windows, and a deep porte-cochère wrapping the corner. The interior carries hand-carved oak and mahogany, eight fireplaces, and a forty-foot octagonal entry hall lit by an art-glass dome. Total construction cost reached about $250,000, a sum few Gulf Coast houses approached at the time.
Construction ran from 1887 to 1893 for Walter and Josephine Gresham. The 1900 Galveston hurricane, which killed at least 6,000 people on the island, struck seven years later. The house held, and the Gresham family opened it to neighbors driven from lower ground, sheltering hundreds through the night. The Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston bought the property in 1923 as the residence of Bishop Christopher Byrne, and it has carried the name Bishop's Palace ever since. The Galveston Historical Foundation now operates it.
