DUANE
Duane's take
This one comes straight off the official marker — here's how I tell it. Now, if you've ever driven through Round Rock and spotted a house that seems to dare you to look away — with a wrap-around porch, fishscale shingles, and a silhouette that doesn't quite match itself from one side to the other — well, you might just be looking at the Olson House. And the woman behind it?
She's worth knowing. Johanna Olson came over from Sweden, born in 1835, and she'd built a life in the Round Rock area. When her husband Johannes died in 1894, she moved on — as people do — but she didn't stay gone.
In 1907, she came back. Returned to that familiar stretch of Williamson County, and she didn't come back empty-handed. She purchased the property herself.
And then she did what a woman with plans does — she hired somebody. Local contractor A.S. Robertson built her this house in 1908.
Now, architecture has a language, and this house speaks Queen Anne — fluently. The asymmetry, the wrap-around porch that invites you to sit a spell from any angle, and those fishscale shingles that catch the light like something out of a storybook. It's not a shy house.
It never was. But here's the part that really tells you who Johanna Olson was. Right down the road, Trinity College opened its doors in 1906.
And Johanna — along with her daughters — opened theirs too. They took in boarders from that college for as long as it stood. Trinity lasted until 1929, and for every one of those years, the Olson house was a place where students had somewhere to land.
The house stayed in the Olson family all the way until 1944. Nearly four decades of family, of boarders, of a Swedish immigrant woman who came back to a place she loved and left it better than she found it. Johanna Olson died in 1914 — six years after that house went up, those fishscale shingles still fresh.
But the house kept telling her story long after she was gone. Some houses are just built that way.
What the marker says
Swedish immigrant Johanna Olson (1835-1914) purchased this property in 1907 after she returned to the Round Rock area upon the death of her husband, Johannes, in 1894. Local contractor A.S. Robertson built this house for her in 1908, and it remained in the Olson family until 1944. Johanna and her daughters took in boarders from nearby Trinity College during its existence from 1906 until 1929. A good local example of Queen Anne architecture, the Olson House features classic elements of that style, including its asymmetry, wrap-around porch and fishscale shingles. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2001