History of The Neil P. Anderson Building:
From Commerce to Luxury Condominiums

The Neil P. Anderson Building carries architectural significance and it has been important to the commerce of the city for eighty three years. The building, the land it occupies, and the men involved represent a vertebra in the backbone of Fort Worth’s past.

The original owners of the land were founding fathers willing to cast their lot with a small colony of people huddled together at the forks of the Trinity River. Those who built the building were men with roots in the frontier town’s past and faith in her future.

Mitchell Baugh was the first man to claim the land on which the Neil P. Anderson Building is located. The original Land Grant Certificate was issued to him on May 7, 1850 and states that Baugh was entitled to 320 acres of land as he immigrated to Texas and entered the Peters Colony. He signed the certificate with his mark—an “X”. Before the General Land Office issued the patent or final title for the land, Baugh sold it, on December 10, 1852 to Middleton T. Johnson.

Colonel M. T. Johnson is well known to all buffs of Fort Worth history. A lettered and gracious man, he was, at least in part, responsible for locating the site of Fort Worth.

The acreage he owned in Fort Worth very likely influenced his feelings for the city. It is possible he held the land for twenty years. He might have sold the Baugh land. His children might have inherited it. Nothing is certain concerning the plat. A courthouse fire in 1876 destroyed most county records and transactions regarding the parcel of land went up in smoke.

Clearly, by 1874, John S. Hirshfield held the property, and according to a small item in the Fort Worth Democrat, dated November 21, 1874 he had “laid off his land south of town into a beautiful plot and began opening streets through it.” Either Hirshfield failed to record the plat or it was destroyed in the courthouse fire, for the plat of Hirshfield’s Addition was not recorded until 1885.

In September, 1889 his children petitioned the court to “divide the lands held in common among the heirs of John S. Hirshfield decided as between them and their mother Josephine H. Ryan.” The court reached a settlement in December of that year and the property was divided. The particular parcel on which the Neil P. Anderson Building site fell to Mrs. Carrie Augusta French and was appraised at $3,500. In September, 1893, J. V. French sold it to Sam Levy.

Levy had been in Fort Worth only three months when he purchased the land. As a partner and later president in the old firm of Casey-Swasey Cigar Company, Levy became one of the leading citizens of Fort Worth. Born in Germany in 1851, he came to the United States in 1872 and by 1874 was doing business in Dallas as a grocer. In later years, Levy was recognized as a pioneer businessman in Northeast Texas. He moved to Decatur and was involved in the wholesale grocery business before he moved to Fort Worth in June of 1893.

The land became Levy’s homestead, and it was not until 1919 that he sold it to Bernie Anderson and Morris Berney. A story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that the purchase was for a cash consideration of $50,000.

Anderson and Berney, together with their wives, owned the land and erected the building, which was completed in 1921. In 1922, they sold it to their company, the Anderson Berney Building Company.

Finished in 1921, the building was designed by Fort Worth’s leading architects, Sanguinett and Statts, to be the headquarters of the Neil P. Anderson Cotton Company. The men who commissioned the work were officers in the company and brothers-in-law, Bernie Anderson and Morris Berney. One built his life around cotton and the other built his life around Fort Worth.

When Bernie Anderson died at 82 years of age on March 10, 1961, he was still a respected potentate of the cotton kingdom—though admittedly that empire had shrunk over the preceding thirty years. The week following his death he was to have been honored by the Texas Cotton Association at that organization’s fiftieth anniversary in Houston.

His brother-in-law and business partner, Morris Berney, was born August 18, 1873 in Huntsville, Alabama and educated in private schools there. He moved to Texas when he was 17 or 18 years old and for a time was associated with the Broadstreet Mercantile Agency. Then, in 1895, he joined the Neil P. Anderson Cotton Company and that same year married Flora, the boss’s daughter. An affable man, Berney was a Mason, a Shriner, and an Elk. He was a member of the Fort Worth Club and very active at River Crest Country Club.

The 1922 City Directory indicates that the builders made a good selection for the building site, for by that year the building’s occupancy rate was nearing the 100% mark. It was becoming a stronghold of commerce. Cotton and grain companies comprised a large percentage of leases with oil related businesses making up almost all the difference. Twenty-two cotton and grain companies headquartered in the Neil P. Anderson Building. In addition, the U. S. Department of Agriculture was located there, Western Union and the Postal Telegraph Cable Company had branch offices in the building. It was also the location of the International News Service.

