Guthrie Building - Kerrville, TX - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

Per a Texas Historical Marker on the front of the building:

"In continuous use since 1887, this building is one of the oldest in Kerr County. It is named for newspaper publisher Robert Guthrie, who was born in Scotland where generations of his family ran the same newspaper. Robert established the Kerrville Eye in May 1884 as the successor to the News that his father John began printing in 1882. John also published papers in Bandera and Boerne.

In May 1887, Robert Guthrie bought this property for a new office for his newspaper and other commercial interests. Contractor W.B. Davies finished the stone building by the fall for the sum of $2,600. The Guthrie Hotel operated on the second floor. In November 1888, Guthrie sold his building and newspaper business to Ed Smallwood, who changed the name of the Kerrville Paper. Smallwood was elected on of Kerrville’s first aldermen in 1889, and he ran the Paper until August 1899, when Jesse Grinstead bought the business and changed the name to the Mountain Sun. Grinstead was Kerrville’s mayor from 1902 to 1904 and was later elected to the state legislature. He continued publishing the newspaper at this location until 1907.

Later tenants included Kerrville’s City Hall on the second floor (1910-1937), and the Wheelus Photographic Company on the first floor (1921-1960). Cleveland and Gertrude Wheelus built a projecting addition with two glass display windows in 1926, but it was removed in the 1980s when the building was restored to its original appearance. The Guthrie Building is a two-story Italianate style commercial structure. Walls are 15-inch thick limestone from a quarry just east of Kerrville. Ashlar stones are laid in irregular courses, and prominent architectural features include belt courses, smooth dressed window lintels and sills, quoins, and a two-story full-length gallery porch with decorative cornice and dentils."

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A full description of this 1887 structure and its historical significance is truly best described by its original NRHP nomination form (available as a PDF download on the Texas Historical Commission's Atlas website). It states:

The 1887 Guthrie Building, named after newspaperman Robert Guthrie, is a two-story, rectangular-plan commercial building in the Italianate style constructed from limestone quarried just east of Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas. The building's rusticated masonry is laid in a random ashlar pattern, with rusticated quoins embellishing the corners. String courses of smooth, dressed stone appear on the rear facade at the window sills of the first story, and on all four sides of the building on the second story at lintels and sills. An original, well-worn limestone step stone graces the Main Street entry. The wood porch that runs the full length of the major facade features four square posts on both floors, and a decorative rail of turned spindles wraps around the porch on the second floor. The cornice of the major facade features a decorative course of dentils. [It is] the longtime home of several Kerrville newspapers and other local businesses, and the location of the Kerrville City Hall for nearly 30 years [...]

Exterior

Northwest (major) facade

The Guthrie Building's major facade faces Earl Garrett Street. Its dominant feature is the two-story wooden porch that nearly spans the full elevation; it stops at the edges of the rusticated stone quoins that mark the building's corners. The porch was restored in the early 1980s to match that which appears in a photograph from the 1890s. On both the first and second stories the porch is supported by four slender, square posts, each with a single thin, wood collar around its upper third; each post also features a squared wood base with beveled edges. A balustrade of turned posts and a simple railing wraps around the porch at the second floor. A wood cornice, just below the porch roofline, returns toward the stone building and wraps around it, while a decorative course of dentils appears below only the cornice of the porch structure and does not wrap the building.

The ground floor features a central entrance of paired wood panel doors with transom lights above them. A pair of 3-over-3 double-hung wood windows flanks the entrance. The upper floor features three 2-over-2 double-hung wood windows. Each of the facade's five windows features smooth dressed limestone lintels and sills; the paired entrance doors are spanned by a matching lintel. On the upper floor, a band or course of smooth dressed stone sits just below the lintels, connecting the windows. Rusticated stone quoins adorn the corners of the building.

Northeast facade

The long, four-bay Main Street facade features similar details as on the other elevations. All windows are 2-over-2 wood double-hung sash. From left to right, the lower level features openings in its flrst three bays—two windows flanking an entrance. The windows feature smooth dressed lintels and sills, and the entrance, original to the building, is a wood 4-panel door with 2-light transom and limestone sill.

The second floor features four windows, all of which feature the same stepped lintel course and sill-level string course as on the other facades. The frieze and cornice of the roofline are simple, with the same profile and dimension—but without the dentils—as used on the replicated porch on the northwest facade. Two limestone chimneys rise above the roofline; their details include two projecting courses spaced in similar proportion to the string courses on the building facades.

