Postcards: A Collecting Obsession

See related: Family fun, reinvented, Cool off in Texas' show caves

At Villa Finale, preservationist Walter Mathis indulged

his love of history

By Gene Fowler

As a collector of such Texas ephemera as 1930s singing-cowboy songbooks, Hillbilly Flour sacks manufactured by former Texas Governor W. Lee “Pappy” O’ Daniel, and vintage “rattlesnake oil” medicine bottles, I understand how the collecting bug can burrow into a person’s psyche and set up house. So when I read about the 12,000-piece collection of antiques and objets d’art on view at San Antonio’s Villa Finale, the recently restored, 1876 Italianate mansion of the late collector Walter Nold Mathis, I reserved a spot on an upcoming tour.

Mathis, a successful stockbroker and investment banker, named his limestone home in the city’s historic King William neighborhood Villa Finale because he intended it to be his last dwelling on this side of the vale. He remained true to his pledge. Widely recognized as the catalyst for the neighborhood’s revitalization, Mathis purchased Villa Finale in 1967, spent two years restoring it, then went on to preserve 14 other King William homes destined for other owners. Before his death in 2005, he donated Villa Finale and his eclectic collection to the National Trust for Historic  Preservation. In October 2010, Villa Finale—the first National Trust Historic Site in Texas—opened to the public after a $1 million restoration.

Tour groups are limited to six people to create an intimate experience. After a brief orientation at the Villa Finale Visitor Center, which offers a preview of the home’s collections and explains some of the neighborhood’s history, we walk three scenic blocks to the home proper to begin the tour.

We proceed through the wrought-iron gates and past the twin lion sculptures flanking the walkway, and then we slip nylon booties over our shoes before entering the 6,500-square-foot home. Sylvia Hohenshelt, Villa Finale’s public programs manager, explains that everything in the home was photographed and documented before restoration so that it could be replaced exactly as Mathis had arranged it.

Objects came from around the world; Mathis made frequent buying trips to New Orleans and Mexico, but he kept his eyes open for items of interest wherever he traveled. In the long entry hall, I pause to study an unknown artist’s rendition of Lazarus and the Rich Man, which illustrates a parable from the Gospel of Luke. Next, we pass into two large parlors devoted to French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. “Mr. Mathis admired Napoleon Bonaparte’s military campaigns,” Hohenshelt tell us. “He acquired his first piece at age 11 and eventually built one of the largest collections of Napoleon memorabilia in the country.” Silhouettes, bas-reliefs, and portraits of Napoleon and his wife Josephine are accented by swords, helmets, and other relics, including Mathis’ favorite item—a bronze cast of the emperor’s 1821 death mask, which rests on velvet in a wooden box.

An 1840s Texas biscuit-making table, whose wooden top could be removed for cleaning, anchors the kitchen, and the adjacent dining room appears ready to welcome guests for an elaborate holiday meal. Filled with fancy glass, brass, silver, and gold dishes, vessels, and plates, the dining room also features an 1869 silver gilt-and-crystal table service made in France to commemorate that year’s opening of the Suez Canal. Mathis found the dining-room mirror, etched with the smoky patina of age, in a burned-out French chateau while serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. According to lore, he paid the town’s mayor to hold it for him, then forgot about it when the war ended. Two years later, after Mathis had returned to Texas, the mirror (and two others in the Napoleon Parlors) arrived from France.

We marvel at the extent of the collection: Some 2,000 books on art and civilization crowd the bookshelves in the Villa Finale library, illuminated by the soft glow of a lamp fashioned from a santo of Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things. Roman, Greek, and Spanish Colonial religious icons adorn the library walls, and its tables hold fancy snuff boxes and vintage matchbooks.

In the rear of the hallway stands a rare 1912 Violano Virtuoso, a combination player piano/double-violin that for many years issued its thundering decibels in the Alamo City’s legendary Buckhorn Saloon.

Upstairs, where each room is painted a different color, we find examples of Peruvian religious paintings from the Cuzco School, along with Mexican retablos, antique crosses, a Holy Water decanter, and Centennial glass from the 1876 fair in Philadelphia, as well as Mathis’ collection of shaving mugs, stickpins, and other personal items. Antique timepieces tick in a room painted Villa Finale blue, a patented shade described by Villa Finale curator Meg Nowack as “a powdery periwinkle blue.” The yellow room, which served as a sitting and entertainment area in Mathis’ lifetime, displays Bohemian glass and Wedgwood pottery, as well as a Staffordshire piece depicting Ben Franklin but identified as George Washington—indicating to curators that it may have been crafted by child labor.

In the green room, a guest bedroom in Mathis’ day, I was intrigued by family photographs and Mathis’ nine-generation-long legacy in San Antonio. For example, we learn that one Mathis ancestor, Juan Curbelo, was among the Canary Islanders who settled San Antonio in 1731. Curbelo’s great-granddaughter married John W. Smith, the last messenger to leave the Alamo before it fell. Another ancestor, Vicente Amador, was the man tasked with distributing plots of land that had been farmlands for the Mission San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo) after the missions were secularized in 1793. That same land later became the King William District. Mathis’ great-grandfather William G. Tobin, mak-er of W.G. Tobin’s Chili Con Carne, was an early promoter of Tex-Mex foods.

Works in the collection by iconic Texas artists like Theodore Gentilz and Julian and Robert Onderdonk exemplify those deep Texas roots, as do Republic of Texas currency, pre-1850 maps, Mexican-American War paintings, and other Texana pieces. Villa Finale displays San Antonio artist Mary Bonner’s three-part frieze Les Cowboys, which drew critical raves in the avant-garde 1928 Salon d’Automne exhibition in Paris.

Of course, Mathis’ home itself is something of a museum piece. Built in 1876 by hardware merchant Russell Norton, the house acquired its second story after 1882, when it passed into the hands of cattle king Edwin Polk. A third-story tower was added sometime before 1904. During WWI and WWII, the home served as a residence for Army wives, and during Prohibition, bootleg booze was cooked in the basement by Minnie Keilman, whose late husband had published a 1911 guide to San Antonio’s red-light district.

Mathis’ niece, Jessie Kardys, who held her wedding in the Villa Finale gardens, says her uncle “had a knack for finding treasures amongst junk.” Encouraged by San Antonio architect and preservationist O’Neil Ford to purchase and restore what Ford called “the finest house in Texas,” Mathis found a way to keep his collection intact—and indeed treasured by those who tour his final home.

See the full article in the August 2011 issue.

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