DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one behind the wheel. Two professors walk into a school — and if that sounds like the start of a joke, well, the punchline is a house that's still standing. Alexander Gates Thomas, born in 1877, was an English professor and an authority on Texas folklore — now there's a combination that'll keep a dinner table going.
Lillian Johnson, born in 1885, was an art professor. The two of them met as educators at Southwest Texas Normal School, down in San Marcos. Now, they married late in life — the marker doesn't rush us with a date, and neither will I — but when they finally did get married, they went on a honeymoon to the Cotswold region of England.
And somewhere in all that rolling countryside, surrounded by those old stone cottages that look like they grew right out of the earth, something clicked. They came back to Texas with a vision. They were going to build a home after the cottages of the Cotswolds.
And here's the part I love — they built it themselves. No contractor, no crew to speak of. Just two professors and native stone quarried near San Marcos.
The walls came up fourteen inches thick. Fourteen. You could lean a whole argument against those walls and it wouldn't budge.
Tudor revival all the way — swept gable roof, arched lancet openings — old-world craft planted right in the Hill Country. Alexander Gates Thomas passed in 1944. Lillian Johnson Thomas in 1966.
But that house? Still here. Turns out when two professors decide to build something themselves, out of stone they pulled from the ground nearby, with a honeymoon's worth of inspiration behind them — it tends to last.
What the marker says
Alexander Gates Thomas (1877-1944), an English professor and authority on Texas folklore, and Lillian Johnson (1885-1966), an art professor, met as educators at Southwest Texas Normal School. Married late in life, the two were inspired on their honeymoon in the Cotswold region of England to pattern their home after the cottages there. They built this house themselves of native stone quarried near San Marcos. Of special interest are its 14-inch thick rock walls and its Tudor revival features, including the swept gable roof and arched lancet openings. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1997