Landscape Information
Captain Ambrose Eddingston, a marine transportation businessman, commissioned the residential development in 1929 to meet housing demands driven by the nascent oil industry in southeast Texas. The Tudor-inspired design of the four apartment buildings is attributed to the project’s construction contractor L.W. Lindsay, who completed similar projects in Houston around this same period. Here however, the 2.5-acre community’s highlight is the garden and sculpture conceived by Dionicio Rodriguez. Rodriguez was a Mexican-born sculptor living in San Antonio during the 1920s, who developed a method to treat concrete and then carve the medium to resemble wood and other natural materials. His work is sited in open lawn expanses and shaded by live oaks throughout the linear site. The entrance to the property features two 98-ft long concrete walls styled by Rodriquez with embedded conch shells from the Cayman Islands (Eddingston’s birthplace). The four apartment buildings, two on each side, face each other symmetrically across a long, narrow median that features a sculpted pond, rocks, and a fountain. At the rear of the property near the Sabine-Neches Canal, is the Garden of Tranquility, complete with a lagoon and grotto that contains a conch-encrusted “sound cave,” a nine-foot tall fountain, and several seats reminiscent of tree stumps. This area also contains a desert-themed garden, featuring a sculpted basket and realistic-looking concrete cacti. Eddingston Court was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