Southeast facade

The rear facade of the Guthrie Building has three windows on the lower level, one central door flanked by two windows on the upper level, all with smooth dressed sills and lintels. The windows on both levels are 2-over-2 double-hung wood and feature the stepped string course incorporating the lintels; the top floor windows feature the sill-level string course. A wooden dog-leg stair with open risers provides access and egress from the upper level door. The stair structure features square posts and rail elements. The roofline features the same simple frieze and cornice as on the northeast and southwest facades.

Southwest facade

From 1910 until 1982, the Guthrie Building shared its southwest wall with a one-story wood frame structure. Today a small green space occupies the lot, and the Guthrie Building's long southwest elevation can be seen in its entirety, including three windows on the lower floor, and four on the upper floor, almost completely matching the opposite Main Street facade. Each of the 2-over-2 double-hung wood windows features the smooth dressed sills and lintels, and the upper floor features the sill-level string course and stepped course at the lintel level. The roofline features the same simple frieze and cornice as on the northeast and southeast facades.

Roof and Foundation

The roof is a hipped roof with a low pitch, not visible from the street level, with two projecting garden-side chimneys. The foundation is pier and beam.

Interior

The interior walls are coursed rubble limestone with no flnish, although it is likely that they were originally plastered and not intended to appear unfinished. The 15-inch thick stone walls show different coursing on exterior and interior surfaces, conveying the nature of rubble masonry. They give the impression of solid construction and demonstrate the prevalence of limestone in the area. Windows, door surrounds, and mantels are painted wood with simple details. The building currently accommodates a lawyers' practice, with a reception area, four offices, a conference room, small kitchen and restroom on the first floor. The second floor has two front and two rear offices, a conference room, restroom, small kitchen, and waiting area at the top of the stairwell.

Restoration, 1982-1984

Bruce Rieck and his father-in-law Thomas C. Syfan formed the Guthrie Building Partnership in 1981 with the objective to restore the Guthrie Building to its original 1887 appearance. The Austin-based architecture firm of Bell, Klein & Hoffman served as the restoration team; Binnie Hoffman began historical research, and John Klein served as the principal architect for the project. The restoration was drawn out over two years due to the bankruptcy of the project's contractor. North American Restoration Corporation of Minnesota, but was completed in 1984.

From 1910 to 1982, the Guthrie Building had shared a common wall with a one-story, wood-frame structure, resulting in the enclosure of the garden-side's first floor window openings and all fireplaces. This wood building was demolished in 1982 and the Guthrie's windows reopened, but the most dramatic effect of the restoration was accomplished by the removal of a projecting brick-and-glass facade that had been added to the first floor in 1926 for the display of photographs.

According to Bell, Klein & Hoffman project records, on file in the Austin History Center, the new limestone for the lower level front facade—obtained from the same quarry east of Kerrville as the original—was stained with iron sulphate to match the original stone. Quoins that had been removed in 1926 at the first floor level of the front facade were replaced during the restoration. The Nixon Roofing Company removed a weather-beaten metal roof and replaced it with a new standing-seam roof to closely match the original. Other exterior work completed during this project included the repointing of stonework and chimneys, and the reopening of fireplaces.

Based upon Sanborn fire insurance maps, an exterior stairwell was rebuilt in its original 1898 location; an upper rear access door may have been moved over time, but it is now in its original location. On the major facade, the two-story porch was reconstructed based upon early historic photographs of the building. Using a window removed from the building as a template, Stein Furniture & Fixtures of Fredericksburg rebuilt some window and door frames and restored others; the company also restored or replaced post top caps, dentils, cornice trim, rails, doors, transoms, windows, door and window frames, and porch columns, as needed.

Plaster was removed from the interior walls to reveal the rubble limestone surface. An original metal ceiling, present until 1946, had been altered in the 1950s by the Wheelus family.i The rehabilitation included installation of a new headboard ceiling. An interior stairway was added to lead up to the second floor offices that occupy the former city hall offices.

A printing press and other machinery from the building's newspaper days had remained in a small, rear basement until 1960, when new flooring was installed in the basement. During the restoration this basement was filled in, and new flooring was installed throughout the first floor.

Street address: 241 Earl Garrett St Kerrville, TX USA 78028 County / Borough / Parish: Kerr County Year listed: 2011 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Commerce; Politics/Government; Architecture (Italianate) Periods of significance: 1875-1899; 1900-1924; 1925-1949; 1950-1974 Historic function: Commerce (commercial building); Government (City Hall) Current function: Commerce (law firm) Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Secondary Website 2: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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