National Register Listing

Episcopalian Rectory

225 W. Hopkins St., San Marcos, TX

The Episcopalian Rectory is an excellent example of the hybrid style created by combining Greek-Revival and Victorian-period lines. Its late date illustrates an important point in Texas architectural history, that major American styles were late in arriving and sometimes slow in replacing popular tastes.

N.K. and Tennie Faris sold lot 5 of block 15 to the "Bishop and Standing Committee of the Missionary District of West Texas" for $550 in 1889. This seems to be the same year that St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church erected the house, to be used as a rectory. A verbal account says that an existing cottage on the lot was demolished and part of the lumber was reused.

St. Mark's Church was located across the street where a supermarket now stands. It was built in 1902, with funds secured using the rectory as collateral, and demolished in 1955. St. Mark's first church had been built in 1875.

During the first part of this century, the church underwent a difficult period with low membership and, occasionally, an empty pulpit. At this time, St. Mark's must have begun renting out the Rectory. By about 1925 the house was rented by the Calvin Tuttle family of Martindale. A son, James, went on to hold various offices in St. Mark's organization and to found the Tuttle Lumber Company in 1950.

For a while around 1935, when St. Mark's did not have a rector in residence, one bedroom upstairs at 225 W. Hopkins was reserved for the supply pastor, as was the added bathroom.

How many families rented the house is not known. The present owners, who rented from 1935 until they purchased the house from the church in 1940, moved in after a family that sold Singer Sewing Machines from the house vacated. The 1940 sale was to raise money to repair the church.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1983.