{"nrhp_refnum":"80004077","name":"Elmendorf, Emil, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"509 Burleson St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"San Antonio","county":"Bexar County","state":"TX","lat":29.432891030000064,"lon":-98.47278865299995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-05-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story limestone Victorian raised-cottage residence at 509 Burleson Street in San Antonio, Texas, built in 1884 for hardware merchant Emil Elmendorf and designed by architect Alfred Giles.","why_significant":"It is one of only a few remaining raised-cottage houses in San Antonio and a good example of work by Alfred Giles, an important regional architect. Its design adapts to the sloping hill site. It also reflects the city's late nineteenth-century prosperity and the character of the Dignowity Hill neighborhood.","narrative":"Built in 1884 on the northeast corner of Burleson and North Hackberry Streets in San Antonio, this two-level limestone house was designed by architect Alfred Giles for Emil Elmendorf, a partner in the family hardware firm Elmendorf and Company. It follows the raised-cottage plan, with a main floor above a ground-level story and an ell-shaped layout featuring a polygonal bay, front and rear porches, and Italianate and Greek Revival details. The house sits in Dignowity Hill, an early hilltop suburb favored by well-to-do residents. Giles fitted the design to the gently sloping site, and few raised cottages of this type survive in San Antonio. The house remains largely intact, with only minor alterations and no major additions. It has been vacant since 1976 and has deteriorated, though it is structurally sound, and plans call for restoring it as a single-family home. It illustrates the city's prosperity in the late nineteenth century.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Alfred Giles, architect","architectural_style":"Victorian raised-cottage","criteria":[],"status_note":"Vacant since 1976 and in a state of disrepair, but described as structurally sound; restoration as a single-family residence is planned.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:19.606833-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/79/9711/40971179/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/80004077.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004077/c70b677ef0-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80004077/c70b677ef0-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 4.0","author":"Larry D. Moore","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emil_elmendorf_house_2012.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Larry D. Moore</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emil_elmendorf_house_2012.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40971179","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110000430"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/bexar-county/elmendorf-emil-house-80004077/"}