OUTLASTING THE HOUSE OF SATAN DOWN THE STREET 
When you live in the same house at the corner of Welch and Crocker streets for 94 years, you see a lot of Montrose pass by. For example, Nell Stewart tells the Montrose District website, there was the “meticulously restored” Victorian on Welch St. (pictured here) that later became a Church of Satan: “‘How do I know?’ she asks. ‘It said so on a sign in the yard.’ Though raised a proper churchgoer, Stewart nevertheless was intrigued by her new neighbor. ‘He did nude weddings,‘ she says. “And he trained his children well. They went to Wharton Elementary and they would threaten the other kids if they wouldn’t give them their lunch money. They said they would turn them into black cats.’ Along the wraparound front porch, the Satanist installed a collection of outsized nude photos. The Satanist had moved in prior to her mother’s passing, and though Stewart would have liked to take a look at the nudes, when she went out walking with her elderly mother she was always steered in the opposite direction. ‘She refused to walk there,’ Stewart says. ‘I would have been interested. I just had the sense, this is not my world here.’†Though it later turned somewhat dilapidated, the house was recently renovated: “Today, when Stewart looks across the street, the house appears much as it did when she was a little girl almost a hundred years ago.” [Montrose District; Part 1] Photo of 903 Welch St. (before renovation): NuHabitat
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Funny. I almost bought that place in 2010. Was on the market for $285k. Agent was Raul Giorgi
Now, that’s the Montrose I remember!
Cody, I almost bought it too. My wife and I were about to get a mortgage because the listing price was like 275k or something. I just by chance googled the property and all these web pages on haunted Houston came up. My wife is a veterinarian and we found out there were likely animal sacrifices. That was it. We bailed. Glad to see that that it was fixed up and someone loves the way we couldn’t .
I lived off Bomar in the “loose 60s and 70s” and would drive by this house often. I never heard it called the House of Satan but rather the Pagan Church. The only people I ever saw there were young adults like myself (at the time) and in the yard there were fake tombstones indicating that they had buried what I suppose were meant to be the seven excesses. I was always curious about it but not enough that I tried to talk to any of them.
I worked with a lady who frequented the church in the 1970’s. She invited me to visit and I did. Contrary to lore, I found the whole experience a bunch of hype. More of what people wanted it to be, than what it really was. Anyway, I suppose it all makes for good story telling.
I am the current owner, the one who did the renovations. I wish Swamplot would post the after picture here. It isn’t haunted. No chicken ghosts.