Julius Yanch House - Main Street Historic District - Chappell Hill, TX
Posted by: 
Raven
N 30° 08.648 W 096° 15.424
14R E 764216 N 3337934
Constructed in 1854, the Julius Yanch House in the history-rich town of Chappell Hill, TX is one of the best documented nine "Contributing" residential homes within that town's NRHP-designated Main Street Historic District.
Waymark Code: WMN6AE
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/03/2015
Views: 2
Chappell Hill's NRHP Main Street Historic District is an area covering 36 buildings, most of them built between 1850 and 1915 and reflecting the many variations in architectural style within that period in history. For more information on this particular Historic District, please see the following waymark: (
visit link)
The founding of the town of Chappell Hill is contributed to Mary Hargrove Haller who purchased a 100-acre site in this part of Texas on February 2, 1847 and subsequently commissioned a survey and the plotting of town lots. Just three years later, Mary Haller and her husband Jacob began building a two-story frame house now known as the "Stagecoach Inn" at the northwest corner of the center of that new town.
On the northern side of the NRHP District, across from the "
Jabob Haller House" (another house Haller built along with the Stagecoach Inn, and also on NRHP District "Contributing Buildings" list) lies the Julius Yanch House. It is an L-shaped building constructed of cedar in 1854 by local builder Marcus Munyan and one of the NRHP District's best documented structures: its original contract includes prices and contains a detailed description of its plan and construction materials.
Per the
Texas Historical Commission Atlas records, it includes the following features:
"One-story, L-shape, cedar, wood-frame, vernacular residential structure with projecting gable and bay at north end. Front porch features large turned posts with fan brackets and balustrade with fanciful curvilinear cutout pattern. Rear brick chimney and underground cistern of limestone at rear entrance. Weatherboard siding with 6/6 windows surrounded with plain trim and architrave trim lintels. Gabled roof covered with stand- seam metal roof. Original contract for the construction of the house by Marcus Munyan for $175 indicated that structure had 17 x 34 feet perimeter, three paneled doors, five windows, cedar shingled roof, and a single 17- foot partition. Center west front of projecting bay originally contained a chimney bordered by single window. When 1930s fire destroyed chimney, present pair of windows added. Front porch with scroll brackets and posts, as well as projecting end bay, added to the original two room dwelling sometime before 1911. Present balustrade and bath added in the 1960s. Also in 1960s, residence was leveled and repaired. A wooden rear patio deck has been installed in recent times. Only outbuilding on the property is a wooden storage building constructed in 1981."
The house also includes a Texas Historical marker, which reads:
"Prime example of pioneer Texas architecture. Built for Yanch in 1854 by M. P. Munyan, contractor for many early Chappell Hill structures. Cedar construction with tongue and groove flooring; chimney, underground cistern of native limestone. -- Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 1968"