The Moeller House

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. Now, some houses get built by crews, by gangs of men with wagons full of tools and somebody hollerin' orders from the shade. And then there's what John George Moeller did.

Starting in 1859, this man went to work on a house in Comal County, and he did it alone. Just him. He hand-cut the limestone himself, hauled up eighteen-foot cedar beams and rafters, and laid cypress floors in random-width boards, the kind of floor that tells you something about the patience of the man who put it down.

And he kept at it, year after year, working alone. When he finally set down his tools, the year was 1866. Seven years of solitary building, and what he left standing was a house that outlasted him by generations.

The Moeller House sat quiet for a while after that, and then in 1881 the Johannes Moeller family moved in and made it a home. They stayed through 1910. After them came the Nowotnys, who carried the house forward into another chapter entirely.

Limestone, cedar, cypress, and one man's stubborn intention. That's what's still standing.

What the marker says

Erected by John George Moeller, working alone, 1859 to 1866. Materials used: hand-cut limestone, 18-foot cedar beams and rafters, cypress floors of random width boards. Occupied 1881-1910 by Johannes Moeller family;later, by Nowotnys. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.1970