Growing up in New Braunfels, I was well acquainted with the name Giesecke. I knew the names of all the watering holes from early age on – Landa Park pool, Camp Ulbricht, City Park (later Cypress Bend Park), Camp Warnecke, and Camp Giesecke. Camp Giesecke across the street from Camp Warnecke (now Surfenberg) changed its name to “The Other Place” long after I plunged into the icy 71 degree Comal River.

The name Giesicke is not an easily pronounced name. Like most German names, the accent is on the first syllable and it sounds something like “Gee sick ee”. Later owners changed the name from Camp Giesecke to The Other Place because tourists were constantly asking if they were at Camp Warnecke. “No, this is the other place.” And that’s what it became.

Fredrick Ernst Giesecke was owner of the 60 acres on the Comal River. He was born in Latium, Texas, on a farm near Washington-on-the Brazos in 1869. He was the son of Capt. Julius Giesecke, Fourth Texas Confederate Cavalry, and his wife Wilhelmina Groos. After the Civil War, Capt. Giesecke moved his family to New Braunfels in 1873. He became the technical manager of the New Braunfels Woolen Mills. After this mill declared bankruptcy, Capt. Giesecke became one of the owners of the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung and their bookkeeper. The Sophienburg is the owner of the original desk made by Jahn furniture maker for Julius Giesecke. When he moved out of the mill, he took the desk with him to the Zeitung office.

The house in which Julius Giesicke’s family lived is still standing at 276 E. Coll St. on the Comal River. It was built in 1881. Growing up near the Comal probably had an effect on Julius’ son, Fredrick. He entered school in New Braunfels after the move from Latium and graduated from the NB Academy in 1882. Then he entered the German-American school in San Antonio.

Fredrick enrolled in Texas A & M College and received his first degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1890. Throughout his college years, he was head of his class and maintained the highest military rank at A & M. He won both the physics and mathematics medals. During his senior year at age 19, Fredrick began teaching at A&M and became head of the department. When Fredrick married Hulda Gruene in 1891, he designed their home of the campus. Hulda Gruene was the daughter of Ernst Gruene, Jr., a prominent family in New Braunfels.

In 1910 Fredrick and Hulda purchased a 60-acre piece of property that that had been the Reeh farm. The location of the land can be described more easily using today’s landmarks. Across the river from New Braunfels and across from the old Woolen Mill, the Comal River makes a bend towards the Guadalupe River forming a peninsula. The property went all the way to San Antonio Street on the northwest side. This area later became The Other Place and Camp Warnecke property. Camp Warnecke became part of Schlitterbahn, making up the 60 acres. The Gieseckes would use the property as a family summer retreat. Since both sets of grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ernst Gruene, Jr. and Mr. and Mrs. Julius Giesecke lived in New Braunfels, this would give the four children an opportunity to be with their grandparents.

At first, the only way to get to the town of NB from the Gieseke property was by a suspension foot bridge until a permanent bridge was located in the same spot at Garden St. The bridge still stands.

Professor Giesecke started a summer school on the 60 acres for A & M and UT students to prepare them for college entrance or for those with a deficiency. On the peninsula, the family and faculty lived in small cabins and Giesecke built his house on the tallest point on the peninsula. That house is the only one still standing and has never been flooded. It is on The Other Place property. The students stayed in tents on the river and helped in the construction of small cabins that were added gradually.

Some of you might remember the water wheel (gone with a flood) at the rapids area at Camp Warnecke. In the late 1800s, Harry Landa had created the first electric power plant. Electricity did not extend across the Comal River into the Gieseke property. Gus Tolle furnished the water wheel and his wheel was to furnish electric power for lights. Giesecke borrowed a motor and generator set from A & M College the first summer. The light produced from the waterwheel was unsatisfactory because the paddles were water-logged on one side and the wheel ran with a lope that caused the lights to dim and flare up with each revolution. The second year, Harry Landa had a power line run to the camp from his power plant at the entrance of Landa Park.

Drinking water was hauled from the headwaters of the Comal. Classes were held in the shade of the trees along the river where blackboards and seats were arranged according to the direction of the light. The A & M football squad trained there for two seasons under Coach Chas. Moran. (100^th anniversary edition of the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung in 1952)

In 1912 Professor Giesecke left A& M College and accepted a position as head of the University of Texas, Austin, Dept. of Architecture. He wanted his three daughters to be educated there and also his son would be able to do graduate work. Aside from teaching at U.T. and running the summer school, Giesecke had time to study at the University of Illinois and receive his PhD.

Realizing that 60 acres was a lot of land, more than he needed, he sold all but four acres to Otto and Martha Warnecke, who developed the famous Camp Warnecke, home of the rapids. Eventually 103 cabins were built on this property plus a screened dance hall and a restaurant run by Martha Warnecke.

In 1927, Dr. Giesecke was back at A & M College and became the director of the Engineering Experimental Station. He was also a professor of architecture and appointed as the college architect. As architect he was responsible for designing over 15 buildings on campus, most of which are still standing.

