Julie and Bruce Webb love stuff and lots of it. More than thirty years ago, the Waxahachie couple began selling antiques and treasures found at flea markets and on their travels, eventually expanding and specializing in folk and outsider art. Since 1994, the Webb Gallery has occupied the ground floor of a 1902 building in the historic downtown area (about thirty miles south of Dallas). The Webbs live on the upper floor, which for fifty years housed a phone company. “You can still see where the switchboards were in the floor,” Julie notes. They’ve filled much of their four-thousand-square-foot home with a menagerie of paintings, masks, resin rock clocks, carnival banners, and much more. The result is a space that’s an extension of the gallery, where their goal, Julie says, is “to share the backroads of life.”
The playful sitting area in Bruce and Julie's master bedroom. The couple have lived upstairs from their gallery since 1995.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
Photographs adorn a hallway dresser. The Webbs are consistently adding to their interiors and like to switch things around often.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
Bruce uses this space for his office. The building was erected in 1902 for an attorney, who kept an office upstairs while his brother ran a dry-goods store on the ground floor, where the Webb Gallery is today. In 1910 the phone company took over the upstairs space, where it operated until the sixties.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
The dining room shows off a few of the Webbs' collections, including a huge carnival banner and brightly colored mid-century resin rock clocks (sometimes called "vomit clocks").
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
One of many desks and surfaces in Bruce's office.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
The hallway connecting the kitchen, Bruce's office, and guest bedroom is full of unique vignettes like this one—a wall of faces fashioned from coconuts. Says Julie: "Our house is all about our personal interests. Our hobbies are collecting and traveling around looking for the rare true spirit."
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
One of their favorite spaces is the kitchen and living area. "The light is wonderful and ceilings tall, and the openness gives us the ability to look down the large space and see so much artwork," Julie says.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
An upstairs hallway, complete with some "house rules" hanging from the door.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
A corner of Bruce's office. The Webbs love looking for folk art and outsider art. Right now the gallery is featuring the work of Max Kuhn through April 26. "His artwork is timeless paintings and collages and dioramas, which serve as his journals and window into his world," says Julie.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
The guest bedroom.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
This article originally appeared in the March 2020 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “Objets d’Hearth.” Subscribe today.
