DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one drivin' you past. Now, every old house along a Texas creek has got its layers, and this one — the place they'd come to call Millbrook — has got more than most. Pull your attention over here, because this story starts well before the name on the gate.
It starts with James E. Bouldin, born in 1796, who was the original owner of this mill site. By the time Bouldin passed in 1876, the property passed on through his line to his heir, Powhatan Bouldin.
And it was Powhatan who, in 1894, sold the whole thing — mill site and all — to William Carroll Roy and his wife Annie. Now, William Carroll Roy went by Cal, which tells you something about a man right there. Cal was born in 1851, same year as Annie, who came into the world as Annie Stanley before she became Annie Roy.
Two people, same birth year, same piece of ground, same life's work — and that work was turning a mill site into a home. They converted it, put down roots, and raised five children inside those old rubblestone walls: Robert E., who went by Rob, and then Addie M., Jessie, Adele, and Inca. Five names, one house, and by all accounts a full life lived there.
Cal Roy died in 1916. Annie carried on until 1925. And the family held onto the property for years after, right up until 1939, when they sold it to Ernest Randolph Hardin and his wife Maurine.
Now here is where the story takes a turn that you do not see comin'. Ernest Randolph Hardin — born 1902 — and Maurine, born 1900 and née Underwood — were both drama professors. Which means when they got hold of this old rubblestone house, they did not simply patch it up.
They restored it eclectically, and they did it with flair. We're talkin' architectural antiques. We're talkin' decorative ironwork.
And — this is the part that stops people cold — they pulled a floor out of Austin's Driskill Hotel and laid it right down inside that house. The Driskill Hotel. That floor had stories under its grain before it ever arrived.
Then, sometime in the nineteen forties, the Hardins added a weathervane to the carriage house. And on that weathervane, they had one word marked: Millbrook. That is how this property got its name — not from a deed, not from a survey, but from a weathervane on a carriage house, spinning in the Texas wind.
Maurine Hardin passed in 1946. Ernest lived on until 1987. Two families, one mill site, a floor from a famous hotel, and a name spinning on a weathervane.
That's Millbrook — and the marker has been tellin' that story since 1967.
What the marker says
Millbrook (Roy-Hardin House) William Carroll "Cal" Roy (1851-1916) and Annie (Stanley) Roy (1851-1925) bought this Bouldin mill site in 1894 from Powhatan Bouldin, heir of James E. Bouldin (1796-1876), the original owner. It was converted into a home, and here the Roys reared children Robert E. "Rob," Addie M., Jessie, Adele and Inca. The family sold the home in 1939 to Ernest Randolph Hardin (1902-1987) and his wife, Maurine (Underwood) (1900-1946). The Hardins, both drama professors, eclectically restored the rubblestone house with architectural antiques such as a floor from Austin's Driskill Hotel and decorative ironwork. In the 1940s, they added a weathervane marked "Millbrook" to the carriage house; this gave the property its name. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967