The two-story wood-framed Sparks House is sheathed in clapboard painted white, with boxy massing and a flaring hipped roof. A full hipped portico is supported by brick piers. A cantilevered stairwell bay projects from the west wall. The roof has soffited eaves, a central hipped dormer and spikey finials. The interior has extensive oak paneling and beamed ceilings. Begun in the fall of 1911, this was the second house constructed on Elizabeth Blvd. and the only one to utilize wood solely as exterior sheathing. The design has been attributed to L. B. Weinman; the contractor was E. F. Moore. The owner was John N. Sparks, a civic leader who was president of the Stockyards National Bank after 1913, a city councilman from 1927 to 1929, and president of the First National Bank after 1936. Sparks worked closely with Amon C. Carter in the planning of the Frontier Fiesta, which brought Billy Rose from Broadway to the Casa Mañana for the Texas Centennial. He was a close friend of John C. Ryan, which may explain why his house was exempted from the Ryan Place deed restrictions prescribing masonry or stucco exteriors. The house remained in the Sparks family through the early 1960s. The Sparks House is a contributing resource in the Elizabeth Boulevard Historic District (local and national).
