Henry H. and Bertha Sterzing Ziller House
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Henry H. and Bertha Sterzing Ziller House Henry (1853-1924) and Bertha (1857-1900) Ziller, both members of families who came to the Austin area from Germany, married in 1876 and purchased this property in 1881. Records indicate that a residence, built about 1877, already existed on the site. About 1891, the Zillers began making additions and modifications to the house, including the elaborate Eastlake ornamentation on the porches. Reflecting a period of growth and prosperity in Austin around the turn of the 20th century, the Ziller House remained in the family until 1939. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2001
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Henry and Bertha Ziller, both from German families who had settled the Austin area, married in 1876 and bought this property in 1881, where a house already stood. Around 1891 they enlarged and dressed it up with the elaborate Eastlake porch ornamentation fashionable at the time. Reflecting Austin's turn-of-the-century prosperity, the home stayed in the family until 1939.
Why it matters
The Ziller House shows how German immigrant families put down deep roots in Austin and expressed their rising fortunes in the ornate Victorian styles of the era.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Henry H. Ziller
- · Bertha Sterzing Ziller
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
King-Von Rosenberg House
Austin, TX
In 1916 the heirs of Texas Governor Elisha Pease formed a company to subdivide his estate into what became Austin's Enfield neighborhood. In 1922 Belmont "Belle" Graham, a Pease cousin, and her husband Florian Bibb King built this house, which the Von Rosenberg family later owned from 1928 until 1988. Blending Prairie School and Renaissance Revival details — a porte cochere, composite columns, and a wide hipped roof — the home reflects the tastes of Austin's early-20th-century residential expansion.
Fischer House
Austin, TX
Prussian immigrant Joseph Fischer built this High Victorian, Italianate home in 1882 with the help of his son Francis. Skilled stonemasons, the two ran one of Austin's leading masonry contracting firms and worked on notable buildings including the Texas Capitol. Their own home, rich with ornamental brick and native limestone, showcases the craftsmanship they brought to the growing capital city.
Wood Street Settlement at Shoal Creek
Austin, TX
Along the west bank of Shoal Creek, on what was once frontier Austin's natural edge, formerly enslaved people made a home after the Civil War, building one of the African American settlements of West Austin. As domestic workers, carpenters, drivers, and laborers, its residents shaped the life of the city even while surrounded by wealthier Anglo neighbors in an era of hardening racial lines. After Austin's 1928 master plan pushed Black residents toward a district east of East Avenue, Mexican and Mexican American families took up the houses along the creek, and the community persisted into the 1970s.
Smith-Clark-Smith House
Austin, TX
After the Texas State Capitol burned in 1881, Scottish-born James Baird Smith cleared the site and built a temporary statehouse nearby, then used salvaged bricks and stone to construct this rent house around 1886. Its first tenant was banker John G. Palm, and later owner Lucille Clark, of a prominent Austin family, occupied it before it was sold and restored in 1959. It became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1975.