Hirshfeld House

🏛️The era

In the decades after the Civil War, Austin changed from a modest frontier capital into a growing city. The arrival of the railroad in the early 1870s linked it to wider markets. Later in the 1880s the grand new State Capitol rose over the town. Merchants, builders and newcomers arrived to take advantage of the boom.

Many of those newcomers were immigrants, and German immigrants played an especially large role in nineteenth-century Texas. Among them were German Jews who became merchants in Texas towns and cities. They opened stores, helped organize banks and built religious and civic institutions.

The Gilded Age also expressed itself in architecture. Successful families showed their prosperity with elaborate homes in the popular Victorian styles, full of ornament, color and craftsmanship. Austin's growing neighborhoods filled with houses built to announce that their owners had arrived.

👥People & events

Henry Hirshfeld was born in Germany in 1834. He became a prominent Austin merchant and a leader in the city's Jewish community. With his wife, Jennie (Melasky) Hirshfeld, he built a one-story limestone cottage in 1873 on the lot just west of this house.

As the business prospered and the family grew, the Hirshfelds planned something larger. Construction of this two-story brick and cut-stone house began in 1885. The architect and builder was John Andrewartha, who designed it with Victorian and Eastlake features. The family moved in a year after it was finished, and a two-story stick-style carriage house was added soon afterward.

The Hirshfelds raised eight children. Two sons, Jake and Sam, became merchants and opened their own clothing stores. Henry also helped establish the Austin National Bank in 1890, and his sons Jake and Morris later served as its directors.

Henry Hirshfeld died in 1911, but the house stayed in the family for many more years. His daughter, Leila Hirshfeld Bernheim, lived here until her death in 1973.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

The Hirshfeld family's story is a classic American immigrant success story. A young man from Germany arrived, built a business, founded institutions and raised a family that shaped the city's commercial life. Stories like this, repeated across the country, helped build America's cities in the Gilded Age.

It also reflects Jewish history in the South and West, which is often overlooked. Jewish merchants were a significant presence in towns and cities across Texas. They helped build local economies and the congregations and community organizations that followed.

Finally, the house is a notable example of Victorian residential architecture. It stayed with one family for almost ninety years and was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1962. Its survival keeps a piece of the Gilded Age visible in a city that has changed enormously since.

🧭If you visit

From the street, look for the details that show the house's Victorian and Eastlake character. These include the double gallery, the bay, the colored glass, the ornate woodwork and the intricate limestone detailing. Notice how the brick and cut stone work together. This was a house designed to impress.

Look for the carriage house as well, a two-story stick-style building built soon after the main house. Remember too that the family's first home, the one-story limestone cottage of 1873, stood on the neighboring lot. Together they show the family's rise from modest beginnings to prosperity.

The house is in the heart of Austin, so it fits well into a walking tour of the city's historic core, with the Capitol and older neighborhoods nearby. Please treat it with the respect due any historic home, and enjoy what it tells you about the Austin that immigrant merchants helped build.