A. W. Sillure House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the A. W. Sillure House in Williamson County.

Now, some houses just get built. Somebody hires somebody, the lumber shows up, and a few months later there's a house. But Alexander W.

Sillure was not that kind of man. When he built his home in 1912, he didn't hand the plans off to someone else. He drew them himself.

And he personally supervised every bit of the construction. You get the feeling he was the type who showed up before the crew did. Alexander and his wife Eva had a house that reflected exactly who he was, a man with a trained eye and strong opinions about how things ought to look.

Sillure was the general manager and vice president of the Belford Lumber Company, so he wasn't just familiar with building materials, he was steeped in them. And Georgetown got the benefit of that, because Sillure drew the plans for many other homes built by the company right there in town. The man shaped a neighborhood with a pencil.

The house itself speaks a particular architectural language, two styles blended together, the American Foursquare and the Prairie School. You can read both in the full-width porch that wraps across the front and in those broad, generous eaves reaching out overhead. It's a house that looks like it means something, because it does.

It is, as the marker puts it, representative of Georgetown's early twentieth-century architectural heritage. Alexander Sillure picked up a pencil, drew what he believed in, and then made sure it got built right. That house is still standing there to prove it.

What the marker says

Built in 1912 for Alexander W. and Eva Sillure, this house is representative of the city's early 20th-century architectural heritage. Sillure, general manager and vice president of the Belford Lumber Company, personally supervised construction of this house and drew the plans for many other homes built by the company in Georgetown. The Sillure House reflects the American Foursquare and Prairie School styles in its full-width porch and broad eaves. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990