Home Tour to show off Scott Street cabin from 1901

The Circa 1901 side gabled cottage at 515 Scott Street, is a national folk style residential treasure. It retains original wood siding and the original wood windows. The hipped roof rear addition and the enclosed hipped roof side porch are both also of historic age. Because the house has retained integrity over the years, it is eligible to contribute to a National Register of Historic Places district.

The house is most remembered for its legendary garden. The original stacked stone retaining wall along the property perimeter frames what may have been the most beautiful flower garden in San Marcos. When Will and Florence Joiner lived in the house for decades with their two daughters Ruth and Hellen, almost any flower that could survive in the Hill Country could be found at that address. Flowers covered both the front and rear yards of the house.

When Will and Florence passed away, they left the lot next door to their daughter Hellen, and the house to Ruth, a San Marcos High School Physical Education teacher.

The current owners, Irving and Rachel Seligman, are only the 4th owners to live in the house in over 100 years. They have totally and lovingly renovated the kitchen, bathroom, sunroom and a bedroom, much of the work done by Irving himself. They have kept and restored the original long leaf pine floors and much of the historic interior. Their love of color is evident from the moment you first glimpse the house.

The Seligmans say they love the large trees and great “energy” of the area. For them, it has been an adventure to find the stories of old San Marcos that are literally told by the evidence still found in their house and yard. The old Ice House that once served the surrounding hillside area is still on the property. The cut-out on the street side where ice would be loaded into the structure for the town to use is still there.

Recently, they found, and excavated, a spectacular brick patio behind the house that had long been buried. From the patio, looking west onto adjacent land, one can see perhaps the neighborhood’s oldest building, a small one-room wooden structure whose purpose and origins are unclear, but has long been rumored to be a historic one-room schoolhouse. During the tour, guests are encouraged to stroll closer to that “mystery building” down a paved private road, and to inform the attending docent of anything pertinent they might know. Behind the wooden structure, though not visible from any guest-accessible vantage point, there is remaining evidence of an ancient rutted path, clearly an old “buggy trail,” which was the inspiration for this year’s tour theme.

The Seligman home will also host the traditional lemonade-and-cookie respite, sponsored by the Damron Group. The HASM hopes everyone will take this tour in leisurely fashion, pausing for refreshment, and trying to imagine what life back then must have been like.

Heritage Home Tour 2024 will occur May 4-5, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Advance tickets are $25, available at the Chamber of Commerce, or online at www.heritagesanmarcos. org. The self-guided tour begins at the newly renovated Cock House Museum, 400 E. Hopkins, where tickets will be exchanged for a handstamp and tour materials. Breakfast coffee and pastries, and an old-fashioned bake sale, will start the tour.

Tickets at the door $30, children and docents halfprice.