Moritz-Hitzfeld-Jacoby House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Picture Fredericksburg, Texas, 1907. A young couple starting out, a house going up stone by stone, and three family names that would get tied to this place across the better part of a century.

That's the story of the Moritz-Hitzfeld-Jacoby House, and it's worth slowing down for. Edmund Moritz was born in 1884, Anna in 1881, and when they married, somebody decided they deserved something solid. And in the Texas Hill Country, solid means limestone.

Edmund and his father Joseph went to their own family-owned quarry nearby and pulled the stone themselves. Then Anna's father, a carpenter named John Metzger, Senior, came in to help put it all together. So right from the pour of the foundation, this was a family project.

Three families, really, even before the other two had arrived. What they built was a house with late Victorian-era styling and features of Germanic construction, which in this part of Texas means native stone laid with intention. The kind of walls that make you feel like the house is telling the hill it intends to stay.

And stay it did. In 1914, Levi and Caroline Hitzfeld purchased the house. Then in 1941, Felix and Emma Jacoby bought it in turn.

Three families, each one connected to Fredericksburg's earliest roots, each one adding their name to a house that Edmund and Anna built for their beginning. That limestone didn't just come from nearby. It came from the family.

And in a way, so did every chapter that followed.

What the marker says

Built for newlyweds Edmund (1884-1958) and Anna (1881-1968) Moritz in 1907, this house has been occupied by the descendants of three of Fredericksburg's earliest families. Edmund and his father, Joseph, used limestone from their family-owned quarry nearby to build the house with the help of Anna's father, carpenter John Metzger, Sr. The house exhibits late Victorian-era styling with features of Germanic construction, which includes the use of native stone. The house was purchased by Levi and Caroline Hitzfeld in 1914 and in 1941 by Felix and Emma Jacoby. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1994