Ilse-Rau House

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of the Ilse-Rau House. Now, Colorado County has seen its share of characters, but Henry Ilse was a particular kind of Texan. Farmer.

Rancher. Saloon owner. The man clearly believed in keeping his options open.

And in 1887, he decided to build himself a house worthy of all three pursuits. The contractors he hired, Jacob and Lewis Wirtz, did not come to play. What they raised up was a symmetrical Victorian house built of cypress, with pine floors running underneath your feet and jigsaw decorations trimming the outside like something out of a storybook.

Step inside and you've got three fireplaces, each one crowned with a marble mantel. Three. Not one for warmth, not two for company.

Three marble mantels, because Henry Ilse was apparently a man who understood the value of a good impression. And that roof. It's not shingles, it's not simple tin.

It's stamped metal rectangles, fitted together like a puzzle some craftsman dreamed up and the Wirtz brothers figured out how to make real. The Ilse family called that house home all the way until 1954. That is a long run for any family in any house.

Then the place sat, waiting, the way old houses do, holding their stories in the walls. In 1965, Mr. and Mrs. R.

F. Rau purchased the house and got to work restoring it in empire and Victorian manner, honoring what the Wirtz brothers built and what Henry Ilse had imagined back in 1887. And when the Raymond Rau family took ownership, they gave the house a name to carry forward.

They called it Raumonda. A cypress and pine Victorian, three marble hearths, a stamped metal roof, and now a name all its own. Old Henry Ilse built for the ages, and it seems the ages took him up on that.

What the marker says

Built in 1887 by Henry Ilse, a farmer, rancher, saloon owner. In symmetrical Victorian style, house is constructed of cypress, with pine floors and jigsaw decorations. It contains three fireplaces with marble mantels. Roof is made of stamped metal rectangles. Contractors were Jacob and Lewis Wirtz. Ilse family home until 1954, house was purchased in 1965 and restored by Mr. and Mrs. R. F. Rau in empire and Victorian manner. Since purchased by Raymond Rau family in 1965, the structure has been known as "Raumonda." RTHL - 1970