Henry C. Trost  Residence
El Paso, Texas

Description: Henry C. Trost residence
Other Names: Grossbeck house; Malcolm McGregor house
Address: 1013 West Yandell Drive at Hawthorne Street (northeast corner), El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Type: domestic: single family home
Original Client: Henry C. Trost
Historic Inventory: National Register number 76002024
Date: ca. 1907-1909
Condition: extant; in use as a home

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost; interior decoration, in part, by Mitchel & Halbach, Chicago
Contractors: furniture and woodwork executed by J. P. Paulson of the Brunswick Balke Collender Company
Dimensions and Orientation: two stories; 50 feet, 10 inches wide and 70 feet, 8 3/4 inches long; faces south. The home has five bedrooms and two baths.
Budget/Cost: $15,000

Foundation: concrete
Wall Materials: buff brick, staff, stucco and wood
Roofing Materials: shingles
Other Materials Used: stained glass windows
Architectural Style: Praire Style
Remodeling and Additions: The shingle roof has been replaced with composition.

Present Owner: Robert McGregor (2011)
Location of Drawings: El Paso Public Library: (D-3) 5 blue line plans, elevations; (WW-24) 28 brown line and black line plans, elevations; (B-2) 18 blue line plans
Location of Documentary Photographs: (1) Groesbeeck/Trost Collection, El Paso Public Library; (2) Trost family Collection (private),

Bibliography: (1) El Paso Chamber of Commerce, El Paso, the Story of a City, 1883-1910 (El Paso: El Paso Chamber of Commerce, [1910]), unpaged (exterior photograph)
(2) El Paso Chamber of Commerce, Prosperity and Opportunities in El Paso and El Paso’s Territory the 1911 Report of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce (El Paso: Chamber of Commerce, 1911), page 59 (exterior photograph)
(3) The Prairie School Review, volume VI, number 4, 1969, pages 16-21 (description of the house, with photographs, plans and elevations)
(4) Harriot Howze Jones, Historic Homes of El Paso: the Trost House, Password volume XIII, number 1 (Spring 1973), pages 33-35 (description of the house); page 33 (exterior photograph by M. G. McKinney)
(5) Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht, Henry C. Trost: Architect of the Southwest (El Paso: El Paso Public Library Association, 1981), front is piece and pages 39-47 (description of the house; photographs by Shirley J. McCollum and Thomas P. Armstrong, and by Otis Aultman; drawings); page 126 (bibliographical notes)
(6) Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht, Prairie School Architect: Henry C. Trost, Texas Homes, volume 2, number 4, (November/December, 1978), pages 26-30 (description and photographs, some in color, by Shirley J. McCollum and Thomas P. Armstrong)
(7) El Paso Chapter, American Institute of Architects, Portals at the Pass; El Paso Architecture to 1930 (El Paso: author, 1984), pages 22-25 (photographs of exterior, rendering of living room by Morris A. Brown, plan of main story)
(8) Dena Hirsch, Splendid Homes; a Look inside Trost’s Historic Home, Paso Del Norte; a News Magazine of the El Paso/Jurez Interplex, Volume II, number 9 (May, 1984), front cover and pages [39]-41 (description, color and black and white photographs of the exterior and interior by Michael R. Moses)
(9) Jay C. Henry, Trost and Trost in El Paso, Texas Architect, volume XXXVII, number 2 (March-April), 1987, front cover and pages 34-39; page 34 (description and analysis); page 35 (exterior and interior photographs by Shirley J. McCollum and Thomas P. Armstrong); page 36 (photograph of stenciled interior mural frieze by Shirley J. McCollum and Thomas P. Armstrong)
(10) Cynthia A. Brandimarte, Inside Texas: culture, houses, and identity, 1878-1920(Ft. Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1991), page 366, described; page 367, living room illustrated; page 368, dining room illustrated; page 369, library nook illustrated
(11) Jay C. Henry, Architecture in Texas: 1895-1945(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), pages 45-47, described; figure 3.06, Hawthorne Street side; figure 3.07, floor plans
(12) El Paso Herald, August 11, 1926 page 2 Eugene Housler and W.W. Burnett are redecorating the Trost Residence at 1013 W. Yandell. (probably painting on the outside)
(13) El Paso Herald, December 31, 1908 page 24

Remarks: During the occupancy of the Trost family, the house was referred to by them as the Trost Residence, or the Trost & Trost residence.

The first floor of the two-story house is largely devoted to a long living room – dining room( 18×60 feet) which runs the length of the house, broken where the rooms join by pony walls structure with two large lantern fixtures resting on top. An arch marks the transition from the dining room to the kitchen. The den opening from the entrance area has the same ceiling level as the rest of the first  story, but  its floor is three feet below the floor of the main house.

Matilda Trost probably the master bedroom; Henry Trost’s bedroom was the smaller one with the fireplace. A three-car garage on the alley was behind the neighboring Tooley house  at the time was shared by the Trost and Tooley families. The upper story was used as quarters for the Trost family’s servants.

The wood work is all five ply veneered done by J.P Paulson of El Paso, representative of Brunswick Balke, Collender Company. The decorating of the inside was done by Mitchell & Hallbach of Chicago. The furniture was designed by Henry and carried out by Paulson.

The furniture was designed by Henry Trost; see: El Paso Herald, January 1, 1909, Annual Summary of Southwestern Progress, page 12.

Prepared for the El Paso Public Library by Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1993