Kirby-Hill House

The Kirby-Hill House (1902), is named after its principal occupants, James L. and Martha Kirby, and their daughter and son-in-law Lucy and Austin M. Hill, Sr. The home is an exceptional example of a wood frame house combining the Colonial Revival and Queen Anne styles popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Built by Frank T. Smith, a contractor from Beaumont, Texas, for an executive of a major lumber company, the Kirby-Hill House served as the social epicenter of the east Texas lumber town. It is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in the Area of Architecture, at the local level of significance.

Kountze is 27 miles northwest of Beaumont, in the Big Thicket, a part of the larger East Texas Timberlands region rich with pine and hardwood trees. The local lumber industry provided the incentive to bring railroad lines through the area in the 1880s. Named for Herman and Augustus Kountze, financial backers of the Sabine and East Texas Railroad, the town became a station on the railroad line in 1881, with a post office established in 1882. The S&ET Railroad bypassed the county seat of Hardin (two miles east), but an 1884 attempt to move the county seat to Kountze failed by 11 votes. The destruction of the courthouse by fire in August 1886 reopened the issue, and the following year, voters overwhelmingly made Kountze the new county seat. In 1904, Herman and Augustus Kountze donated land for a new courthouse, the site of the current (1959) courthouse.

The lumber industry in Hardin County began as early as 1878 when loggers floated timber down local streams to the Neches River. By 1881, at least two sawmills operated in the county, and by the turn of the century, lumber had become the primary industry in the county. Due to the robust lumber economy, the population of Hardin County more than doubled between 1870 (pop. 1460) and 1900 (pop. 5049). Sawmills were established at Plank, Nona, and Olive (all within a few miles of Kountze) in the early 1880s. Oil production joined lumber as a significant industry in Hardin County after 1901, and in 1902, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad provided an east-west route through Kountze. The lumber industry declined in Hardin County after World War I and through the Great Depression but has rebounded since the 1950s.
John Henry Kirby (1860-1940), brother of James L. Kirby (1845-1922), formed the Texas and Louisiana Land and Lumber Company and the Texas Pine Land Association in the late 1880s. Understanding the importance of rail transportation to the fledgling lumber industry in remote East Texas counties, Kirby and associates formed the Gulf, Beaumont and Kansas City Railway in 1896, and sold the line to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in 1901. That same year, Kirby consolidated 14 lumber companies into the Kirby Lumber Company, making his firm the leader in Texas lumber production. At one time, the company controlled more than 300,000 acres of East Texas pinelands and operated 13 sawmills, the largest of which was at Silsbee, about 10 miles east of Kountze.

Four generations of the Kirby and Hill families lived in the house for nearly nine decades. The first occupant, James L. Kirby, served as General Superintendent of Land and Timber for the Kirby Limber Co. James L. Kirby married Martha Youngblood (1840-1906) in 1866, with whom he had seven children. In 1910, Kirby sold the house to his daughter, Lucy Farley Kirby (1872-1957) and her husband Austin Mae Hill, Sr. (1860-1929). They lived in the Kirby- Hill House until their deaths but sold the house to their son Austin Mae Hill, Jr. (1899-1976) and his wife Esta Lois Pye (1903-1991) in 1936. They also remained in the house until their deaths. Their daughter, Auntie Lois Hill (1923-1993) lived in the home until the late 1980s. She sold the furniture of the stately home because of financial reasons, and in 1992 sold the home to the Kountze Council of Arts and Education Foundation, just prior to her death.

The Kirby-Hill House exemplifies the characteristics of the Colonial Revival and Queen Anne styles. Colonial Revival elements include classical columns, a central passage plan, symmetrical fenestration, and a pyramidal-hipped roof. Queen Anne style elements include multiple lower cross gables, a wrapped porch, shingled gables with ornamentation, patterned masonry chimneys, grouped columns (raised to porch level on the 2nd floor) and transoms over each window and door covered by the porch. Most of the wood is southern pine, cut at the Kirby Lumber Mill in Silsbee. The winding staircase, also of southern pine, was made in Mississippi, shipped to Kountze and installed by local help. Originally, the house was lit by carbide gas lamps. The floor plan of the Kirby-Hill House, including the two full-length hallways, tall windows, and rooms that open to the porch, provide good ventilation during hot weather. Heat is provided by four brick fireplaces or wood-burning heaters in each room.

Builder Frank Tipton Smith (1849-1932) established his construction business in Beaumont c.1880, becoming a leading builder in Beaumont by the turn of the century. Smith was not a trained architect, but his credits include several major buildings in the Beaumont business district, including the Gilbert Building and the Alamo Building. Smith also built "Idle Hours" (Land Manor) in Beaumont for Mr. & Mrs. Lemuel Putman Ogden in 1903. Idle Hours, a Classical Revival-style masonry building with extensive woodwork, a symmetrical plan and a 3-sided wrapped porch, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

The Kirby-Hill House represents a period of time in the history of the community when owners of large business ventures in the area attempted to enhance the arts, entertainment, education and social lives in Hardin County. The home served as the center of gala social events for many years in the Kountze, and an invitation to the Kirby-Hill House was a mark of acceptance into southeast Texas high society.

The Kirby-Hill House stands out in Kountze in regards to its size, materials, and level of detail in its execution, and remains one of the most prominent homes in Hardin County. The house's Main Street setting, and the workmanship evident in the wrapped porch, beautiful colonial columns, full-length windows, and staircase all justify continued preservation. The goal of the Kountze Council of the Hardin County Arts and Education Foundation is to purchase the original furniture and to restore the home to its original state. Efforts are being made through holiday banquets and balls and other efforts to restore the property. Some work has been done by members of the Arts and Educational Foundation, but most of the funds raised have been used to pay for the property. Much of the original furniture has been located and placed in storage. Fundraising efforts and grants to complete the project are part of the plans of the Council.

The Kirby-Hill House is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, under Criterion C, in the Area of Architecture, at the local level of significance, as an excellent example of a large-scale frame house embodying elements of two popular architectural styles. It retains the integrity of location, setting, workmanship, materials, design, feeling, and association to a high degree. In 1998, the Texas Historical Commission designated the Kirby-Hill House as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.