, Wasp Creek South of Sisterdale
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HISTORY: Beginning with the Spanish Land Grant in 1842, there
has been some kind of log or rock home on this place. The first remembered was a
one-room-and-kitchen log house, probably built by Casper and Caroline Hoffarth
in 1869. Other families who have lived on this place were the Henry Magers and
John Reinhard about 1905, the Rudolph Carstanjen family, the Otto Behr family in
1908, the Charles Herbst family in 1918, and finally their son and family, the
Alvin Herbst's in 1942. At one time in 1869 the Andreas Wollschlaeger's owned
part of the land and had a log house, but it is now gone.
The Herbst house
built on a rock ledge was made into a comfortable home with a large center room
for living and dining, a kitchen, three bedrooms and a large front porch. The
original log section was covered with stucco type finish, but the added rooms
are all of native rock with sand-lime mortar. The front door is unusually large
with side window glass panels matching the door glass. Over this door is one
long ten foot rock slab, and one wonders how the builders ever mounted it so
high. At one time attractive shutters were on each of the large windows. The
inside window sills are 15 inches deep. Some years ago Roma and Alvin added a
long glassed-in porch with a deep rock fireplace. A most unusual feature of this
house is the beautiful "gingerbread" or in German "Gitterwerk" all around the
roof edge of the front porch, and the support trim to the wood posts. The roof
is galvanized.
The original smokehouse in the back yard is made of the same
rock and sand-lime mortar as the big house. Low rock walls separate the gardens
and the flower beds. - article written by Nellmarie Huff, 1978.
Source: Boerne Public Library files, February, 2000.
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