DUANE
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Duane's take
The way I tell it, I'm following the official marker on the Sladek-Hillman House in Fayette County, so let's let the record speak. Now, sometime around 1896, a Bohemian immigrant by the name of R. J.
Sladek put up a house. Not just any house, mind you. A Victorian cottage.
And when a man builds a Victorian cottage, he is not thinkin' small. He is thinkin' twelve-foot ceilings. He is thinkin' millwork carvings of intricate detail.
He is thinkin' front porch columns, bracketed just so, and a bay window dressed in fish scale siding. Fish scale siding. On a house in Fayette County, Texas.
You have to appreciate that kind of ambition. But Sladek's name on the door didn't last long. In 1899, ownership was transferred.
The new keeper of this fine cottage was a woman named Anna Hillman, the widow of Ludwig Hillman, one of the early settlers of the Fayetteville area. Anna came to this house carrying that history, the weight of a pioneer family already woven into the fabric of the land around her. And she stayed.
She stayed through seasons and years, through whatever Fayette County could offer and whatever it could take away. She lived in that house, under those twelve-foot ceilings, past those bracketed columns, until her death in 1923. The cottage is still standing.
The fish scale siding still catches the eye. And those millwork carvings, intricate as ever, are still telling the story of the people who thought this corner of Texas was worth building something beautiful for.
What the marker says
R. J. Sladek, a Bohemian immigrant, built this home about 1896. In 1899 ownership was transferred to Anna Hillman, the widow of Ludwig Hillman, one of the early settlers of the Fayetteville area. She lived in the house until her death in 1923. The interior of the Victorian cottage features 12-foot ceilings and millwork carvings of intricate detail. The front porch columns are bracketed and the bay window is decorated with fish scale siding. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979