The Penzell-Tuck Home
at 1503 Wilson Street

This farmhouse-style residence of local attorney Joe Grady Tuck is a study in the creative blending of old structures and materials with new. His home melds two historic structures, moved from other sites, with new construction and demonstrates a unifying vision and a respect for vintage materials. It also echoes a building technique found in some of Bastrop's older houses, where expansion occurred by attaching structures moved from elsewhere.

For the Penzell-Tuck Home—the work of local reconstruction specialists Tommy and Judi Hoover—the result is clearly more than the sum of its parts:

• The heart of the house is believed to have once been a medical office at nearby Camp Swift, a U.S. Army infantry training center during World War II and currently a training site for the Texas Army National Guard. On May 5, 1947, following the end of World War II, the federal War Assets Administration declared the facility excess property and disposed, over time through sale and grant, most of center's structures and extensive property. During this period, this solidly built building was sold and moved to a 40-acre site on the east side of Bastrop and situated on a bluff immediately northeast of the intersection of Highway 95 and Hoffman Road. Here it was "recommissioned" as a residence for many years, until it was bought by the Hoovers and moved to its Wilson Street site in 2007.
• The back half of the house with its covered porch dates from before 1880 and was originally a four-room house sited on Main Street and owned by Antone and Terressa Penzell. This house was bought by Richard and Clara Burger in 1890 and was home for their daughter Mina and her husband Hugo Kesselus during the early years of their marriage. In 1971, David Gholson rented the structure from then owner William Kesselus for his antique business, "My Great Aunt's Attic." When Mr. Kesselus sold the property a few years later, Mr. Gholson purchased the building for $300 and moved it to property on the southwest corner of Spring and Church Streets. The building later served as home to "Dawn's Early Light" bakery in the 1980's and thereafter fell into decline, remaining vacant for a period of time as the property passed through a series of owners. After the site was purchased by the City of Bastrop for creating the south parking lot of Bastrop's new public library on Church Street, the Hoovers purchased the building and moved it to the Wilson Street site in 2007.
• First to arrive on the Wilson Street site was the Penzell home, rotated to face the driveway along the north side of the lot. The Camp Swift structure was then brought in and, facing Wilson Street, was butted against the Penzell home. A new second floor was created over the Camp Swift building; a large covered porch and a one-story "L" were added on its front. The Hoovers recount that the Camp Swift component was so sturdily constructed that it was possible to detach the roof, lift it as a unit by crane, frame in the new second floor, and reposition the original roof atop the new second floor framing. This feat took a mere four days to accomplish.

With these elements in place, attention turned to the interior. In the Camp Swift component, the entry was reworked to include beautifully crafted double doors originally in the nearby Orgain House and given to the Hoovers more than 15 years before by then owners Joyce and Bob Gay. The doors open onto a spacious entry and living area, anchored by a large pine fireplace surround and mantel handcrafted by Tommy. Visible on the living room ceiling are heavy wooden beams made from "sinkers" retrieved from the Sabine River bottom and thought to be more than 100 years old.

A kitchen, with handmade cabinets of salvaged wood and a black walnut-topped island, was constructed on the right of the entry and sits between the newly added dining room on one side and a utility room and pantry on the other. Original pine flooring, much of which was securely covered with many layers of floor covering was painstakingly exposed and restored. Horizontally installed bead board—much of which was salvaged from the String Prairie store—covers the dining room walls and the kitchen walls and ceiling. The dining room floor is salvaged material as well: tear-drop profile clapboards reversed, sanded, and refinished.

The Penzell home experienced similar renewal. The two main rooms of this component have been joined to serve as a large master bedroom with a bay-window alcove added on the east wall. Take a moment to notice, on a wall in the bedroom, a small photograph—the wedding portrait of Mina and Hugo Kesselus—taken by J. S. Blagg, a photographer whose studio was on the same Main Street property where the couple's home originally stood.

The floors of the bedroom are original and in themselves a story—old-growth long leaf pine in random widths and face-nailed with square nails to joists of cedar logs with flattened tops. At the center of this area, the floor shows a square patch where a double sided coal burning fireplace once stood. Evidence of the wall once dividing this space can be seen here as well. On the south wall of this bedroom are doorways to what once were two small rooms under a shed roof. One has been rebuilt as the master bathroom while the other provides access to a large cedar faced closet.

Reconstructed in 2007-2008, the Penzell-Tuck Home has a legacy that encompasses materials, methods and events extending over 125 years of Bastrop's history.