Edward Steves Homestead, Second Empire mansion in King William Historic District, San Antonio, United States.
Edward Steves Homestead is a four-bedroom limestone house with a mansard roof and 13-inch-thick exterior walls, completed in 1877. The property also holds a frame-and-stone carriage house from 1875, a one-story brick river house that once contained San Antonio's first natatorium, and a servants' quarters built in 1877.
The main house was completed in 1877 for $15,000, designed by Alfred Giles while employed by John H. Kampmann. Edward Steves, a German-born San Antonio alderman, ran the Steves Lumber Company from 1866 to 1877. His granddaughter Edna Steves Vaughan and her husband Curtis deeded the house to the San Antonio Conservation Society in 1952; the society restored it as a museum, which closed in 2022 and was sold to a private buyer.
The mansion displays the lifestyle of German merchants in Texas through original furnishings, including a mosaic table depicting St. Peter's Square. The way rooms are arranged and decorated shows how a wealthy German-American family lived during this period.
The main house museum closed in 2022 and was sold to a private buyer, so interior tours are no longer offered. Visitors can still view the four structures from the street: the main house, the 1875 carriage house, the 1877 servants' quarters and the river house. The property lies within the King William Historic District, which can be explored on foot.
The river house contained one of San Antonio's first indoor swimming pools, a luxury that was rare at the end of the 1800s. The main house also received early electrical wiring and telephone lines, making it a technological leader among homes in the region.
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