William and Charlotte Stone House "Stonehaven"

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. On the eve of his wedding, now that's a particular kind of night, the kind where most men aren't thinking about much beyond the morning, William E. Stone sat down and conceived the design for an entire house.

Not a rough sketch on a napkin, mind you. A full design plan. The year was 1912, and William was about to marry Charlotte L.

Howard, and somewhere in the hours before that ceremony, architecture was on his mind. He'd been studyin' architectural pattern books, and he'd been studyin' Frank Lloyd Wright, and he pulled from both to put this place together in his head before the ink was even dry on the marriage certificate. Charlotte, for her part, would live in this house until 1964.

William didn't get quite so long; he passed in 1931. But the house? The house kept going.

Carl Shuman was contracted to bring the thing to life, and he didn't cut corners; he integrated what the marker calls many structural and mechanical innovations into a 20th century bungalow style. That combination of vision and craft produced something the family clearly decided was worth holding onto. And hold on they did.

The land this home sits on has been in the same family since 1850. That's not a typo. Eighteen fifty.

Long before William ever cracked open a pattern book, before he ever heard the name Frank Lloyd Wright, this ground already belonged to the family. The eve of a wedding, a century and a half of the same family's footsteps; some places earn their stories one layer at a time.

What the marker says

On the eve of his marriage to Charlotte L. Howard (1891-1964) in 1912, William E. Stone (1884-1931) applied techniques he gleaned from architectural pattern books and his study of Frank Lloyd Wright to conceive the design plan for this house. Carl Shuman was contracted to integrate many structural and mechanical innovations into its 20th century bungalow house style. The land on which this home is located has stayed in the same family since 1850. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1992