DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it to you straight in my own way. Carl Wilhelm August Groos — now there's a name that carries some weight, and the house he left behind carries even more. Carl W.
Groos was born in 1830, came over from Germany to Texas in 1848, and he was not the kind of man who arrived quietly. He became one of the founders of the Groos National Bank, which tells you something right there about how he landed on his feet in a new country. He married a woman named Hulda — Hulda Moureau — and together they put down roots deep enough to hold for generations.
By 1880, those roots needed a proper home. So they brought in Alfred Giles to design it, and handed the building work to a man named John H. Campmann.
What those two men produced was a limestone structure — solid, substantial, the kind of thing built to outlast the people who commission it. And it did outlast them. Look closely at that porch detailing and you'll see something unexpected: Gothic Revival influence woven into what is otherwise a Victorian residence.
That's the kind of architectural flourish that makes you stop and look twice on a warm San Antonio afternoon. Carl Groos passed in 1893, but his descendants kept that limestone house alive and occupied all the way until 1948 — nearly a full century of one family inside those walls. Then in 1957, the San Antonio Area Council of Girl Scouts, Incorporated, acquired it.
A founder's family home, handed forward to the next generation of Texans learning to stand on their own two feet. Some houses just know how to keep serving.
What the marker says
One of the founders of the Groos National Bank, Carl W. Goos (1830-1893) came to Texas from Germany in 1848. The Groos home designed by Alfred Giles, was built in 1880 by John H. Campmann. Porch detailing on the Victorian residence reveals Gothic Revival influence. Occupied until 1948 by descendants of Groos and his wife Hulda (Moureau), the limestone structure was acquired in 1957 by the San Antonio area council of Girl Scouts, Inc. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark --1977.