Carl and Hilda Biehl House
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
IN 1902, GALVESTON WAS STILL RECOVERING FROM THE MOST DEVASTATING HURRICANE IN RECORDED HISTORY. MANY BUILDINGS WERE BADLY DAMAGED, INCLUDING THE HOUSE AT 1416 BROADWAY. IN THE EARLY 1900s, CARL CHRISTIAN BIEHL IMMIGRATED TO GALVESTON FROM GERMANY. HE FOUNDED A SHIPPING COMPANY IN 1905, NOW KNOWN AS BIEHL AND COMPANY, WHICH SERVICED GALVESTON BEFORE THE PORT OF HOUSTON WAS ESTABLISHED. CARL MARRIED HILDA REYMERSHOFFER SOON AFTER ARRIVING IN GALVESTON AND THEY HAD THREE CHILDREN. IN 1915, BIEHL PURCHASED THE DAMAGED HOME AND CLEARED THE SITE TO BUILD A NEW STRUCTURE FOR HIS FAMILY. DESIGNED BY NOTED ARCHITECT ANTON F. KORN, JR., THE HOME WAS COMPLETED IN 1916 IN A CLASSICAL REVIVAL ARCHITECTURAL STYLE. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HOUSE CONSISTED OF BRICK AND CONCRETE TO STAND UP TO THE HURRICANES AND STRONG WINDS COMMON TO GALVESTON. KORN’S DESIGN FEATURED A FRONT VERANDA, ORIGINAL HARDWOOD FLOORS, OAK PANELING AND MOLDINGS, AND THREE FIREPLACES. THE EXTERIOR WAS DESIGNED TO BE SYMMETRICAL AND DISCREET, A CHANGE IN AESTHETICS FROM VICTORIAN DESIGN COMMON BEFORE THE TURN OF THE CENTURY. SOME UNIQUE FEATURES INCLUDE A SPACIOUS ATTIC THAT WAS USED AS A GYMNASIUM FOR THE CHILDREN AND A RARE FUNCTIONING CISTERN AT THE BACK OF THE HOUSE. CARL PASSED AWAY IN 1936 AND HILDA PASSED TEN YEARS LATER. THE HOME REMAINED IN THE BIEHL FAMILY AND WAS CARED FOR BY THEIR DAUGHTER, MARGARET “SIS” BIEHL, A LOCAL ARTIST, UNTIL HER PASSING IN 2008. THIS HISTORIC HOME SURVIVED MANY HURRICANES SINCE 1916 AND SITS ADJACENT TO THE ISLAND’S MOST FAMOUS MANSION, BISHOP’S PALACE. THE ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORY OF THE BIEHL HOUSE CREATE ONE OF GALVESTON’S MOST TREASURED STRUCTURES.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Two years after the 1900 hurricane leveled much of Galveston, German immigrant Carl Christian Biehl arrived and built a shipping firm that served the island in the years before Houston's port rose to prominence. In 1915 he bought a storm-damaged property at 1416 Broadway and replaced it with a brick-and-concrete Classical Revival home, designed by architect Anton F. Korn, Jr. and engineered to withstand the Gulf's storms. The house stayed in the Biehl family for nearly a century, cared for at the last by their daughter, the artist Margaret 'Sis' Biehl.
Why it matters
It captures how immigrant enterprise and a hard-won architecture of storm survival rebuilt Galveston after the deadliest natural disaster in American history.
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Related people
- · Carl Christian Biehl
- · Hilda Reymershoffer Biehl
- · Anton F. Korn, Jr.
- · Margaret 'Sis' Biehl
Related events
- · 1900 Galveston hurricane
Themes & tags
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