In the Old Sixth Ward, where Houston’s earliest history still clings to the sidewalks, a 130-year-old home with a past of rail workers, ice men and reinvention is now for sale—listing at $1.149 million.
At first glance, the property fits right into the neighborhood’s postcard setting: tree-lined streets, ornate Victorian-era homes and one of Houston’s most intact historic districts just minutes from downtown. But behind the preserved façade is a structure that has repeatedly been reshaped by the city around it.
Records tied to the block trace its origins to the late 1800s, when the Old Sixth Ward was being carved into dense residential lots during Houston’s early expansion west of downtown. In those early decades, ownership changed frequently as the city itself was still taking form.
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By the late 1880s, the home is believed to have been built by John Eggler, a machinist with the Houston & Texas Central Railroad shops. He was part of the working backbone of early Houston—living among railroad workers, tradesmen, and families building lives in a rapidly growing industrial city.
1812 Kane St in Houston’s Old Sixth Ward. In about 1888, John Eggler built a 1-story house at 1812 Kane. Eggler lived on the SW corner of Sabine and Decatur and worked in the H. & T. C. shops as a pattern maker. In 1921 John Harvey Eason expanded the 1-story house into the large 2-story house that you see today. It was used as a 4-plex, where he and his family lived in one of the units until he died in 1956. He drove a delivery truck for an ice company.
Courtesy Harris County Archives
As the neighborhood evolved, so did the house.
One of its most significant transformations came in the 1920s, when John Harvey Eason, an ice delivery driver who later ran his own ice business, expanded the structure into a two-story, multi-unit home. What had begun as a single-family residence was reconfigured into a duplex-style layout, with separate living quarters and rental space.
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That adaptability still defines the property today.
“We love this house,” said owner Kelly Cox, who purchased the home with her husband, Justin Saladino, about three years ago. “When we first saw it online, it had a spiral staircase and a back porch—it just had this very New Orleans feel to it.”
1812 Kane Street in Houston’s Old Sixth Ward.
Cox said the home had been sitting vacant for some time before they bought it, in significant disrepair.
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“We saw the vision,” Cox said. “The neighborhood has gone through a ton of change, and there are pockets that are still evolving. But this house just had something special.”
Renovation work revealed more of that history hiding in plain sight.
Rather than erase the home’s layered past, Cox said they tried to preserve it wherever possible while making it livable again.
“We tried to modernize it, but be really sensitive to the original floor plan,” she said. “We didn’t want to mess it up.”
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The house also retains an unusual feature: three separate front entrances, a remnant of its multi-unit past that the owners chose to keep intact.
From a practical standpoint, Cox said that flexibility is part of what makes the property stand out today.
1812 Kane Street in Houston’s Old Sixth Ward.
“You can see where it was a duplex, and where those lines used to be,” she said. “We opened some walls to give it more of a single-family feel, but you still get those original bones.”
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One of the biggest discoveries came underfoot.
“The floors were almost black when we started,” Cox said. “When we refinished them, we realized they were original redwood floors.”
At roughly 4,500 square feet, the home, listed by Alison Miller of Keller Williams Realty, is notably large for its era—and still rare by today’s standards in the neighborhood. Cox said that size, combined with its layout, opens the door to a range of possible uses, from a residence to a live-work space or small business.
1812 Kane Street, Old Sixth Ward, in Houston.
TK Images
The listing reflects that versatility, suggesting potential for a boutique, gallery, studio, or office space—in addition to its use as a single-family home.
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For Cox, though, the project has been as much about preservation as transformation.
“You open a wall and you never really know what you’re going to find,” she said.