Book Signing Event: The Architectural Legacy of Alfred Giles - 7/29

Meet author, Mary Carolyn Hollers George, and have her sign a copy of her newest book on Alfred Giles and his enduring contributions to Texas architecture.

Darlene Marwitz - local historical preservation consultant and owner of Villa Texas (234 West Mainin Uptown Fredericksburg, Texas)- will display a period photograph of the Gillespie County Courthouse (one of Alfred Giles' enduring legacies). A copy will be donated to the Gillespie County Historical Society Archives. Additionally, special orders can be placed at Villa Texas for a reproduction of the period photograph - a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Gillespie County Historical Society.

The Architectural Legacy of Alfred Giles (retail $60.00) contains before-and-after photographs of restored buildings in San Antonio and the Hill Country of Texas, including: the Albert Maverick Building, the Crockett, Soledad, and University Blocks, and the L. Wolfson’s Mercantile Store, all in downtown San Antonio; San Antonio residences including the Carl Groos Residence, the Maverick-Carter House, the Floyd McGown Residence, and the James Milton Vance Residence; the Second Gillespie County Courthouse in Fredericksburg; the August Faltin Store, Ingenhuett-Faust Hotel, and the Post Office, all in Comfort; and various other buildings in the Hill Country area.

After emigrating from England, Alfred Giles practiced architecture in Texas and northern Mexico from 1873 until 1920. He designed unpretentious domestic residences and showy mansions, county courthouses, and institutional and commercial structures throughout Texas. Giles was the architect-of-choice for prominent families of San Antonio, Comfort, Kerrville, and other central Texas towns. He designed a dozen county courthouses, of which six survive, as well as more than forty buildings at Fort Sam Houston, a National Historic Landmark.

In the last thirty years, many of Giles’s works, which were in sad states of repair, have been restored—largely as a result of the interest in Giles created by Mary Carolyn Hollers George’s first book on the architect, Alfred Giles: An English Architect in Texas and Mexico (Trinity University Press, 1972).