James C. Lane House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Wimberley, Texas. Nineteen thirty-five.

A builder named James Calvin Lane had himself a vision, and that vision involved rock. Not just any rock, mind you. We're talking giraffe rock.

Now that's the marker's own words, and once you hear what it means, you'll understand why they stuck. The exterior of this home is native rock and poured concrete, embellished with smaller decorations, petrified wood, decorative rock, and fossils. The result is a surface that looks something like the mottled, patchy hide of a giraffe.

The marker calls it a rare style in the Texas hill country, and I'd wager that's putting it gently. James Calvin Lane, born nineteen oh two, was Wimberley's own builder, and he put this place up right next to a café his wife Rebecca was operating. Rebecca Cobb Lane.

While James was stacking that extraordinary stone outside, Rebecca was inside running something that might surprise you. Wimberley's first telephone switchboard, right there in the living room. So you've got a giraffe-rock house, a café next door, and a telephone switchboard humming away in the parlor.

Just a regular domestic situation in the Texas hill country. Lane wasn't done building, either. He later put up a two-story home and a larger café in the same style on nearby property on the square.

That same giraffe-rock look, spreading through Wimberley like it had somewhere to be. In nineteen thirty-eight, James and Rebecca sold this original home to an educator named Susie Danforth. The house passed on, but the rock stayed exactly where Lane put it.

Petrified wood, fossils, decorative stone, all of it pressed into that concrete, all of it still there. James Calvin Lane died in nineteen seventy-six. The house he built in nineteen thirty-five is still standing, still wearing its giraffe hide, still one of a kind in the hill country.

Some builders leave blueprints. Lane left fossils in the walls.

What the marker says

Wimberley builder James Calvin Lane (1902-1976) built this home in 1935 adjacent to a café operated by his wife, Rebecca (Cobb). Lane later built a two-story home and a larger café in the same style on nearby property on the square. Rebecca operated Wimberley’s first telephone switchboard in the home’s living room. The couple sold the home to educator Susie Danforth in 1938. The front-gabled craftsman style home is notable for its “giraffe rock” exterior, a rare style in the Texas hill country. Native rock and poured concrete is embellished with smaller decorations such as petrified wood, decorative rock and fossils.