Van Alstyne House (The Gingerbread House)

The Van Alstyne House was commissioned by Alfred Albert Van Alstyne (1853–1926), a Galveston businessman, and his wife Catherine Waelder Van Alstyne (1858–1940). Architect Nicholas Clayton designed the Queen Anne-style mansion in 1891, the same period in which Clayton was completing work on the Bishop's Palace and other landmark Broadway properties. The house occupies a full lot at 3602 Broadway, spans 6,310 square feet across fourteen primary rooms, and features quarter-sawn oak woodwork, a cantilevered Grand Hall entrance, a ballroom, parquet floors, and the densely carved exterior woodwork — brackets, spindles, turned posts — that gave it the Gingerbread House name.

The Great Storm of September 8, 1900, remains the event most associated with the house in local history. As the Category 4 hurricane drove a fifteen-foot surge across Galveston Island and killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people, approximately fifty neighbors sought shelter in the Van Alstyne House, gathering beneath the main staircase. The mansion and all of its guests survived. The storm killed more people than any other natural disaster in U.S. history; the Van Alstyne House's survival made it a landmark of both architectural and civic memory on Broadway.

Alfred Van Alstyne died inside the house in 1926. Catherine survived him by fourteen years. The property changed hands over subsequent decades and by 2000 had been converted to commercial use as Antebellum Antiques, an antique shop operated by proprietor Scottie Ketner. That tenancy lasted until 2012. Following the shop's closure, the property reverted to use as a private residence and has been undergoing multi-year restoration.