Isaac Heffron House, Victorian house in East End Historic District, Galveston, US

The Isaac Heffron House is a two-story, four-bay Victorian house at 1509 Postoffice Street, built in 1890 on the footprint of an earlier one-story dwelling. It has turned columns, a two-story tri-partite bay window and a central entrance; its details are more restrained than those of neighbouring East End houses, and a concrete balustrade at the front of the lot shows Heffron's hand as a contractor.

Isaac Heffron bought the lot at 1509 Postoffice Street in 1881; a one-story house already stood there. In 1890 he and his wife Clotilde demolished it and built the present two-story house on the same footprint, possibly reusing parts of the earlier building. The family moved to 511 17th Street in 1901, and Heffron kept this house as a rental before transferring it to his daughter Clotilde Falligant. Thomas J. Holbrook, state senator from 1922 to 1939, bought it in 1913 and sold it in 1940 to pharmacist Edmund Cordray.

Isaac Heffron, born in Cardiff, Wales, worked as a stevedore for Munn, Fry and Company from 1881 before founding the Galveston Sewer Company in 1886; the house he built in 1890 shows the standing a contractor gained in a port city. The concrete balustrade at the front of the lot is his own work, not an architect's.

The house sits in a neighborhood filled with other preserved buildings from the same period, making it easy to explore multiple examples. The area is walkable and allows you to view the exteriors and architectural details at your own pace.

Texas State Senator T.J. Holbrook lived in this house and later played a role in creating the causeway that connected Galveston Island to the mainland in 1930. His work there shaped the city's development for decades to come.