The Kirby Mansion now looks like the aftermath of a violent collision — a wreckage of red brick, pale plaster and splintered timber beneath a brilliant blue Houston sky.
The mansion’s entrails lie heaped behind the broad front steps. Honey-brown boards jut from the rubble at broken angles. Fragments of masonry spill onto the brick walkway. The pale balustrades still flank the staircase, which rises toward a house that is no longer there. Around it, verdant shrubs and overhanging branches frame the devastation…