Arcola sugar house / by John Shapley, Houston Chronicle
Preservation Houston’s Board of Directors has voted to fund a project to document the Arcola plantation sugar house, or purgery, in Fort Bend County. Site owner Johnson Development is considering the proposal. Pending the developer's approval, a team from Texas A&M University’s Center for Heritage Conservation will conduct the work in February.
A purgery is a specialized antebellum building type used in sugar refining. The structure may be last of its kind in the United States and is the only surviving element of the former Arcola plantation. The property has received significant coverage in the Houston Chronicle as residential development in the Sienna subdivision encroaches on the site.
Texas A&M’s proposal includes documenting the building’s interior and exterior using terrestrial laser scanning, which creates a detailed digital record of existing conditions, and aerial photogrammetry, which compiles aerial photos into detailed topographic maps. The work will be done in keeping with the standards of the Historic American Buildings Survey, a cooperative effort of the National Park Service and the Library of Congress that documents achievements in architecture in the United States and its territories. The Arcola plantation data will serve as the basis for future preservation efforts and will eventually be archived in local and national collections.
Preservation Houston is in contact with the Fort Bend Archeological Society, which conducted earlier work at the site, Fort Bend History Association, and Fort Bend County Historical Commission. PH has requested a matching grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to supplement the project.
Preservation Houston will keep its members updated on the progress of this significant work.