Crusemann-Marsh-Bell House
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Carrie Margaret (Graham) and Paul Conrad Crusemann and this house built in 1917 as one of the first homes in the Enfield subdivision. Mrs. Crusemann was the granddaughter of Texas Governor E. M. Pease, and served as a silent partner in the Enfield Realty and Home Building Co. with other heirs of the Pease estate. Austin American co-owner and publisher Charles Marsh changed the home’s design and more than doubled its size in 1924, moving the home’s entrance from Windsor Road to Marshall Lane. The Jacobean Revival style brick and timber home features half-timbered multiple gables and multi-pane arched windows. Detailing by notable craftsman includes woodcarvings by Peter Mansbendel and ironwork by Fortunate Weigl. Recorded Texas Historical Landmark – 2009
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1917 as one of the first homes in Austin's Enfield subdivision, this house rose on land tied to the estate of Texas Governor E.M. Pease, whose granddaughter Carrie Crusemann was a silent partner in the neighborhood's development company. In 1924 newspaper publisher Charles Marsh more than doubled the home's size and reoriented its entrance, giving it its Jacobean Revival character. Its half-timbered gables carry woodcarvings by Peter Mansbendel and ironwork by Fortunat Weigl, both noted Austin craftsmen.
Why it matters
The house traces the rise of Austin's early planned suburbs and the network of prominent families and skilled artisans who shaped the growing capital in the early 20th century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Carrie Margaret Crusemann
- · Charles Marsh
- · E.M. Pease
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Davis-Sibley House
Austin, TX
Austin architect Hal Thomson designed this Spanish Eclectic home in 1931 for Emma Levison Davis, a founding member of a local settlement club and widow of a pioneer Austin grocer. With its stuccoed walls, clay-tile roof, arcaded entry and square tower, the house showcased handmade tile, heavy timber trusses and custom ironwork and furnishings. It passed through the Davis family before the Sibleys acquired it in 1962.
Denny-Holliday House
Austin, TX
Charles Denny built this one-story limestone dwelling between 1869 and 1871, and the widowed Mrs. N. L. Holliday bought it in 1898, adding a second floor in 1906 to house her six children. Her daughter Margaret, a local physician, later lived here with her husband Dr. Simon J. Clark, and the couple renovated the home around 1920 with a stuccoed exterior and an elaborate new entryway. The house records the layered growth of an Austin family home across half a century.
Moore-Flack House
Austin, TX
Contractor Charles Funk built this house in 1887 for John M. Moore—a former legislator and district attorney then serving as secretary of state under Governor Sul Ross—at a cost of $2,000. In 1901 it was bought by Laura A. E. Flack, a prominent Austin businesswoman who owned several buildings on Congress Avenue and who in the 1920s added a two-story neoclassical porch to the original Victorian design. Flack lived here until her death in 1933, and the house stayed in her family for another forty years.
Kappa Kappa Gamma House
Austin, TX
The Beta Xi chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma was chartered at the University of Texas in 1902, and its house association formed in 1936. Construction of this three-story Georgian Revival sorority house began in 1938 to a design by noted Houston architect Birdsall P. Briscoe, complete with a two-story entry porch, Ionic columns, and Greek detailing along the cornices.