During the 1950s, members of the Valley’s emerging Mexican-American middle class asserted parity with their Anglo-American counterparts by becoming patrons of modern architecture. The Laredo-born cotton broker, Guillermo Peña, commissioned Caudill Rowlett Scott (in which his brother, architect William M. Peña, was a partner) to design a house for the Peña family in Brownsville in 1950. This was the childhood home of Peña’s son, Federico Peña, mayor of Denver and successively secretary of transportation and secretary of energy in the Bill Clinton presidential administration.

Photos and text by Stephen Fox