THE BOOT ST O R I E S F R O M T H E T E X A S H I L L C O U N T RY
A M A ST E R D E P I C TS T H E H I L L CO U N T RY O N C A N VA S
T H E P E AC H STA N D T H AT G R E W I N TO A G LO B A L B U S I N E SS
FO R E V E R C A R S AND THREE MEN T H AT LO V E T H E M
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At one time a pioneer home, the Metzger House has been fully restored to become the Boot Ranch Metzger Market.
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A Pioneer Home Reborn
Boot Ranch residents love this historic home turned gathering place, but what makes the new market special comes down to every shingle and stone.
T
he developers of Boot Ranch faced a dilemma. Near the 9th hole on the golf course, and visible from the hilltop clubhouse, stood an old two-story house and small barn that had been uninhabited for decades. The stone-walled buildings were in danger of collapsing. Should the developers tear them down or shore them up? Bulldozing would have been the cheapest option by far. But these were not just any old structures. They were important reminders of Fredericksburg history. Built in the 1850s, they had first been occupied by some of the area’s early German settlers: Peter and Anna Metzger and their nine children. A tragic event was associated with them. While walking home from town on the snowy evening of February 8, 1865, two of the Metzger daughters were attacked by Native Americans. Eighteen-year-old Emma was killed. Fourteen-year-old Anna was captured and taken to a Native American camp in present-day Oklahoma. After escaping to a nearby trading post, she was brought back home in November. Given their history, tearing the buildings down
would have been a near-sacrilegious act. The developers decided to not only save the buildings, but to make them a community centerpiece. The old Metzger family home has become the Metzger Market, with a coffee bar, food mart, and gift shop. The barn has become a mail center that Boot Ranch residents visit nearly every day. Renovating and repurposing the buildings was not easy. Charged with the task were architect Don B. McDonald and builder Gabe Wilson of Centurion Homes. In the course of their work, they developed a greater appreciation for the design and craftsmanship evident in these early German-Hill Country homesteads—what might be labeled Fredericksburg vernacular architecture. “Most people like these old houses in the area without knowing why,” says McDonald. “On one level, it’s the materials they used, but it’s also the millwork and proportion of doors and windows.” He notes the way those early settlers oriented their homes to deal with the hot climate. “They turned their back on the sun in the west, with their front facing southeast to capture breezes in the open windows while keeping out the cold north wind,” he says. Today, market visitors can still enjoy these breezes on the reconstructed front porch, where McDonald intentionally left the wood unfinished in an effort to interpret, rather than directly reproduce,
the house as it had been. Sipping wine or coffee in a rocking chair while the setting sun casts a violet crown on the nearby hills, one can imagine Peter Metzger surveying the same view after a long day of farm work. McDonald spaced the six porch columns to correspond with the home’s carefully considered proportions. He preserved the size, scale, and location of the original doors and windows. His goal was to match the existing structure, reusing the locally harvested stone and wood where possible, and replicating when it was not. Wilson recalls the delicate process of preserving as much as possible during the initial disassembly work. “Because of the age of the building, we had to be sensitive to peeling back layers of an onion . . . inspecting each layer to make sure we were going down the right path,” he says. “The German construction overall shows that they didn’t cut corners. With lesser materials or shortcuts in the design, the building would not have lasted as long as it did.” The only original materials that had to be replaced were roof timbers, floor trusses, and some corroded mortar. Wilson and McDonald point to the market’s interior staircase as one of the best examples of German craftsmanship. Using a mortise and tenon joint technique, the original builders secured
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Reconstructed front porch at the Metzger Market, the mortise and tenon joint technique on the staircase, the view from the storage area at the top of the staircase.
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the staircase boards together like bones into sockets, without using nails. Wilson worked to preserve the staircase’s integrity while ensuring it would remain safe for daily access to the storage area on the second floor. He replaced a few treads with an oak hardwood, matching them with the same patina but otherwise left the structure untouched. When repurposing the buildings required new materials, the duo strove to find materials conducive with those of the original structures. For example, Wilson used fieldstone native to the area to match the old barn’s weathered stone when he converted it to the mail center. All of that hard work has not gone unappreciated by Boot Ranch members and employees. One long-time employee, Larry Meier, has family members who recall shearing sheep in the old barn that now houses the mail center. And it has served to preserve the memory of how difficult and dangerous life was for Fredericksburg’s original settlers. Recently, a Texas Historical Commission marker was erected beside the market. The plaque recounts what happened to the Metzger girls on that fateful day in February 1865. Anna and Emma will not be forgotten. The Metzger homestead shortly before renovation began in 2019.
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