When Dr. Giesecke died in 1935, his daughter Alma Hodges managed the property and moved from the Camp Giesecke home that had been turned into a motel, to the original Julius Giesecke home on E. Coll St. She managed Camp Giesecke until 1946 when the camp was sold to Dr. Stanley Woodward, Jack Krueger, and William Hovestadt. The new owners named the camp “The Other Place”. The present owner is Woodward’s daughter, Sarah Shea and her husband Barry.

As I have said many times before, “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end.”

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Soon after moving to New Braunfels, Bill and Bonnie Leitch began “looking for a perfect place to live away from city life” in the city. For that matter, the house they found in 1971 is very close to downtown but has the feeling of being “outside the city”. The home was an old Victorian beauty in a neighborhood that had changed, located on a street whose name had even changed. The house itself was still preserved and the Leitches bought the house and made it their ambition to restore it.

The house was located on Grand Street. Never heard of it? That’s because Grand Street (only one block long) changed to Hill Ave. and I bet you know where that is. It parallels Academy running next to the railroad track and then goes up the hill for about a block. This property was located in the Jahn Addition. The whole area was originally owned by Johann Jahn, the furniture maker in 1846. The property was later given to Carl and Emma Jahn by their mother, Anna Jahn, upon the death of their father, Johann Jahn.

The lot on which the house is located is really a double lot and the original property was two double lots, extending from Grand St. (Now Hill) straight through to Academy.

When Carl Jahn inherited the four lots, he sold two of the lots to Heinrich Blumberg and two to Johann Wahl. In 1905 and 1906, both Blumberg and Wahl sold their four adjoining lots to Frederick Hofheinz.

Now we get to the builder of the house that the Leitches bought. Records show that Frederick Hofheinz was 11 years old when he emigrated from Germany to Texas with his parents, Johannes and Emilie Hofheinz from Nassau in Germany. In 1852 this family landed on the coast at Indianola. After a difficult nine-day trek inland, the family settled in Hortontown, a small settlement across the Guadalupe River from New Braunfels. Very shortly after arriving, Johannes died of cholera, which affected so many emigrants at the time.

Frederick, as the oldest child, took on the responsibility of taking care of his mother and his younger siblings. He went to work as a teamster, hauling freight from the coast into the interior from age 14 until he was 22 years old.

During that time Frederick had moved to Kendall County and joined Captain E. Jones’ volunteers organization to guard the frontier from Indian attacks. In 1864 he married Emilie Wilke of Kendall County and started farming and ranching. Emilie was born in Lavaca, moved to New Braunfels where she went to school, and later moved to Kendall County with her parents. This is where she met Frederick. The couple eventually had four sons- Adolph, Hugo, Bruno, and Max. They also had two daughters, Adele (Mrs. Otto Beseler) and Emma (Mrs. Hugo Liesmann).

Frederick Hofheinz was very active politically in Kendall County. For several years he was elected Justice of the Peace and County Commissioner. In 1903 he was elected state president of the Order of the Sons of Hermann. He finally turned over management of the ranch to his son and the couple moved to New Braunfels.

When the Hofheinzs moved to New Braunfels (1905), they bought the four lots from Blumberg and Wahl and began building their home in the middle of the lots with the front facing Grand St. and the back facing Academy Ave. The old carriage house is still standing behind the house.

Before he died in 1918, Hofheinz became one of the principal founders of the New Braunfels State Bank. Both he and Emilie are buried in the family plot in the Comal Cemetery. Their headstones include porcelain portraits of the couple.

Now the house began its own journey, reflecting the change that time brings. First the house was sold to Charles Knibbe in 1920 and when Knibbe died in 1927, his children inherited the property and house on Hill Ave. and the other property on Academy at the back of the house. These were the four lots originally bought by Hofheinz.

During WWII the house was divided into three apartments. During this time the neighborhood deteriorated. A lack of housing in New Braunfels and the increase of train traffic was probably the reason. If you ask anyone that lives close to train tracks if they are bothered by the trains, the standard answer is, “What train?”

Then Ella Bremmer, daughter of the Knibbes, sold the house to Bruno and Elizabeth Schoenfeld who moved into the house. Schoenfeld’s son, Herman, built a home for himself and his wife, Lila, on the Academy St. half of the lots. Bruno, who was a brick layer by trade, made many improvements. He planted the pecan trees that still embrace the property and cut a cellar under the front porch. The elder Schoenfelds lived there the rest of their lives. Bruno died in 1959 and then Elizabeth in1968. When both were gone, the house stood vacant for three years until it was purchased by Bill and Bonnie Leitch.

Much time and love has gone into the restoration of this house, done mostly by the Leitches. A central tower and spindled friezework (gingerbread) accent a curved porch. Sitting on that front porch is an amazing experience. The window shutters were replaced. The 14- foot ceiling inside, with transoms to let the air circulate by the fans, above the longleaf pine floors, are original. Longleaf pine wood is now extinct and this house has longleaf pine decorative wood throughout. All the windows are the original glass, giving the appearance that only wavy glass windows can create. The ceiling is pressed tin with tiles in the hallway that were salvaged from the original Carl Schurz School.

Once a building like that is gone, it’s gone. A beautiful Queen Anne house has been saved from the chopping block by Bill and Bonnie Leitch. Viele Danke!

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