Hutchison House
LBJ Dr. and University St., San Marcos, TXStandards of Victorian taste are well expressed in the many gables, bays, and carved details of the Hutchison House. The intricacy of the line is repeated inside in the walnut stair, mantel, and fretwork.
Charles S. Sinz, a German craftsman who also built some of the houses on Belvin Street, designed the house for Beverly Hutchison, son of Major W.0. Hutchison, one of the town's early developers. The Hutchison family lived here from 1896, when the house was built, until 1913, when they moved to Kyle.
During the Hutchison residence, the home was the epitome of late Victorian elegance. The floorplan is irregular, reflecting the faceted exterior appearance. A tiny room within an oriel at the stair landing is a feature unique to the town. Other items are comparable: the walnut paneling on the stair spandrel, deeply incised newels, bullseye moldings, pocket doors, and walnut mantels embellished with ball and dowel trim that is echoed on the fretwork at the oriel.
The house changed owners several times but was regularly operated as a boarding house. Among the student boarders was president-to-be Johnson, who took his meals here from March 1927 to September 1928 and during the summer of 1929. Other accounts report that Johnson lived here. The exact nature of his association is still debated, but that he spent a great deal of time in this house is undisputed. Johnson revisited the house in 1964.
Three years later the house had to be moved to an adjacent lot to save it from demolition by the Urban Renewal Agency. Because it was moved only a short distance, approximately 60 feet, changes were minimal. The subsequent rehabilitation was sensitive, and the house can be considered to have retained its architectural and historical integrity.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.