History of the House

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111 West Hackberry Street is a single-family residence that was built in 1920. Over time the house fell into disrepair and was covered in yellow caution tape to discourage anyone from attempting to enter the property. Ray and Joan purchased the property in 1995 with the intent to restore it to its former glory. 

When they bought the house, it had no insulation and no A/C or heating. Although the original hardwood floor was in place, you could also see the dirt ground beneath some of the joints in the wood flooring. The large kitchen was added onto the house by Ray and Joan. Originally the house stopped at the dining room, and what is now the dining room was a small kitchen. The house had a pot belly stove in the corner of the living room for heating and cooking. You can see the remnants of where it was in the dining and living room today. If you look on the other side of the dining room built in shelves and the brick chimney wall, you will see a small square in the wall. This is where the stove pipe from the wood stove entered the chimney. The chimney is still on the roof. 

Another amazing piece of history with the house is the claw foot tub. This tub is original to the house. When the house was built there was just one bathroom that was accessed by leaving the house to go outside, going out on to the side porch and entering a very small bathroom. The side porch has now been turned into our laundry room. And the original small bathroom is now accessible from inside the house and is the bathroom that is connected to the Queen Bedroom Suite. 

When we purchased the home in 2021, we made the decision to continue to update and maintain the original characteristics of the home while bringing some additional modern luxury touches. We moved the claw foot tub into the new bathroom that is attached to the King Bedroom Suite. This is where we really wanted to bring in every modern convenience while still maintaining the historic nature of the house. You will find dual vanity sinks, marbles floors, and an oversized large marble shower with double rain head showers and two handheld shower wands. And adding to those modern touches, we have kept the original claw foot tub, the intricate embellished ceiling, and custom crown molding and trim to bring you back in time to the history that this house contains. We also updated the bathroom attached to the Queen Bedroom Suite, this bathroom now also has a large marble walk in shower with rain shower head and handheld shower wand. But in keeping with the history of the house, we kept the custom stained-glass window with the heart, the antique ceiling light fixture, and custom crown molding.

Another change we made to the house was to add a hot tub to the courtyard area and build a cabana over it. We used the same blue painted ceiling and white trim that you will find on the front porch ceilings. There are many reasons why you will sometimes see historic homes with blue ceilings: Some believe it helps to ward off insects, some say it helps to deter birds from building nests in the framing, both with the reasoning that the blue tricks them into thinking it is the sky. We also were able to save some of the metal roofing from a previous shed on the property, and we used that metal to create the metal roof on the cabana so that it matches the metal roof of the main house. And for adding additional modern touches to the cabana, we installed a lighted ceiling fan to provide both some light and a cooling breeze if you are spending time in the cabana during the warm months.

Another interesting part of the history of the home is the front porch. You may wonder why there are two front doors! In the historic days of Fredericksburg, church pastors would make house calls to visit with their parishioners. When the church pastor or any other guest for that matter came over, the family in the house might want to keep their messy house hidden away. The second front door was a way to have one small room for receiving guests that could be shut off from the rest of the house, and the guest would not see if they happened to have a messy kitchen or any of the other rooms. It could also be a way to keep children and other family members in a more private area, so as not to interrupt the discussion with the visiting guest.

The original antique cistern water pump is in the courtyard, this used to go to the onsite water well. Although it is no longer functional, we have kept both the pump and the windmill onsite to retain the history of the home.

With over 100 years of history in this home, it is our pleasure to be its new caretakers so that we may preserve its beauty and share it with you, our special guests.

See the transformation by scrolling to the right across the pictures below!