Schneider-Klingelhoefer House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just passin' it along. There's a house sitting in Gillespie County that carries two family names, and once you hear the story, you'll understand why it earned them both. It started around 1870, built for a man named Ludwig Schneider.

Now Ludwig wasn't just one thing. He was a watchmaker and a stonemason, which is a combination that tells you something about a man. Precision and patience on one hand, and the muscle to move stone on the other.

He built this place in the German fachwerk style, that traditional half-timbered construction his people brought over from the old country, and it shows. The bones of that house have been standing ever since. Then in 1883, the property passed to a builder named Louis Preiss, who held onto it until 1890.

Seven years, and then it moved on again, the way property does. For a while, the house just kept existing, doing what good stone houses do, which is wait. Then 1924 comes around, and a banker named Arthur Klingelhoefer acquires the place.

He moved in the following year, 1925, and he never left. The marker says he lived there until his death, and the house stayed in the Klingelhoefer family all the way until 1976. Now here's what makes this house worth slowing down for.

It's got an unusual porch roof parapet. It's got gable-end chimneys. And it's got a decorative wood balustrade that somebody took real care putting there.

Details like that don't happen by accident. They happen because someone, somewhere along the line, cared about how a thing looked long after they were gone. A watchmaker's house, built to last.

Turns out, it did.

What the marker says

Built about 1870 for watchmaker and stonemason Ludwig Schneider, this home features German fachwerk construction. Owned by builder Louis Preiss from 1883 to 1890, it was acquired in 1924 by banker Arthur Klingehoefer, who lived here from 1925 until his death. Prominent features of the home, which remained in the Klingelhoefer family until 1976, include an unusual porch roof parapet, gable-end chimneys, and a decorative wood balustrade. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988