{"nrhp_refnum":"85001495","name":"Straus House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"400 Cedar","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cedar Hill","county":"Dallas County","state":"TX","lat":32.58839459300003,"lon":-96.95442063999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-07-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story wood-frame Victorian house at 400 Cedar in Cedar Hill, Dallas County, Texas, built by merchant E. E. Straus. Early forms give a construction date of c. 1884, and a duplicate sheet gives c. 1895.","why_significant":"The house is associated with E. E. Straus, one of Cedar Hill's leading early merchants, who opened a dry goods store there about 1880. His wife and sons ran the store after his death in 1885, and the Straus family held extensive business and land interests in southwest Dallas County. Reviewers accepted it as one of the few surviving historic properties tied to the town's early commercial development.","narrative":"Located at 400 Cedar in Cedar Hill, this two-story wood-frame house is finished in plain cypress lap siding. Its symmetrical vernacular plan recalls the Italianate style in its proportions. The roof combines several intersecting gables with a mansard section on the north facade, repeated over the front porch. Windows are two-over-two single-hung sash with simple drip molds, gables carry fish-scale shingles, and the front porch has turned columns, jigsawn brackets and spindles. Rear porches are hipped-roofed with open lattice sides. Merchant E. E. Straus built the house, dated to about 1884 in one version of the description and about 1895 in another. Straus opened a dry goods store in Cedar Hill around 1880, and after his death in 1885 his wife and sons continued it until mid-century. The family later held extensive business and land interests in southwest Dallas County and opened a branch store in Duncanville in the 1920s. The house is valued as a surviving link to the town's early commercial life.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"E. E. Straus (builder/owner)","architectural_style":"Victorian; vernacular plan reminiscent of Italianate","criteria":["A","B"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:21.877304-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/0/9687/40968700/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/85001495.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85001495/bf4c682992-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85001495/bf4c682992-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Renelibrary","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Straus2.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Renelibrary</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Straus2.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40968700","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110001825"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/dallas-county/straus-house-85001495/"}