DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it my way. Back in 1909, an Austin businessman by the name of Milton Hodnette decided he wanted a house — and not just any house. He went and hired one of Austin's prominent architects, Charles H.
Page, Sr., and what came out of that partnership was something worth talking about more than a century later. What Page designed was a textbook example of the Craftsman aesthetic, and brother, it is a rare one. You can see the philosophy in every line of the place.
The horizontal emphasis pulls your eye along like a slow river. The eaves hang out broad and generous, throwing shade the way a good Texan offers hospitality — without being asked. And that porch.
That porch is the kind that makes you reconsider your whole afternoon. Now here's a touch that sets this place apart from your average Craftsman home — Page used local limestone to play against the brick, a contrast that gives the whole structure a grounded, this-soil-right-here quality. And those lanterns hanging at the entry?
They may well have been crafted by a local man named Fortunat Weigl, and if that's true, it's worth a pause — because those same kinds of lanterns show up again and again in Charles Page's designs, like a signature he never quite wrote down. Now, nothing on a property stands still forever. There was once a low stone wall that encircled the whole place, framing it the way a good story deserves a good frame.
But by the late 1940s, that wall had been taken apart, its stone repurposed into the construction of a garage. Same stones, different story. The house is still standing, still carrying every one of those Craftsman hallmarks that Page put into it for Milton Hodnette in 1909.
Some things, it turns out, are built to outlast the reasons they were built.
What the marker says
A rare and important example of the Craftsman aesthetic designed by prominent Austin architect Charles H. Page, Sr., this house was built in 1909 for Austin businessman Milton Hodnette. Horizontal emphasis, broad overhanging eaves, a generous porch, the use of local limestone to contrast with brick, and the lanterns (possibly made by local craftsman Fortunat Weigl and common in Charles Page's designs) are all hallmarks of the style. The stone from a low wall that originally encircled the property was used in the construction of a garage in the late 1940s. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1998