Oak Terrace Estates

The History of Oak Terrace

     The history of Oak Terrace cannot be discussed without mentioning the man who started it.  Sidney Smith, along with his wife if 59 years, Edythe Ann Smith.  I will refer to our developer as Sidney because he likes to be called by his first name.  Most of the land, especially Sections 1-4 came from acreage passed to him and his sister by his father.  More importantly, the land belonged to his grandfather, Sam Houston Smith who purchased 700 acres from a timber company in 1917.  Later the lake would cover 500 of the 700 acres.  Sidney and Edythe still refer to the land as "the farm".  Sidney's grandfather founded and ran the first telephone company.  You can see picture's of the first switchboard in Sidney's office.  The company LTC is still owned and operated by the family.  Sidney, and graduate of UT was a CPA and his accounting office was above the dry goods store, "Smith's Dry Goods", operated by his parents.  In 1968, the dam and lake area were in the planning stages and so was Oak Terrace.  The first deed restrictions and reservations were filed in 1969 for Sections 2 and 3.  In 1971 the lake was filled to a 90 foot depth to be held there for over a year before it could be filled to a normal level.  By this time Oak Terrace had several small lake houses, including on for Sidney and Edythe Ann. They built the A-frame house in section 2 on Oak Crest Drive across the street from the boat dock.  He put in the boat dock that year.  Later the house burned and was rebuilt.  The very first house in Oak Terrace was built by a family named Weingarten, also on Oak Crest Drive.  In 1971, after acquiring more land, Sidney opened Sections 4,5,6,8,9,10 and sections 1,6,7 and 11 in 1977, completing the subdivision.  It took lots of Saturday afternoon BBQ's and bands down at the boat dock to sell lot after lot.  We're very glad that he took a chance with the family farm.  We thank him for giving us the opportunity to live in and enjoy Lake Livingston.  Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Smith.... we love the farm!