Hahn House

Duane's take

The official marker's the source here, and I'm just the one bringin' it to life, this is Duane, and this is the story of the Hahn House. Now every great house has a beginning that doesn't look like much. On this very site, around 1868, a man named W.

H. Crebbs put up a small cottage. Just a cottage.

Modest thing. You wouldn't have looked twice at it riding past on the road. But land has a way of finding the people who'll do something with it, and in 1885, Crebbs sold the place to a man named Peter Hahn and his wife Catherine Leyendecker.

Peter Hahn was born in 1852, and he would live all the way to 1940. That's a long life, and it turns out, a man with that kind of time on his hands gets ambitious. Because in 1890, Peter Hahn did not sit still.

He moved that original cottage to the rear of the property, and then he went on a mission. He scouted East Texas. Looking for fine woods.

The right woods. The kind of wood that tells a house it matters. And when he had what he needed, he brought in contractors, two brothers, Jacob and Louis Wirtz, and together they built a two-story, galleried Victorian main house, adjoining that old cottage right there on the same grounds.

Think about that for a second. He didn't tear the old place down. He kept it.

Moved it back, built something grand right beside it. Old world and new world, standing together. Peter and Catherine's son Albert, and Albert's wife Elizabeth Burford, and their children after them, they've preserved that home.

The cottage that Crebbs built, the Victorian showpiece that Peter Hahn raised up out of East Texas timber and a whole lot of determination. Still standing. Some houses just get built.

And some houses get earned.

What the marker says

On this site a small cottage was built about 1868 by W. H. Crebbs, who sold place in 1885 to Peter Hahn (1852-1940) and his wife Catherine Leyendecker. In 1890, Hahn moved cottage to the rear, scouted East Texas for fine woods, hired contractors Jacob and Louis Wirtz, and built two-story, galleried Victorian main house adjoining cottage. Peter and Catherine's son Albert and wife Elizabeth Burford, and their children have preserved the home. RTHL - 1973