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SAN BENITO — Decades after standing as the city’s most cherished architectural treasure, the former Stonewall Jackson Hotel has been christened a Texas historical landmark.
After the San Benito Housing and Development Corporation applied for the recognition earlier this month, the Texas Historical Commission designated the 96-year-old building a “recorded Texas historic landmark,” leading the agency to award an official Texas Historical Marker.
“The Texas Historical Commission has recognized the Stonewall Jackson Hotel as a significant part of Texas history,” the commission states. “The designation honors the Stonewall Jackson Hotel as an important and educational part of local history and recognizes its architectural integrity as a historic structure.”
HISTORICAL DESIGNATION TO ENHANCE SALE
The housing authority, which bought the city’s former grand hotel 10 years ago, applied for the designation as part of its plan to sell the three-story building after the agency scraped a proposed renovation project when its costs climbed too high.
Now, officials are counting on the Stonewall Jackson’s designation to help sell the building, Art Rodriguez, the housing authority’s executive director, said.
“Before, we just had a building. Now we have a historically recognized building,” he said during an interview. “We’ll have a different type of buyer interested now that it’s a historical building. We’re looking at anyone who might have an interest in restoring the building — an investor.”
RENOVATION COSTS CLIMBING
The cost of renovating the Stonewall Jackson has dramatically climbed since the housing authority bought the building 10 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Stonewall Jackson continues to decay.
After the agency paid $220,000 for the Stonewall Jackson in 2013, a previous administration contracted the architectural firm Megamorphosis Design to conduct a story to determine the cost of renovating the building to its original condition.
At the time, officials said the firm estimated the renovation project to cost about $3.4 million.
When the housing authority requested Megamorphosis Design update its study in 2019, the firm’s estimate jumped from $6 million to $7 million, officials said.
Today, Rodriguez estimates the cost of renovating the building has climbed to about $10 million, in part the result of the continuing escalation of material costs from the coronavirus pandemic’s supply chain crisis.
“Materials’ costs have skyrocketed,” he said.
HARD SALE?
For decades, area leaders dreamed of taking on one of the region’s greatest renovation projects.
Now, officials are counting on an investor to save a priceless piece of the city’s history.
“Will it be a hard sale — we’re asking them to rehab it,” Rodriguez said. “I may have a task that I may not be able to accomplish. There aren’t many options. We’re not thinking of demolishing it. That’s the last thing we have not discussed. It means a lot of the community, to the people of San Benito, to the history of San Benito.”
SOUTH TEXAS MONUMENT
For about five months, Sandra Tumberlinson, a co-founder of the San Benito Historical Society, worked to research the building’s history as she applied on behalf of the housing authority for the historical commission’s designation.
In 2013, the housing authority’s purchase likely saved the building, she states in her application.
“The building began to deteriorate, creating a public eyesore, and residents feared that demolition of the former community anchor seemed inevitable,” she wrote.
Opened in 1927, the grand hotel marked an era in which land barons courted northern businessmen who helped transform the city into an agricultural mecca.
During the city’s heyday, the building stood as the area’s social hub.
“In the 1920s, San Benito was booming,” Tumberlinson said during an interview.
The city’s leaders build the Stonewall Jackson as “a monument to the success of visionary people who harnessed the Rio Grande river to bring agriculture to the nation via a railroad that brought northern land seekers to this area and created the need for a magnificent place to stay,” she wrote in her application to the historical commission.
To build the grand hotel, the city’s leaders hired architect Harvey P. Smith to design the building.
“The planners thought so much of the building, they hired the premier architect in Texas,” Tumberlinson said. “They wanted the best of the best.”
DEEP IN THE CITY’S HEART
When she was growing up, the Stonewall Jackson was part of her life, Tumberlinson said.
As she researched the hotel’s history, her parents’ stories came alive.
“I grew up hearing stories from my parents about weddings, parties and other functions at the hotel, and as I walked the lobby and patio during my research, I could see the unique tile work found in my parents wedding photos,” she stated, adding her parents Raul and Celia Longoria hosted their wedding reception on the hotel’s patio in 1946.
“I could hear the big bands playing and the brides squealing from the staircase as they tossed their bouquets,” she stated.
As a young teacher, she got a chance to live some of the Stonewall Jackson’s majesty.
“I was fortunate that the hotel was still open when I began my teaching career so I also attended functions there,” she stated.
In the hotel’s sprawling lobby hung nationally renowned Texas artist Royston Nave’s portrait of Stonewall Jackson, now showcased at the Museum of San Benito in the city’s Community Building.
“It is saddening to see the beautiful artwork and patio that the public can’t enjoy anymore,” Tumberlinson stated, referring the hotel, which the city boarded up years ago.
During the last decades, the Stonewall Jackson fell deeper into disrepair before city officials condemned the old hotel, which had turned into a low-rent apartment building, fining its owner $12,500 for building code violation after evicting its last tenants in 2012.
