Summary
The R.J. Hill building is a concrete block 2-part commercial building located in downtown Palacios, Texas on a flat lot at the corner of Commerce Street and 4th Street, approximately a block and a half north of Tres Palacios Bay. It is a 2-story building with a 40-foot by 80-foot rectangular footprint, its narrower facades facing north and south and its longer facades facing east and west. Its primary, or north, facade faces Commerce Street, and its secondary facade fronts 4th Street to the east. Built in 1910, the Hill Building is a stout masonry structure with Richardsonian Romanesque stylistic elements such as round arches and decorative brickwork. The building is constructed of 16-inch by 8-inch cast concrete blocks, made on site, textured to resemble stone, and set with thin mortar joints. The blocks are identical to one another but are randomly inverted to avoid a monotonous appearance. Historically, the lower level had an open floor plan for the retail space and the upper level was a residence. Currently, both floors have open floor plans, as the interior has been gutted for renovation and transformation into museum space for the Palacios Area Historical Association.
Description
The main facade of the building is roughly symmetrical but lacks clearly defined bays, with four ground-floor openings, five second floor openings, and three parapet-level divisions. The first floor is comprised of four large arched openings that contain storefront windows and the building entrance. The arches are placed slightly off-center, so that the westernmost arch fits within the fa9ade and the slightly shorter easternmost arch, which contains the entrance, projects approximately a foot outside the edge of the facade. This creates the illusion that the five upper floor windows are off-center, when in fact they are centrally placed.
The four openings of the ground floor each feature decorative round arches comprised of several rows of red brick headers and a cast concrete keystone. A semicircular window with four wedge-shaped panes is located within each of the arches. The arches rest on cast concrete engaged columns atop concrete block pedestals. The columns have smooth shafts with entasis, bulbous bases and hypotrachelia, and blocky square-profile capitals. Between the columns are the storefront windows and entry. The easternmost arch is slightly shorter than the other three, and is paired with a matching arch that faces east toward 4th Street. Together, these corner arches each project slightly beyond the northeast corner of the building, meeting at a single freestanding column with a modified Ionic capital. Beneath this corner archway is the main building entrance, inset and placed at an angle. Its broad sidelights and transoms are set at a slight angle to the double entry doors, creating a concave appearance. Historically, a second entrance, also inset into the building, was located two arches to the west. Both the two storefronts and the two entrances originally had leaded glass transoms comprised of small beveled squares of glass. Today, the second entrance has been filled in to resemble the other two non-entrance openings, so that the facade has the comer entry only and three storefront windows. The beveled glass transoms have been recently restored to their historic appearance.
The upper portion of the north facade contains the second story windows and a parapet. There are five windows at the second story, grouped in an AABAA pattern—four 1/1 wood sash double hung windows, and one larger window in the center that is twice as wide as the other four and comprised of two 1/1 double-hung windows placed side by side. Above each window is a round-arched hoodmold of red brick headers, and
above each window, in the arch, is a semicircular window. At the sill level of the windows is a corbelled stringcourse consisting of three rows of bricks. It continues around the entire perimeter of the building. The parapet level is demarcated by another stringcourse that circumscribes the building. At parapet level, three panel-like divisions are created by four sets of paired vertical strips of brick, each bracketing a smooth engaged cylinder of concrete. In the center panel is a cast concrete sign which reads "R.J.HILL. 1910."
Above this, running the width of the building, is a shelf-like corbelled band, nine rows of brick high, with stretchers and evenly spaced headers creating a pattern of regular vertical lines. This too runs the entire perimeter of the building.
