Johann and Anna Heidgen House, Historic residence in San Antonio, United States.
The Johann and Anna Heidgen House is a residential building on Starr Street in San Antonio featuring thick limestone walls and a gabled roof with covered porches extending around the structure. The house maintains its original stone construction while now serving as office space in the downtown area.
German stonemason Johann Heidgen built the house at 121 Starr Street around 1882, three blocks northeast of the Alamo, after he and his wife Anna Barbara had moved to San Antonio in 1852. The couple raised thirteen children, eight of whom reached adulthood. The Heidgen family sold the property in 1907; it passed through several owners before businessman Charles A. Zilker and his wife Pearl bought it, and in 1968 the Zilker heirs donated it to the San Antonio Conservation Society.
The house is also called the Heidgen-Zilker House after Charles A. Zilker, who bought it in 1909 and whose heirs gave it to the San Antonio Conservation Society in 1968. From 1970 the Camp Fire Girls and Boys used it as a youth facility, and a restaurant later occupied the building.
The building is located near downtown San Antonio and is easily accessible on foot, though it currently functions as a private office building. Visitors should note that this is an active business space and viewing is limited to the exterior of the structure.
One exterior wall of the house sits directly against the Acequia Madre de Valero, a historic irrigation system developed in the 18th century by Spanish Franciscan priests and Payaya people. This direct connection reveals how later immigrant structures incorporated the infrastructure that had already shaped the region for generations.
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