Meckel-Hanus Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as straight. You're looking at a building that's been a lot of things to a lot of people, and the walls have the layers to prove it. This is the Meckel-Hanus Building, right here in Gillespie County, and its story starts before the Civil War.

Around 1860, somebody put up a one-story stone house on this lot. Simple, sturdy, the kind of thing Hill Country folks built to last. And last it did.

Henry Meckel, a saddle and harness merchant, acquired the property in 1886, and he wasn't content to leave well enough alone. He made improvements to that old stone structure. He added a second level of concrete blocks and threw on a double gallery of milled wood, turning that central-hall house into something that announced itself.

Henry Meckel was born in 1855, and he died in 1909, so he didn't get to see what came next. What came next was Dr. J.

J. Hanus. The doctor was born in 1898, and in 1927 he bought the building for a hospital.

By 1929 he had altered the facade to the appearance it carries to this day. A saddle merchant's showpiece, remade into a place of healing. But the building wasn't done changin' hands.

In 1949 it became a Catholic convent, and it served in that role all the way through 1979. Three decades of quiet and prayer inside walls that had once smelled of leather and harness oil. Then, in 1985, Joe, Pat, and Eric Vance restored the building.

The marker says so right on its base. One old stone house, more lives than most folks get.

What the marker says

Saddle and harness merchant Henry Meckel (1855-1909) acquired this property in 1886 and soon made improvements to a one-story, ca. 1860 stone house already on the lot. A second level of concrete blocks and a double gallery of milled wood were added to the central-hall structure. Dr. J. J. Hanus (1898-1966) bought the building for a hospital in 1927 and altered the facade to its present appearance by 1929. The building served as a Catholic convent from 1949 through 1979. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1986 Incise on base: Restored 1985 by Joe, Pat, and Eric Vance.