Holt House
Bluff Dale, Erath County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This house was built around 1895 by Dr. Hardy L. Holt and his wife, Isabella "Belle" Victoria Gordon. Dr. H.L. Holt (1844-1914) was a First Lieutenant in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Later, he studied medicine and became a pioneer physician in Bluff Dale. He opened the town's first drugstore, which also contained an ice cream parlor. This two-story, side-gabled house with Folk Victorian and Queen Anne elements replaced the Holt's first home after it burned. Notable features include the wrap-around porch and balcony, turned wood columns, a projecting portico and lapped wood siding. A wrought-iron fence borders the front of house, which remains a significant part of Bluff Dale's history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dr. Hardy L. Holt, a Confederate first lieutenant in the Civil War, later studied medicine and became a pioneer physician in Bluff Dale, where he opened the town's first drugstore—complete with an ice cream parlor. Around 1895 he and his wife, Belle, built this two-story Folk Victorian and Queen Anne home to replace an earlier house lost to fire. Its wrap-around porch and balcony, turned columns, and wrought-iron fence still mark it as a landmark of the town's early days.
Why it matters
The home ties a Confederate veteran's postwar reinvention as a country doctor to the settling of the Texas hill country in the late nineteenth century.
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Related people
- · Hardy L. Holt
- · Isabella "Belle" Victoria Gordon
Themes & tags
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