DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just here to pass it along. Out on the roads of Galveston County, there's a house that's been standing since 1886 — cypress wood and ornate woodwork, the kind of craftsmanship that makes you slow down and stare whether you mean to or not. This is the story of the Maas House.
Maxwell Maas — born in 1845, died in 1906 — built this place alongside his wife Sarah Davis Maas, and they built it with room to spare. Nine children. Nine.
That's not a family, that's a small, well-organized republic. Now here's the detail that tends to stop people cold: Maxwell Maas was a Galveston-born nephew of the musical composer Offenbach. That's right.
The nephew of Offenbach, living right here in Galveston, Texas, working as a merchant and eventually serving as county tax collector from 1904 to 1906. Life has a way of scattering remarkable people to unremarkable corners of the map, and sometimes the remarkable part is just finding them there. The family held onto the house until 1911, when it was sold.
And then — as tends to happen with nine children grown and gone — the heirs scattered widely. But here's the thread that didn't break: those heirs are still represented in local civic leadership to this day. The house itself had its own second chapter.
By 1972, it was Mrs. Pat Berntsen who took it on and restored it, bringing that fine cypress structure back to something worth slowing down for all over again. A house built for nine children, tied to a famous composer, tended by a county tax collector, and still standing.
Galveston keeps its stories close.
What the marker says
A fine cypress structure with ornate woodwork, this house was built in 1886 by Maxwell (1845-1906) and Sarah Davis Maas for their family of nine children. A Galveston-born nephew of the musical composer Offenbach, Maas was a merchant and then county tax collector in 1904-06, selling the house in 1911 and scattering widely, the heirs are still represented in local civic leadership. In 1972 the house was restored by Mrs. Pat Berntsen. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976