DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and this one's worth a slow listen. Out on the streets of San Antonio, there stands a house that's been quietly making architects stop and stare for over a century now. This is the story of the Thiele Cottage.
Built in 1890 for August Thiele, Jr. — a man the marker calls a San Antonio business and civic leader — this high Victorian raised cottage didn't just happen to look the way it does. It was designed by James Reilly Gordon, a noted architect, and Gordon wasn't in the business of ordinary. Now, the whole structure carries that Victorian raised-cottage style with confidence, but the thing that'll stop you cold, the thing that earns this place its reputation, is that porch.
You've got a wagon-bow arch — curved and deliberate, like something drawn by a steady hand — and radiating spindles fanning out beneath a triangular gable above it all. Unusual, the marker says. Outstanding, it says.
And when a historical marker reaches for words like that, you'd better believe the porch earned them. What strikes me about this place, though, is the quiet contradiction at its heart. Modest and unique, the marker calls it — both things at once, no apology for either.
Not a mansion, not a showpiece. Just a home that happened to be built right, designed by someone who knew what he was doing, for a family that clearly knew what they had. Because the Thiele family held onto this place for eight decades.
Eight decades. That's not sentiment — that's conviction. Whatever James Reilly Gordon put into those wagon-bow arches and radiating spindles back in 1890, it was enough to keep one family rooted for the better part of a century.
Some things just don't need improving.
What the marker says
Built in 1890 for San Antonio business and civic leader August Thiele, Jr., this high Victorian raised cottage was designed by noted architect James Reilly Gordon. Of particular importance is the structure's outstanding and unusual porch with its distinctive wagon-bow arch and radiating spindles, set beneath a triangular gable. Both modest and unique, the home was owned by the Thiele family for eight decades.