Windwehen Home

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Windwehen Home in Comal County. Carl Victor Windwehen came to New Braunfels carrying a fair amount of loss already. His wife, Charlotte Stocker Windwehen, had died, and so he made the move with his mother and his young daughter, starting fresh in a new city.

He built a quiet kind of reputation there. Quiet, but notable: when New Braunfels put out its 1906 telephone directory, Carl Victor Windwehen was the only dentist listed in it. The only one.

In the whole city. Now that tells you something about a man's standing in a community. Then, in 1910, Dr.

Windwehen married Lina Coreth. And here is where the story takes a turn toward something warm. The house, this very house, was given to Lina as a wedding gift.

A Queen Anne style, modified L-plan house, wood frame construction, double drop pine siding, original bays on two of its four sides. It was a house built to be a home, and that is exactly what it became. There's an early sleeping porch, nursery additions, a garage, a washhouse.

The kind of details that accumulate over a life lived fully in one place. Carl died in 1946. And Lina?

Lina stayed. She lived in that wedding gift of a house until her own death in 1975. Nearly seven decades of one family's story written into wood and pine siding and a sleeping porch off the back.

Some gifts, it turns out, last longer than the giver could have ever planned.

What the marker says

Carl Victor Windwehen moved to New Braunfels with his mother and young daughter after his wife, Charlotte (stocker), had died. He was the only dentist listed in the city’s 1906 telephone directory. Dr. Windwehen married Lina Coreth in 1910, and the family moved into this house, a wedding gift to his new bride. Carl died in 1946, and Lina lived here until her death in 1975. The Queen Anne style modified L-plan house with center passage is of wood frame construction with double drop pine siding, and original bays on two of the four sides. Other historic elements include early sleeping porch and nursery additions, a garage and a washhouse