Richardson House
El Paso, Texas

Description: Richardson house
Address: Terrace Court, El Paso, El Paso County, Texas
Type: domestic: single family home
Original Client: C. A. Richardson
Historic Inventory:
Date: 1906
Condition: not built?

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost
Contractors:
Dimensions and Orientation: eight rooms; faces southeast
Budget/Cost:

Foundation: stone or concrete
Wall Materials: brick, with plaster and half-timber finish
Roofing Materials: probably shingle
Other Materials Used:

Present Owner:
Location of Drawings: none known to exist (except for the elevations cited in item 2 in the Bibliography, below)
Location of Documentary Photographs:

Bibliography:
(1) El Paso Herald, June 27, 1906, page 12 (Resume of the Residences Now Being Erected C. A. Richardson has begun the erection of a handsome residence of the Swiss Chalet style on Terrace street in Sunset Heights. The house will be of brick and plaster, one story, with eight rooms. Trost& Trost are the architects.)
(2) Trost & Trost, Architects (El Paso: Trost & Trost, 1907), page 27 (illustration of renderings of side and front elevations of residence for C. A. Richardson, El Paso, plaster and open timber, eight rooms)

Remarks: The renderings reproduced in Trost & Trost, Architects illustrate one of the two Illinois Prairie style designs Henry C. Trost made for El Paso. The other is the home he built for himself .  The Richardson house as built is more in the Swiss Chalet style described in the report in the El Paso Herald.

In 1901, Charles A. Richardson arrived in El Paso,Texas. His first job after arriving in El Paso was with the Mine, Mill & Smelter Supply House. The following year Charles took a position as the bookkeeper for the Henry Pfaff Saloon located on San Antonio Street. He soon became the manager of the saloon. In 1908, Charles was working as a sales rep for Southwest Liquor a distributor for Budweiser.
In 1906, Charles Richardson hired the firm of Trost & Trost to draw plans for a Swiss-Chalet style home to be located on Terrace street in Sunset Heights. The house was to be brick and plaster, one story with eight rooms.
Sometime in 1909, Charles A. Richardson left El Paso to accept a position as general auditor for the D.C. Collier company, of San Diego, California. Colonel D.C. Collier was the head of the Panama- California exposition. The exposition was held in 1915 to celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to make San Diego the first U.S. port of call for ships traveling north after passing westward through the canal.
There is no confirmation to date that the house was ever built on Terrace Street in Sunset Heights.

Prepared for the El Paso Public Library by Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990.