Compton-Zapp House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out in Fayette County, in the town of Fayetteville, there stands a house that has seen a whole parade of lives pass through its doors. This is the Compton-Zapp House, and if walls could talk, these particular walls would have quite a roster of names to drop.

We're talking William Compton, Dr. Jethro Jackson, Antone and Minnie Pohl, and Hugo Zapp, Sr., all of them calling this place home at one point or another across the years. Now, Dr.

Jackson was no ordinary resident. He was a charter member of the Fayetteville Masonic Lodge, which is to say he was there at the founding, one of the people who helped set the whole thing in motion. And Hugo Zapp, Sr. was a prominent merchant, a man who made his mark on the commercial life of Fayetteville.

The house itself dates back to the 19th century, built on what's called a central hall plan, and that design was as Texas as it gets for the time. Practical, sensible, the kind of architecture that knew exactly what it was doing in the heat of a Texas afternoon. Now here is the detail that really sticks with you.

From 1865 all the way until 1945, this home remained in the Zapp family. Generation after generation, the same family holding on to the same four walls, the same central hall, the same address in Fayetteville. Some houses just find the family they belong to, and for eighty years, this one had found its people.

What the marker says

This property has been owned by a number of Fayetteville residents over the years, including William Compton, Dr. Jethro Jackson, Antone and Minnie Pohl, and Hugo Zapp, Sr. Dr. Jackson was a charter member of the Fayetteville Masonic Lodge, and Hugo Zapp was a prominent merchant. This home dates to the 19th century, and its central hall plan is typical of Texas vernacular homes of the time. It remained in the Zapp family from 1865 until 1945. Recorded Texas Historical Landmark-1985.