If you want to know if Drake is at his ranch in Chappell Hill, just drive by. If he’s out on tour, there will be a security guard parked behind the gates in the driveway. If the Canadian rapper is in attendance at his recently-purchased 313-acre estate, the guard won’t be parked there.
We learned this recently while having a nightcap and talking to Cherie Moore, the owner of Grapevine on Main, a restaurant and wine bar five miles down the road from Drake’s place. Moore even has a bottle of Mod Sélection — the Champagne brand in which Drake is an investor — behind the bar in case he ever drops by.
Our evening at Grapevine was part of a late-summer trip to Brenham, about a two-hour drive from Waco. Chappell Hill is just a few miles outside of Brenham.
We hadn’t been to Brenham since our kids were much younger. We were headed elsewhere on that trip and just made a quick trip at the Blue Bell Creameries for a tour and samples of ice cream. This time around, it was a grownups-only trip, and we made a long weekend out of it.
Brenham, with a population of a little more than 17,000, is the seat of Washington County, and a downtown square surrounds the county courthouse. Washington County is ripe with history. On March 2, 1836, for example, 59 men gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos and wrote a declaration of independence and a constitution, thus declaring Texas a “free, sovereign and independent republic.”
A few miles from there is Independence, the original home of Baylor University. Old Baylor at Independence contains vestiges of the male and female campuses of early Baylor. The Mayborn Museum oversees the grounds and remnants today.
Nearby is the Independence Baptist Church, which was founded in 1839. It’s the oldest continuously active Baptist church in the State of Texas. It’s where Sam Houston was baptized and also carved his initials into the family’s favorite pew. Houston was president of the Republic of Texas from 1836 until 1838, and then governor of the state of Texas for two years beginning in 1859. Adjacent to the church is the Texas Baptist Historical Museum.
If you need a snack or cold beverage while you’re in the area, the Independence General Store is just around the corner. Built in 1939, the family-run store’s façade resembles the Alamo, and a grill and small dining room were added a few years back.
In addition to the courthouse, the Brenham downtown area is home to the Brenham Fire Museum, which celebrates the town’s status as being the first city in Texas to provide public services.
On display at the museum is the Silsby Fire Engine which, at one time, used Brenham’s cisterns to draw water to fight fires. Toubin Park is a four-minute walk from the museum, and there visitors will find some restored cisterns and a history of early Washington County. More history of the area can be found at the nearby Brenham Heritage Museum as well.
Just across from the cisterns is a mural of the great blues musician Blind Willie Johnson. His largely-instrumental composition “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” was the second-to-last piece of music recorded on a gold-plated copper record that NASA placed aboard the space shuttles Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 when they were launched in 1977. Many building walls in downtown are filled with other beautiful murals as well.
History of another sort — and for sale — can be found at Top Floor Cars, a vintage auto dealership just off the square. At the time of our visit, the outdoor showroom featured a beautiful red 1972 Chevrolet pickup; a couple of Chevy Bel Airs; and a Jeep Willys from the 1950s.
There are plenty of places to shop, eat, drink and be entertained in and around downtown. We had a fine breakfast at The Tilted Windmill, which describes itself as an “eclectic café.” The Eggs Quixote is the restaurant’s version of eggs Benedict, with an egg and smoked ham served atop Asiago cheese toast and topped with house-made hollandaise. The Blue Bayou was French toast stuffed with spiced blueberry coulis and brie. The place also has a selection of more than 100 flavors of tea, many with whimsical names such as Forbidden Temple, …And Toto Too, Castaway, Eskimo Kisses and Faulty Towers. Had the weather been cooler, we would have considered dining in the restaurant’s courtyard, which had the feel of New Orleans.
For one of our dinners in Brenham, we went to the no-frills L.A. Chicken Shack, which was run by just some of the nicest folks. One order of fried chicken and one larger order of excellent fried fish cost us just over $16.
The timing of our trip to Brenham was fortuitous, as we were in town for the final Hot Nights, Cool Tunes concert event of the summer. The ‘80s cover band The Spicolis were making their fourth appearance at the series.
Shopping opportunities abound in Brenham. The Book Nook features a mix of plenty of new and some used books, and it was doing a brisk business during our afternoon visit. The customer in front of us spent a little more than $500 on many books and gift items.
We enjoyed the art available at Hoity Toity Peacock, on Highway 105. Our tastes lean more toward eclectic art, and we found plenty to lust after here. We were especially attracted to the works by Bob Wink, an artist from Bellville who specializes in mixed media pieces. We came home with a piece we have dubbed Fan Girl, a big, round sort of squished metal fan cage with red metal strips of hair formed around a face. We also learned that Wink has designed some entries in Houston’s annual Art Car Parade, which takes place each spring.
At Higgins Branch – South, an enormous thrift shop located in a former department store within a strip mall, we found a dining chair for our daughter’s first college apartment and a high-dollar men’s button down shirt, and spent less than $20.
On the other end of the used-items spectrum, Leftovers Antiques features more than 17,000 square feet of beautiful furniture and other furnishings. Owners Michael Breddin and Ed Fulkerson travel to Europe multiple times a year to ship back to their stores in Brenham, Houston and New York City.
Though Brenham is close enough for a day trip, we spent a couple of nights at The Cabin on Happy Hollow, a lovely 550-square-foot cabin that is located on a property with a couple of other dwellings but set far enough away from them to ensure privacy. We took a walk around the property and followed a path down toward a small lake, and witnessed a beautiful sunset over the neighboring pasture.
