A 1911 mansion built for a Houston grocery fortune has hit the market for nearly $4 million, putting one of the city's most storied addresses back in play. No. 8 Courtlandt Place, a nearly 5,700-square-foot home near the intersection of Westheimer Road and Bagby Street, was built for Alexander Sessums “Sess” Cleveland and his wife, Virginia, according to the Compass listing.
Sess Cleveland was the son of William Davis Cleveland, the Houston merchant, cotton broker and civic leader who moved to the city in 1858 and went on to lead a wholesale grocery company that became the largest in Texas, according to the Texas State Historical Association. In 1898, the elder Cleveland brought his sons William Davis Cleveland Jr. and Alexander Sessums Cleveland into the firm and renamed it W. D. Cleveland and Sons, which the historical association notes was then the largest wholesale grocery company in the state. The business kept running under the Cleveland name until the Great Depression forced it to close for good in March 1930. As reported by Chron, the house itself was completed in 1911, designed by the firm Sanguinet & Staats, and later redesigned in the 1920s by John F. Staub, the architect known for luxury homes in River Oaks and other affluent Houston neighborhoods.
A Family Home for Six Decades
The Cleveland family lived in the house for 60 years, according to PaperCity, a run that stretched from the home's completion through much of the 20th century. The family retained the property in 1971, and the house became a recorded Texas historic landmark in 1999, in addition to its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. William Davis Cleveland married Justina Latham in 1869 and the couple had seven children; he was also known for serving without pay on Houston's city council and for often paying for city improvements out of his own pocket, per the historical association's account.
Inside, the home still carries the hallmarks of its early-20th-century construction, with original hardwood and parquet flooring, plaster walls, and period windows and millwork, according to the listing cited by Chron. The listing also describes a paneled living room with black marble detailing, a formal dining room anchored by a Texas limestone hearth, and a library. A renovated kitchen and butler's pantry feature quartzite countertops, custom cabinetry, and Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances, while the grounds include a basement, a four-car garage with a garage apartment, an original service staircase, custom closets, a screened-in porch, and an outdoor entertainment area with a fireplace. The property last sold in 2015, when it was listed for $2.35 million.
Inside the Gated Enclave Near Montrose
Courtlandt Place itself is a gated, one-block-long street near the intersection of Westheimer Road and Bagby Street, and the street has held National Register of Historic Places status since 1980, per PaperCity. The outlet reports the enclave was planned in 1906, with construction on its first homes beginning in 1909, and that notable architects commissioned to build homes there included Birdsall Briscoe, Alfred C. Finn, Warren & Wetmore, and John Staub. Accounts of the street's size differ: PaperCity describes Courtlandt Place as home to 21 houses, 15 of which carry National Register plaques, while a separate Chron report describes it as an 18-home private enclave dating to 1906 and one of Houston's earliest gated luxury neighborhoods.
The street has seen recent market activity beyond the Cleveland house. The home at 15 Courtlandt Place sold on July 20, 2026, ranking as Houston's ninth-most expensive home sale that month, according to the Houston Association of Realtors, as reported by Chron. That 6,516-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom property, built in 1925, had been listed for $4.6 million earlier in the year, though its final sale price was not disclosed.
The listing of No. 8 Courtlandt Place arrives as Houston's broader housing market has cooled somewhat; the Houston Association of Realtors' September 2026 housing update reported 7,030 single-family homes sold that month, down 5.7% from a year earlier. Even against that backdrop, Courtlandt Place has continued to draw attention for the density of early-20th-century architecture packed onto a single gated block just outside Montrose, with the Cleveland family's six-decade tenure at No. 8 standing as one of the street's longest-running chapters.
