Lloyd Gideon Johnson House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, when a local banker decides to build a house, he's got choices to make. Lloyd G.

Johnson and his wife Katherine, they didn't settle for plain. No sir. In 1919 and 1920, they raised up a residence right there in Hays County, and they went and hired noted architect Atlee B.

Ayres to design the thing. That name meant something. Ayres brought together informal elements of the Mediterranean style with classical detailing, and then set the whole composition on a formal, symmetrical plan.

Casual where it could afford to be, precise where it had to be. That's a particular kind of confidence in a building. The Johnson family made it their home, and for a good while, that's exactly what it was.

A family residence. But 1937 came around, and San Marcos Masonic Lodge No. 342 bought the house. Just like that, the dining rooms and parlors and private corners of a family home became something else entirely.

A Lodge building, a place of fellowship and ritual and the kind of business that Lodges conduct. It served that purpose all the way until 1990. Then, quietly, the wheel turned again.

Someone purchased it, and what had been a family home, then a Lodge, became a private residence once more. Atlee Ayres built something that outlasted every intention anyone ever had for it. That's not bad work for a house.

What the marker says

Local banker Lloyd G. Johnson and his wife Katherine built this house as a residence for their family in 1919-1920. the house, designed by noted architect Atlee B. Ayres, combines informal elements of the Mediterranean style with classical detailing and a formal, symmetrical plan. San Marcos Masonic Lodge No. 342 bought the house in 1937. It served as a Lodge building until 1990, when it was purchased for use again as a private residence. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982