"There have been more high school and junior high school students asking me what I know about that haunted house in the last year," said Ralph Love, librarian at the Georgetown public Library’s Texas History Room. "Whether they know it to be haunted or not, they assume it to be," he said.
Love is talking about the house at the northwest corner of Texas 29 and Interstate 35 in Georgetown. The pink stone, two story structure is passed by motorists of growing Georgetown headed south towards Austin. Vegetation is covering much of the view, a metal sign is rusted to the point it is unreadable (Ray’s Charolais Cattle is what it said), a fire damaged the long abandoned home in February of 2000 and development may deal its final blow, but the home and a newer garage/workshop next to it still remain.
Construction on the home started in 1940 when architect Louis Huie decided to move his wife, Beatrice and his twelve-year-old daughter Beverly, from what is now Baytown, Texas to Georgetown to raise cattle. The family moved there the following year. The distinctive arch had the families names written over the walkway.
The Huie House.
Beverly, now Treuhardt, went on to graduate from Georgetown High and the University of Texas then to teach elementary school in Georgetown for 37 years. "That was an exciting year. I was a freshman in high school and there were two new girls in the freshman class that year and I was one of them," Ms Treuhardt said. After 60-plus years, she still has fond memories of celebrating her 13th birthday with a party and dance when her parents let her invite friends from Georgetown and Baytown. Both she and her husband, John Treuhardt recalled their first date and horseback ride on the property. She remembered her mother in the kitchen cutting her father’s hair one Sunday afternoon, then hearing Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Health problems forced Huie to leave the cattle business after 3 1/2 years and the home was sold to Jess Todd, a Round Rock auto dealer, Treuhardt said. Mr. Huie died in 1957 and his wife died in 1980. The Ray family lived there for a time, as well, according to Treuhardt.
The 200+ acres and home were purchased from the estate of Floy Ann Howe by Jay L. Wolf on March 20, 1991. The Wolf’s could not be reached for comment.
A closeup of the front of the Huie House.
Ms Treuhardt has no interest in visiting the house. She has been told there is food, trash and graffiti through out the home. Doors and windows are missing from the house. The Georgetown Fire Department incident report said the February 20, 2000 fire was caused when trash was ignited on the first floor. "I hate to see it in that state. It’s the nicest house we had and those were good times... I always regard it fondly," she said.
Plans were announced in 2002 for "The Rivery" a commercial development on the area just north of the property. The new development will include a Home Depot and a Walmart. At this time there are no immediate plans for the site of the old house, according to Georgetown officials, but there has been a lot of inquires from developers.
Ms Treuhardt remembered taking students on a field trip passing by the house and pointed it out to a girl in her class. "I mentioned I used to live there and she got big eyes and said ‘was it haunted then?’ She had heard all kinds of gory stories," Treuhardt said.