Hanisch House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Kendall County, in the little Hill Country town of Comfort, there stands a house with a story that starts with the trees themselves. Back in 1857, two men named Emil Serger and Paul Hanisch took one look at the cypress growing along nearby Cypress Creek and decided that was their lumber yard.

No trip to a sawmill, no waiting on a wagon. Just those trees, those hands, and a piece of ground that needed a home on it. What they built was the log portion of what we now call the Hanisch House.

And here's the part worth lingering on: inside that same structure, Comfort found its very first pharmacy. The first one. In a log house built from creek-side timber.

That's the Hill Country for you. Time moved on, as time will do. In 1870, a west wing went up.

Then in 1885, they added what's known as a Sunday house. If you know anything about the German settlers of this part of Texas, you know a Sunday house was something special, a place to stay when folks came into town for church and market. Layer by layer, year by year, this place kept growing.

Then came 1947, when Mr. and Mrs. J. C.

Rice took on the work of restoration, making sure those cypress-hewn walls had a fighting chance at another century. Emil Serger and Paul Hanisch cut those logs before the Civil War, and the house is still standing. Some things, if you build them right from the start, just refuse to fall down.

What the marker says

Using trees growing on nearby Cypress Creek, log portion of this house was built 1857 by Emil Serger and Paul Hanisch. Housed first pharmacy in Comfort. West wing and "Sunday house" were built in 1870, 1885. Restoration by Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Rice, 1947. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965