The Structures of Missouri: The Rock House in See-Tal
Story by Shaila Wunderlich
Photos by Sunny Lim
The rock house in See Tal (Part 2 of the Stone House series)
Mention “the rock house in See Tal,” and most Hermannites nod in recognition. Partly because it’s the only old house in a subdivision full of modern homes, but mostly because it’s so romantic. Situated less than 20 yards from a 15-acre lake, it’s small but rambling, with gables peaking out on every side. Its stones were assembled in the as-is “rubble” fashion, giving it a charming, cobbled-together look. It’s the kind of cottage featured in fairy tales, the kind depicted in paintings. Local artist Catherine Mahoney has in fact used it as her muse on at least one occasion.
See Tal’s rock house, now owned by Jim and Denny Croak, didn’t start out as a house, actually. In the mid-1800s, this latter-day housing development was a vineyard. Sometime around 1846, the stone structure was erected to house the vineyard’s wine press. The proprietors squashed grapes in the 1 ½-story, dirt-floored building. Evidence of the cottage’s former life is still visible in several places. The wood-plank front door is short but wide, wide enough to pass through barrels of wine with plenty of clearance. A large cellar beneath the house is the ideal temperature and humidity for storing wine. The upstairs loft, now home to the Croak’s office, was most likely the vineyard’s storage space.
The house’s previous owner, Shirley Rogers, had begun the work of carving a home from the old wine press house, including installing a bathroom, kitchen and tiling the dirt floor. The Croaks took up where she left off, pouring new foundations, replacing the roof, and finishing out a log addition that had been tacked on by another owner. And the list goes on. “We were under major construction for at least three years,” said Denny.
“We wanted the place to be period-correct, but we also wanted it livable,” said Jim. “I wanted a bathroom, and when I turned the water on, I wanted it to come out!”
Most of the building’s unfinished state could be attributed to its age and non-residential origins. Some of the disrepair, however, resulted from it having been abandoned for 50 years, after the vineyard shuttered. When the Croaks came upon it six years ago, it was practically invisible beneath a tangle of grapevines and lattice work. William Fricke, See Tal’s developer, had the same experience. “We had heard there was a stone house on the property but the brush was so thick it took us half a day to find it,” Fricke said.
But beneath all the varmints and vegetation, the Croaks saw a dream house. “We had officially bought the place by the time we crossed the bridge back over into Montgomery County,” said Jim.
*****
To read the first in the series of articles about stone houses, click here.
To read the first article in the Structures of Missouri, click here.