The Hoya Buildings

The Hoya Buildings. . The Hoya family purchased the southwest corner of the Public Square in the 1830s when the lots were sold to pay the debts of the former Mexican commandant. In 1900 Charles Hoya commissioned architect D. Rulfs to replace the one-story building on the north and a two story building on the corner. The Nacogdoches Milam Lodge of the Masonic Order leased the second story of the corner building which had a fireplace and electric lights. Hoya leased the ground floors of both buildings to carious mercantile firms; sometimes the buildings operated separately, sometimes together. In 1906, music, pianos, and organs were being sold from the lower floor on the corner. The space was used for groceries in 1912, then in 1921, and in 1929, furniture and office space. Montgomery Ward and Jasper Furniture Companies were long term lessees., At the street level, the two buildings were very similar. Each had bay areas separated by cast iron columns, a flat wooden awning over the sidewalk, and horizontal windows over the awnings to light the interiors. The iron columns can still be seen on the corner building. The facades of both buildings, now stuccoed and heavily altered at street level, once had elaborate brickwork. The northern building had a stepped parapet, and the two-story building on the corner had three windows on the second floor with elaborate brick cornices, pilasters, inset panels and a clock over the center. Around the corner on Pilar Street, once can still view Rulfs' intricate decoration. He used available materials to create special effects: a red brick field with beige brick accents, a double band between the two floors, inset panels and a cornice decoration, and continuous corbel line to form arches over the windows. Between two-story pilasters in the center of the facade, Rulfs spaced three windows topped by a fan-shaped arch at the roof level.