Kay Drug was another tenant and was in the building as early as 1922. The firm remained in the building until tenants were forced to move in 1977. The Elks Club was also an original tenant with facilities on the ground floor on the Lamar Street side.

Otto Oberle was the original basement tenant, but by 1924 he had moved and a barbershop was located there. Though Acme Brick was not an original tenant of the building, that company did maintain offices there for a number of years. Acme supplied the brick for the construction.

The Neil P. Anderson Building is a unique and pleasing sample of Fort Worth architecture. It does not easily fit into any given period or style, rather it bears the distinct thumbprint of Sanguinett and Statts. It sits at the gateway of the city’s central business district, its gently curving façade carefully following the curve of Seventh Street. The window glass is also curved to accommodate the special frames. It is the only office building in the city with this architectural treatment.

Originally, the exterior fascia was of brick accented in a crisp terra cotta trim. The lobby entrance was enhanced by ornate terra cotta pilasters, the doors most probably were bronze frames, which held plate glass—a new architectural device. The transom above the main doors was of leaded, beveled glass. Even the service lobby had elaborate wooden doors set into a classical entrance. The cost of restoring this service entrance is very prohibitive and the opening will probably be permanently sealed. The storefronts were a detailed combination of bronze window supports with plate glass. Painted wooden panels fit beneath the glass. Much of the sidewalk along Seventh Street was composed of glass tiles, which emitted light to the basement area below the walk. A simple functional stairwell led from the street level to the basement. The building was capped by several large terra cotta urns, all of which are in perfect condition. The interior was plush by the standards of the day. Most tenant floors boasted marble wainscoting topped by wood and glass partitions and accented by red tile floors.

The eleventh floor, however, is not typical. It was designed for showing cotton samples, and here for many years was the heart of the Neil P. Anderson Building. The sample rooms could be reached only by means of a private staircase located in the cotton company’s offices on the tenth floor or by service elevator. Cotton was separated and graded according to color and texture. Natural light, North light, was a must for proper inspection. Seven huge skylights dominate the eleventh floor. Each rises above the roof, held up by a metal sleeve and each faces true North. The original plans indicate the skylights were intended to face planned North, but before construction the position was corrected. A wonderful confusion of structural beams and spaces resulted from the engineering necessary to support the weight of the skylights. The eleventh floor is a unique and interesting area that very likely has not been in use since the Neil P. Anderson Cotton Company suspended operations in the late 1930’s.

It is possible that the building underwent a minor modernization program earlier than 1959, but in that year the aluminum facia that has only recently been stripped away was installed. This installation resulted in much damage to original terra cotta work and of course replacement and mending of this material presents a problem. In all likelihood, the trim was simply ordered from a catalogue. Though an actual contract has not been let, verbal agreement for the repair and replacement of this material has been reached.

In 1959, all storefronts were totally redesigned, the lobby entrance was changed and the building was air-conditioned. Ellis Brown was the contractor and Herman Cox, the architect. R. G. Hughes purchased the building in 1963, two years after Bernie Anderson died. In 1965, Cox and Brown teamed again to remodel the second floor of the building where Hughes Investment Company, the new owners of the property headquartered. Elevators were also converted to an automatic system. Of course there was constant changes in tenant spaces over the years to meet the demands of special businesses, but the addition of air conditioning, the installation of automatic elevators and the addition of the aluminum skin as high as the second floor were the major changes in the structure. No one can say for sure when the sidewalk staircase disappeared.

Hughes held the building only four years before selling it to Shepherd Garden Apartment, Inc. The following year, 1968, Irvin Krauss bought a half interest in the property. Two years later he sold it back to Shepherd Garden. In 1972, Irvin Krauss and Gloria Waldman bought the building and held it for three years. Then Republic National Life Insurance Company of Dallas acquired the building on a Trustees Deed.

In July, 1977 a group of private investors calling themselves 411 Co. Ltd. Bought the building narrowly blocking the issuance of a demolition permit at City Hall. General partners in 411 Co. were Ogden Kelly Shannon, III and Charles W. Rogers. Limited partners were W. A. Hudson, II and Bass Brothers Building Company. They restored the exterior while updating the interior and modernizing it to meet the demands of the business community.

In late 2000, the building was purchased by a Dallas investment group, which is a unit of Trammell Crow Company. In June of 2004, the building was purchased by Fort Worth-based Amicus Interests, LLC for restoration and conversion to luxury condominium homes.