Sebastopol
All pictures were sent by Sarah Reveley
Prepared for the web site by Wanda Qualls
| Sebastopol This Greek Revival House was built in 1854-1856 by Joshua W. Young with unreinforced, loadbearing walls of cast-in-place limecrete, an early form of concrete made of lime, sand, and gravel. Joseph Zorn, Jr., Mayor of Seguin from 1890 to 1910, bought the house in 1874 and it remained in his family until 1961. One of many concrete structures built in Seguin, this is an important surviving example of early concrete technology in the southwest. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964 Entered in the National Register of Historic Places - 1970 |
| After the Zorn family
moved out of Sebastopol in 1952, the house fell into disrepair. It
was marked for demolition in 1960, but the Seguin Conservation Society purchased
and renovated the Structure. As time passed, the house developed structural
problems beyond resources of the local group, so they sold it to the Parks
and Wildlife Department in 1976. The instability of the limecrete frustrated restoration architects for a number of years until a suitable solution for preserving the physical integrity of the house was devised. Today Sebastopol stands as a monument to those early construction pioneers who envisioned sturdy and durable structures rising from the stuff of the earth. Restoration craftsmen and plasterers spent many long hours on scaffolding recreating the 19th century appearance of Sebastopol. |
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