Sterne-Hoya Historic District

This small neighborhood just east of Nacogdoches' historic commercial center holds nine buildings, seven of them contributing, along S. Lanana, E. Main and E. Pilar streets. Most are modest one or one-and-a-half story wood-frame houses on pier-and-beam foundations, built between about 1830 and 1910 in vernacular forms: older center-passage houses and later L-plan dwellings. Two houses on E. Main show Queen Anne and Craftsman influences. The oldest is the 1830 house built by Adolphus Sterne, a German immigrant and Texas Revolution supporter, which the Hoya family bought in 1866. Charles Hoya, a county surveyor, built another house here in 1888. Builder Dietrich Rulfs, who designed over 50 buildings in the city, erected a house at 113 S. Lanana, though vinyl siding keeps it noncontributing. The area lost some prestige as wealthier residents moved north, and commercial expansion in the 1920s and 1930s removed several houses. The district is valued locally as the city's finest surviving group of 19th century vernacular homes.