Elias Edmonds House

419 King William StREET

The Elias Edmonds House is a Texas German Vernacular house built with locally quarried limestone and it has a front gable. The two-story, three-bay front porch has square columns with decorative brackets.

According to Bexar County deed records, Co. Elias Edmonds, attorney, bought the two lots where this house is located from F. G. Smith in September, 1874, F. G. Smith had purchased them in 1871 from Thomas J. Devine. The colonel bought the third lot on the north side of the property from Thomas Devine in February, 1878. The city directory lists Col. Edmonds and his wife, Lucy, at this address for the first time in 1879. This would place the date of the house between 1875 and 1878. At the same location Mrs. Edmonds conducted a young ladies boarding and day school, of which she was the principal.

This was the Edmonds’ home until about 1915. In 1924, Dr. Amos and Catherine Graves bought the house. The next owners were Dr. Otto and Virginia Cowdin Potthast, who purchased the property in 1938. Dr. Potthast’s nephew and his wife, Henry and Louse Potthast, owned the house from 1976 until 1990. During their time there the porch, which had missing, was reconstructed. When compared to pictures of the original, it is very similar. James and Dorothy Winget continued the restoration and added a bedroom, sun room and kitchen designed by Ron Bechtol in 1993. The current owner is Sheila Winget Murray, who grew up in the neighborhood and remembers as a child walking atop this fence before the wrought iron was installed.

The King William Area, A History and Guide to the Houses, Mary V. Burkholder and Jessie N.M. Simpson; published by the King William Association, 2017