Arno Schwethelm Building

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of the Arno Schwethelm Building. Now, if you want to understand the Hill Country, you've got to pay attention to its stone. Limestone pulled right out of the earth beneath your boots, shaped by hands that knew what they were doing, and set into walls meant to outlast the man who ordered them built.

That's exactly what you're looking at here. The year was 1916. Arno Schwethelm, a prominent local merchant and by all accounts a leading figure in Hill Country commerce, decided it was time to put up something worthy of his mercantile business.

Not just a shed with a door. A building. Something designed and deliberate.

For that, he turned to L. Harrington of San Antonio to handle the design, and he brought in stonemason Otto Bartel to do the building itself. Now, a stonemason in the German craftsman tradition doesn't just stack rocks.

There's detail in that work. There's intention. And that combination, a twentieth century commercial structure married to the fine detail of German craftsmanship, is exactly what Bartel delivered in native limestone.

Here's the part that tends to catch people: when they built it, they didn't start from nothing. Materials from an earlier structure that had stood on that very site were incorporated right into the new walls. The old became part of the new.

Whatever came before, it didn't disappear. It got folded in, stone by stone, into what Schwethelm was building for the future. That mercantile business, that leading Hill Country establishment, found its home here in 1916.

And the building is still making the case that Harrington designed well, Bartel built true, and Arno Schwethelm knew what he wanted.

What the marker says

Prominent local merchant Arno Schwethelm had this building constructed in 1916 to house his mercantile business, a leading Hill Country establishment. Designed by L. Harrington of San Antonio and built by stonemason Otto Bartel, it combines the function of a twentieth century commercial structure with the detail of German craftsmanship. Incorporated in the native limestone building are materials from an earlier structure at this site. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981