doors that lead from the living
room into other rooms are
reminiscent of those that lead
from the lobby of the Holland.
There is a beehive motif
worked in plaster over the fire-
place and a plaster bas-relief of
a ship in full sail inset into
another wall. At the Lockhart
Street house, the living-room
fireplace is surmounted by a
plaster bas-relief of the three
wise monkeys, Hear-No-Evil,
See-No-Evil and Speak-No-
Evil, exactly the sort of playful
ornament that Trost liked to
use. Carla McFarland says
that she is “absolutely, positive-
ly certain” that Trost designed
both houses.
A somewhat less certain
example is the huge stone
ranch house built by William T.
Jones south of Fort Davis in
1915. No one knows for sure if
Trost was the architect, but it
seems like a good bet that he
might have been. The 12-
room, two-story house is con-
structed from volcanic rock
quarried on the ranch. Its floor
plan is traditional: a central
hallway on each floor with
three rooms on each side and a
fireplace in every room. Two
wide porches stretch across the
front of the house, and four
stone columns support the flat
roof. There are four stone out-
buildings: a three-story cistern
tower that had a dairy on the
ground floor and a meat-cool-
ing room above it, topped by a
water tank that supplied gravi-
ty-fed running water to the
house; a building next to it that
may have housed the generator
that provided electricity for the
ranch; a third building of inde-
terminate use; and a garage
and servants’ quarters. Directly
behind the house, almost
touching its back porch, is the
original ranch house, an adobe
structure that probably dates
from the 1890s. Beside it is the
cookshed where the ranch
hands took their meals, a frame
structure with hinged shutters
that lift up to create awnings,
quite possibly the only example
of this type of ranch structure
left in the Big Bend. The entire
complex is an architectural
treasure.
Two things, besides its size,
make the house distinctive.
The double parlors on the first
floor are paneled in Philippine
mahogany and are separated
by folding mahogany doors
inlaid with ebony and a lighter
tropical wood; and the floors,
roof and central staircase are
made of poured concrete. The
downstairs floors are covered
with oak floorboards and the
upstairs floors with maple, but
underneath each is an 8-inch
thick slab of concrete. The
concrete surfaces of the stair-
case are as smooth as polished
glass. Scott Williams of Alpine,
who is remodeling the house
for a new owner, says, “The
man who built that staircase
was born with trowels in both
hands.” Williams thinks that
the ornate paneling and the
extensive use of concrete are
clues to Trost’s hand. “His inte-
riors are always beautifully fin-
ished, and he really liked con-
crete as a building material.”
Trost designed a house in
Marfa
for
cattle-buyer
Courtney Mellard in 1915, and
Trost could have easily met
Jones through Mellard. Jones
was a breeder of champion
Highland Herefords, and there
is a painted plaster bas-relief of
one of his prize bulls, Diamond
Donald, set into the wall of the
downstairs room at the ranch
house that he used as an office.
The Mellard house in
Marfa, a modestly sized stuc-
coed bungalow at 401 N.
Sumner St., is documented by
a set of drawings in the Trost
Collection at the El Paso Public
Library. It is in more or less its
original condition. It has an
elaborate Craftsman-style inte-
rior, with exposed wooden ceil-
ing beams and paneled wain-
scoting. A second Trost house
in Marfa, also documented by
drawings in the Trost papers, is
the Spanish-style house at 309
E. Mendias, on the hill just
under the Marfa water tower. It
is now owned by Joey Benton
and Maiya Keck. The house
was built in 1925 for Marfa
lumber dealer Allen Marshall
McCabe and his bride, the for-
mer Dorothy Mitchell. It has
the look of a Mediterranean
villa, with a south-facing façade
that is evenly divided between a
wall pierced by two large first-
floor and two small second-
floor windows and a front
porch sheltered under three
large arches. Before it was
remodeled, the living room had
two large exposed-pine beams
supporting the ceiling, and a
fireplace surrounded by
Craftsman-style pine paneling
supporting a mantelpiece.
Above the mantelpiece was a
plaster bas-relief of a ship in
full sail, similar to the one in the
Kokernot house in Alpine. An
arched doorway led into the
dining room. The construction
is fire brick, covered by pink
stucco. The original roof was
flat, but a gently sloped tile roof
was added when two additions
were built in the 1950s, adding
a total of four rooms and a
bath to the house. Benton and
Keck were able to date one of
the additions to 1952 from the
score of a Marfa-Wink football
game that was scratched into
the floor, evidently by carpen-
ters who wished to commemo-
rate the Marfa victory.
There is a fine book about
the buildings designed by Trost
and Trost, Lloyd and June-
Marie Engelbrecht’s Henry C.
Trost, Architect of the Southwest,
published by the El Paso
Library Association in 1981. It
is profusely illustrated but, with
the exception of some man-
sions in El Paso’s Sunset
Heights, the illustrations depict
office buildings, hotels, schools
and other imposing institution-
al structures designed by Trost.
His humbler small houses, like
those in Alpine and Marfa, are
neglected. But they are as
much treasures as the monu-
mental buildings that surround
El Paso’s plaza and the man-
sions that grace Sunset
Heights, and they deserve
recognition as an important
part of Texas’s architectural
heritage.
Rustic Guesthouses & Suites
Wine Bar Open daily 1-9, Sun 4-9
Now Serving Bar Bites & Appetizers
109 W San Antonio Street • Marfa
432-729-4599
www.themarfaquarters.com
thequarters@sbcglobal.net
2010
May 1 ~ Quilt Show
Gage Hotel • 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.
July 3 ~ July 4th Celebration
Chili Cook-off, Dance & BBQ
Sept. 18 -19 ~ Westfest at Post Park
Nov. 7 ~ Cowboy Social
Ritchey Bros. Building • 3 p.m. - 6 p.m.
Dec. 4 ~ Fiesta De Noche Bueno
Front Street • 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Cenizo
First Quarter 2010
15