Hugo and Anna Gold Crenwelge House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Out in Gillespie County, there's a limestone house that started with a gift. Jacob Gold, Jr., passed away in 1914, but before he left this world he made sure his family was taken care of.

Back in 1902, he gave a piece of property to his daughter Anna, born in 1878, and her husband Hugo Crenwelge, born in 1877. A father setting his children up on solid ground. You can't ask for much more than that.

Now, the Crenwelges didn't let that land sit idle. Three years after that gift, they got to work. And when they built, they built to last.

The stone for the house came from right there near the site, quarried by hand and cut into large ashlar blocks and lintels. Think about that for a moment. The very ground the house stands on gave up the material to build it.

Those walls didn't come from some faraway supplier. They came from the earth underneath their feet. The finished house had a two-level gallery and jig-sawn wood trim, the kind of careful, deliberate craftsmanship that tells you these folks weren't in a hurry to do anything halfway.

Scholars and historians call it an outstanding example of a rural German-Texan farmstead, and standing there looking at it, you'd have a hard time arguing the point. The Crenwelge family held onto that property for decades, all the way until 1965. Anna, who lived until 1957, and Hugo, who passed in 1948, they put something permanent into that Gillespie County landscape.

Hand-cut limestone has a way of outlasting just about everything else, and that house is proof.

What the marker says

Jacob Gold, Jr. (d. 1914) gave this property to his daughter, Anna (1878-1957), and her husband Hugo Crenwelge (1877-1948) in 1902. Three years later the Crenwelges built this home. Constructed of hand-cut limestone quarried near the site, the house features large ashlar blocks and lintels, a two-level gallery, and jig-sawn wood trim. An outstanding example of a rural German-Texan farmstead, the house remained in the Crenwelge family until 1965. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990