Zuniga House

Duane's take

Here's the official marker's account, as best as I can tell it. Roberto Zuniga came to Laredo in 1916, crossing over from Monterrey, Mexico, and he didn't waste much time gettin' to work. Two years in, 1918, he and his brother Alfonso Zuniga had themselves a custom brokerage business up and runnin'.

Now, a man who builds a business like that, he builds other things too. By 1923, Roberto and his wife Elvira Zuniga hired the local John O. Buenz Lumber Company to put up a home in Laredo's fashionable Heights neighborhood.

And they didn't settle for just any house. What went up was a Prairie School style structure, stucco laid over brick, box columns standin' proud on the porch, and a flat roof finished with a parapet along the edge. Clean lines.

Solid construction. The kind of place that tells you the family inside meant to stay. The Zuniga House has been standin' in that Heights neighborhood ever since, and it's still there today, a quiet monument to a man who arrived in Laredo with ambition and left a house that outlasted the telling of his story.

What the marker says

Roberto Zuniga moved to Laredo in 1916 from Monterrey, Mexico and established a custom brokerage business in 1918 with his brother Alfonso Zuniga. Roberto and Elvira Zuniga hired the local John O. Buenz Lumber Company to build this house in 1923 in the fashionable Heights neighborhood. The Prairie School style house features stucco over brick construction, box columns on the porch, and a flat roof with parapet. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1996