Coffield House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, the way only Duane can. Now, every now and then Texas throws you a curveball so strange and so beautiful that you just have to pull the truck over and take it in. This is one of those stories.

It starts, as many good Texas stories do, with a man of means, a stretch of highway, and an idea that was either brilliant or absolutely unhinged — possibly both. The year is somewhere in the 1930s. The man is H.H.

Coffield, a businessman out of Rockdale. And his big idea? He was going to clad a house in petrified wood.

That's right — trees that had turned to stone over millions of years, and this man said, you know what, I'm building a rental property out of that. Now before you think H.H. was just out there alone on the frontier of strange, you should know this was actually a trend. Going back to the late 1920s, petrified wood construction had been catching on all across Texas and the American Southwest.

Some of the credit goes to the National Park Service, whose buildings out West leaned into natural materials and a style that came to be known as NPS Rustic. When folks started wrapping their homes in the stuff, somebody with a poet's soul started calling them stone tree houses. Just sit with that a moment.

Stone. Tree. Houses.

H.H. Coffield's stone tree house sat facing State Highway 43, which later became U.S. Highway 79, and it was no modest little curiosity.

The main house came with a cross-gable floor plan, petrified wood running up the walls and along modified buttresses, brick trim framing the entry and the windows — both rectangular ones and circular ones — and decorative bargeboard tracing the lines of the projecting gables. Out on the grounds there was a decorative well, a detached two-car garage, and a low stone fence running along the road. Whoever dreamed all that up had a real eye for the dramatic.

The architect, though? Unknown. That name is lost to us, which feels like a tragedy of its own, because this person clearly had something to say.

The house did its job as a rental property for decades, quietly aging into the landscape of Milam County, until 1995, when the Rockdale Chamber of Commerce acquired it for use as their offices. Now the Chamber itself was no newcomer — founded in 1952, it carried on the work of an earlier organization called the Young Men's Business League, and it had been at the business of growing Rockdale ever since, promoting economic development, historical tourism, and preservation, working alongside the businesses that gave the town its character. And here's where the story rounds back on itself in the most satisfying way: a building that was itself an act of preservation — of ancient wood turned to stone — became home to the very organization dedicated to preserving what makes Rockdale worth knowing.

The Texas Historical Commission saw fit to record it as a historic landmark in 2018, the same year this marker went up. And if you think the Coffield House is a lone eccentric out on the highway, think again. Petrified wood buildings and structures are scattered across Rockdale's Fair Park and throughout Milam County.

They are, as the marker says, part of the heritage and distinctive cultural landscape of the area. Stone tree houses, standing watch over Central Texas, older than old, and still standing. Now that is a Texas story.

What the marker says

Beginning in the late 1920s, the use of petrified wood in construction became popular in Texas and throughout the American Southwest. This was due in part to the design of National Park Service buildings in the West which utilized natural materials and style which came to be known as "NPS Rustic." Residences built or clad with petrified wood were sometimes called "stone tree houses." Rockdale businessman H.H. Coffield had a home and grounds facing State Highway 43 (later U.S. Highway 79) clad with petrified wood in the 1930s for use as a rental property. The main house was designed with a cross-gable floor plan with a petrified wood exterior along walls and modified buttresses, brick trim around the entry and around rectangular and circular window openings, and decorative bargeboard along the projecting gables. Additional historic buildings and structures include a decorative well and a detached two-car garage. The property previously featured a low stone fence facing the road. The architect for the property is unknown. In 1995, the Rockdale Chamber of Commerce acquired the property for use as their offices. Founded in 1952, the Chamber of Commerce was a successor of the Young Men's Business League. The Chamber of Commerce continued a legacy of improving Rockdale's economic development by promoting historical tourism and preservation and working jointly with businesses in Rockdale. Besides this historic homestead, petrified wood buildings and structures can be found in Rockdale's Fair Park and throughout Milam County. They are part of the heritage and distinctive cultural landscape of the area. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2018