El Rancho
Owner William Michael Donnelly embellished “El Rancho” with distinctly Mexican features, inside and out. The painting over the fireplace depicts the home.
Dear Vance: What became of that Spanish-style house that once stood outside the city limits on Summer, just down the road from the Highway Patrol station? — B.F., Memphis.
Dear B.F.: I’m not sure I can fully explain the subtle but extremely important differences between Spanish-style buildings and Mexican ones, but although many people remember this residence as the “Spanish House,” it was actually constructed to reflect the architecture and culture of Mexico, a country that captured the heart of the man who built the place he called El Rancho.
Born here in the early 1900s, William Michael Donnelly made a living as a sheet metal worker, a job that allowed him to travel, and he and his wife, Inez, journeyed to Mexico many times during their long marriage of more than 60 years. In an August 1997 Commercial Appeal article, reporter Kriste Goad wrote, “As a young man, Donnelly hopped freight cars out West. He started taking Inez along on his wanderings, and when the children came along, there were family trips every summer. Despite his love of the West, he chose to bring a piece of the desert home with him, rather than plant roots so far from home.”
In 1955, Donnelly began construction of his distinctive home at 6496 Highway 70, which Goad noted, quite correctly, “became somewhat of a landmark in northeastern Shelby County.” The outside was gleaming white stucco, with a red tile roof, pink shutters, and other features common to homes in Mexico. In the front yard, standing in a patch of yucca plants, was a full-size concrete burro, tended by a sombrero-wearing gentleman, also of concrete, of course, and both painted in bright colors. Donnelly didn’t make these, as you might expect; according to his daughter, Michael Ann Bogle, he purchased them somewhere in Missouri.
Bogle told The Commercial Appeal that as teenagers she and her brother, Pat, helped their parents build the house: “She learned how to lay concrete block and bricks at the house. She watched her father slowly piece the place together.”
1 of 3
2 of 3
3 of 3
Perhaps the most eye-catching feature, at least to drivers along Summer, was the pair of giant cacti that stood on each side of the long driveway. Donnelly crafted those himself, by molding concrete around utility poles, with the cactus arms made from air-conditioning ducts.
Inside, the house was cozy, with low ceilings, dark-paneled walls, an arched brick fireplace decorated with sculptures of matadors fighting a bull, chandeliers made from old wagon wheels, and on the living room wall, a large mural of an old cathedral framed in rough timbers.
El Rancho was much more than just a building. Bogle told the CA reporter that the home became a kind of zoo, the yard filled with peacocks, goats, dogs, a mule named Festus, and — a living embodiment of the concrete one — a Sicilian donkey named Jocko.
Inez passed away in 1995. After that, says her daughter, Donnelly “just sort of lost interest in everything.” He died in his sleep just two years later, at the age of 86.
Bogle decided to sell the home. “Daddy told me not to keep it,” she told The Commercial Appeal. “I have mixed feelings about it. But I’ve made up my mind that’s what has to be done. My daughter is having a hard time of it, because all her memories are tied up in this house.”
Some of the various critters, such as the donkey, were given to neighbors. The 2.5-acre property was zoned commercial, not a good sign for anybody who hoped the home would survive. And sure enough, when it sold a few months later, developers bulldozed the house, scraped the land clean, and constructed a commercial building that has seen quite a few owners over the past 20 years.
I was fortunate enough to tour the unusual home just before it sold, and I snapped the pictures you see here. The realtor told me, “I’ve had so many people calling and wanting to see the place, but when I tell them it’s zoned commercial, they’re disappointed.” I’m glad that the photos aren’t the only things keeping the memory of this place alive; quite a few readers seem to remember it.
“If the bulldozers come to raze Donnelly’s legacy, his legend will remain,” wrote Kriste Goad in the CA. “Bogle is certain of that, and she’s certain that her father had no regrets about his life. ‘He died with a smile on his face,’ she said. ‘It was a good way to live your life.’”
Remembering the Alamo
An old postcard encouraged diners to visit the Alamo on Summer Avenue.
Dear Vance: What happened to a place called the Alamo Grill, next door to Leahy’s Tourist Court on Summer? — T.L., Memphis.
Dear T.L.: It’s interesting that so many places along Summer adopted a Western theme, for no apparent reason. Without thinking too hard about it (something I try to avoid at all costs), I can remember the Ohman Ranch House, the Silver Horseshoe Motel, the Palomino Motel, and now the Alamo Grill.
The little grill, as you have already mentioned, opened in 1952 just across Cypress Creek from Leahy’s Tourist Court. As far as I can determine, the first owner was Manuel Kolvias, but I haven’t been able to learn what he did before opening this little establishment, in a small commercial building that also housed Bert Dargie’s Golf Shop and the Keathley Blind Company.
It would have been a good location for a diner, so close to a rather large tourist court and trailer complex, though it had competition from the better-known Monte’s Drive-In across the street. As you can see from the old postcard (above), the Alamo offered pit barbecue, chicken, steaks, seafood, chops, and a 50-cent plate lunch. They must have stayed busy; signs proclaim: “We never close — Open 24 hrs.”
Even so, the Alamo Grill didn’t stay in business very long, at least not under that name. Within five years, it became The Tavern, owned by Nona Irving, and within another five years, it was home to Accurate Lithographing Company. In the 1960s, a shop called Kampus Kasuals moved in, in the 1970s it was home to Mary’s Lounge (though the owner’s name, inexplicably, wasn’t Mary, but Betty Johnson), and in the 1980s the Apostolic Publishing House was located here.
The building, still standing with only minor changes to the brickwork, is empty today. But I’m glad somebody still remembers the Alamo.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine,
460 Tennessee Street #200, Memphis, TN 38103
