DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. In 1857, a man named John S. Sydnor — former mayor of Galveston, born 1812, died 1869 — built himself a tidy two-story, eight-room structure right here on this spot.
Nothing too grand. Respectable. Solid.
The kind of place a former mayor builds when he's made something of himself. Now, you could stop the story there, and it'd be a fine enough story. But then along comes Samson Heidenheimer.
Born 1834. And friend, Samson Heidenheimer did not do anything small. He was German-born, he came up from a hundred-dollar loan — a single hundred-dollar loan — and he built himself a fortune running the Confederate blockade.
The man had nerve, and apparently he had a good eye for real estate too, because in 1884 he bought Sydnor's modest little two-story house. He'd already been associated with Sydnor and Sydnor's son Seabrook in an auction business, so he knew the property. He knew exactly what he was looking at.
And what he saw, apparently, was a castle waiting to get out. He enlarged that structure to four stories and thirty-seven rooms. He added a castle-like tower.
He added turrets. Turrets, on the Texas Gulf Coast. When Samson Heidenheimer died in 1891, what stood here was no longer a house — it was an institution.
A landmark. A thing people pointed at. After his death, the place changed owners many times, passing from hand to hand the way grand old buildings do when the original vision has moved on.
And then, in 1973, it burned. What the fire left behind was razed in 1975. So now there's a marker where the turrets used to be, and Duane reading it to you on a Texas afternoon — which is maybe not the worst way a castle can end up remembered.
What the marker says
In 1857 John S. Sydnor (1812-1869), former Galveston mayor, built the original two-story, eight-room structure at this site. Samson Heidenheimer (1834-1891) bought it in 1884. The German-born Heidenheimer began with a $100 loan and built a fortune as a Confederate blockade runner. He was associated with Sydnor and his son Seabrook in an auction business. Heidenheimer enlarged the house to four stories and 37 room and added castle-like tower and turrets. It changed owners many times after his death; burned in 1973, and was razed in 1975.