The Bishop's Palace, Galveston was originally built in 1887 for railroad entrepreneur Col. Walter Gresham. Clayton was heavily involved in the design of the interior spaces of the mansion. The front parlor fireplace was purchased in 1876 at the Philadelphia World's Fair, where it had won a first prize. The house was one of the first in the region to be fully equipped for gas and electric fixtures. Sold in 1923 to the Diocese of Galveston, it was one of the few structures that sustained little damage from the 1900 hurricane. During the storm, Josephine Gresham and her staff formed a human chain out into the swirling water to reach those struggling. Many found sheltered within "Gresham's Castle"'s behind the twenty-three inch think walls, finding lodging throughout the sturdy mansion's fifty-two rooms spread over 20,000 square feet of the Victorian mansion. Architectural historians list the Bishop's Palace as one of the most significant of Victorian residences in the country.