Felix Van Der Stucken Home

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's what you need to know about the Felix Van Der Stucken Home. Now, you want to talk about a man who made his mark on the Texas Hill Country, let's talk about Felix Van Der Stucken. Born in Belgium in 1833, he made his way to Gillespie County, and in 1864 he purchased a site and got to work.

That original one-story section of his residence went up soon after the ink dried on that purchase, and right away you can see the man had taste. Native limestone, sturdy as the Hill Country itself, shaped into a home that carried the fingerprints of Victorian and Greek revival styles both at once. That is not a combination every builder pulls off, but there it stands.

And Felix was not a man content to sit in a fine house and watch the clouds roll by. He operated a nearby steam-powered mill, a working, churning, steam-driven operation that would later come to be known as Reliance Roller Mills. At some point after that original story was settled and squared, the two-story addition got completed, giving the whole structure a presence you simply do not miss when you pass by.

Felix Van Der Stucken lived until 1912, and the home he built out of limestone and ambition outlasted plenty. Then in 1940, Alfred and Frieda Hennig purchased the property, and the house found new stewards to carry it forward. A Belgian immigrant, a steam mill, a limestone house blending two architectural traditions in the middle of the Texas Hill Country.

Some stories do not need embellishing. They just need telling.

What the marker says

The original one-story section of this residence was constructed by Felix Van Der Stucken (1833-1912) soon after he purchased the site in 1864. The two-story addition was completed later. A native of Belgium, Van Der Stucken operated a nearby steam-powered mill, later known as Reliance Roller Mills. Built of native limestone, his home features characteristics of the Victorian and Greek revival styles. It was purchased in 1940 by Alfred and Frieda Hennig. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981