The east facade of the building, which faces 4th Street, has similar vertical organization and decorative details, but the fenestration differs. The ground floor has an asymmetrical arrangement. On the north end is the single open archway that frames the inset main entrance. Like the arches on the front facade, it is brick with a cast concrete keystone and is supported by cast concrete columns. On the southern end of the east
facade is a secondary storefront window with concrete sill flanked by two pairs of double entry doors. The southernmost entry door likely provided access to the second-floor residence. Above each of the doors and the storefront window is a round brick arch, each connected to the next. The identical arches, each comprised of brick headers, spring from strips of corbelled cast concrete and contain semicircular windows. The trio of arches is smaller than the larger arches of the main elevation and entry; to be exact, the top of these arches matches the height of the springing point of the entry arch. Between the north and south entrances are five small semicircular windows, each framed by a brick round arch and a concrete sill. They are placed high on the wall. Historically, a flat awning stretched across both the north and east facades. It was placed between the storefront windows and capping arches on the main facade, so that the semicircular windows in the arches provided light to the indoors. On the east facade, the shorter height of the southern storefront meant that both the doors and upper semicircular windows were below the awning. The five smaller semicircular windows high on the wall were placed just above the level of the awning, to admit additional light to the interior. Today, the building does not have an awning. The second floor and parapet level of the east facade are similar to those of the shorter main fa9ade. Six second floor windows, identical to the smaller size windows of the main facade, are spaced evenly across the fa9ade. The parapet is divided into three equal panel-like portions with the same decorative vertical strips of brick that are found on the main facade.
The west facade contains no windows or doors on the first floor. The second floor parapet level decoration is identical to that of the east facade, but the second-floor fenestration differs slightly—it contains only five evenly spaced windows instead of six. At the north end of the west facade is a large rectangular painted mural, faded with age. It reads "DRY-GOODS" in hand-painted block letters. Below this several rows of
masonry blocks were at one time painted over and/or washed clean, as no further text appears and a large span of blocks appears obscured. Adjacent to the west side facade is a narrow strip of empty land between the Hill Building and its next-door building. The lack of windows on the first floor of the west facade, however, suggests that the Hill Building's builder planned for the possible future construction of a one-story building attached to its west wall.
The south, or rear, facade looks onto the wide side lawn of the Luther Hotel and Tres Palacios Bay beyond. On the first floor are five small windows in two rows, with three windows in the lower row located very low to the ground, and two windows in the upper row. They are grouped in an ABA pattern, in that the center window of the lower row does not have an upper window above it. The upper row of windows is located on
what could have been a mezzanine or staircase landing level. All five windows have heavy, fiat concrete lintels and smaller concrete sills. Each window contains two double hung windows immediately adjacent to one other. The second floor is identical to the second floor of the main fa9ade, with four smaller and one larger arched window opening in an AABAA pattern. The parapet level brickwork is identical to that of the
main facade, as well.
The interior of both floors currently have open plans and are in the process of being converted into gallery, office, and storage space for the City by the Sea Museum of the Palacios Area Historical Association. A staircase connecting the two floors is located toward the rear of the building.
Statement of Significance
Built in 1910, the R.J. Hill Building is one of the oldest commercial buildings in the town of Palacios, Matagorda County, Texas. The two-story Richardsonian Romanesque building, constructed of cast concrete blocks, retains most of its original historic fabric and design features including the round-arched entries and window openings indicative of the style. The R.J. Hill Building reflects the economic growth of Palacios in the early 20th century, a time when the town was being promoted as a seaside resort. The building has been a mainstay of Palacios' small downtown district, serving variously as a general store, a doctor's office, a beer parlor and other commercial uses throughout its history. It is currently undergoing exterior restoration and interior renovation for use as a local museum. Commanding a corner lot, the imposing building replaced a wood frame general store building built by Hill at the turn of the 20th century. Within a few years the business outgrew its confines, prompting Hill to build a larger, more permanent commercial building. It anchors one end of downtown Palacios. The R.J. Hill Building vividly demonstrates the town's expanding economic growth in the early 20th century and therefore is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places at the local level under Criterion A for Commerce. A local landmark, the R.J. Hill Building is perhaps Palacios' most ambitious and architecturally significant commercial building. The use of cast concrete blocks that were manufactured on site is an unusual and striking feature of the building. Because it is such a noteworthy and intact building, it is also nominated under Criterion C as a good local example of Romanesque stylistic influences in a commercial building.