HemisFair ’68 and The Homes on Goliad Street
Part Four: The Solomon and Fannie Halff Home, 142 Goliad Street
About this five-part series: During the early 1960’s, San Antonio was poised for urban renewal, which eventually brought a world’s fair and new municipal buildings to this economically-stalled South Texas city. When construction began for HemisFair ’68, only 22 of 300 historic homes were saved from the neighborhood once called Germantown. This series strives to help restore the sense of community enjoyed by the diverse residents who made their homes a short walk from the Alamo.
Solomon Halff followed his brother Mayer from Alsace, France to American around 1855, when he was 17-years-old. He worked for his brother as a bookkeeper in their Liberty, Texas store after the death of their older brother Adolphe. Since many of the store’s transactions were made not in gold or paper currency, but in cattle, Mayer soon sold the store in order to focus on managing their growing cattle herds. Soon, the Civil War swept across the South, and Solomon was conscripted into the Confederate Army in 1862, even though he was a French citizen. Thankfully, he survived the war to once again work alongside his older brother, this time at a new store in San Antonio. M. Halff and Brother was a successful mercantile business, with Solomon running the business while Mayer managed their thriving ranch and cattle assets.
Beginning a New Life with Fannie in Germantown
33-year-old Solomon married 16-year-old Fannie Levi from Victoria, Texas in 1871. While Fannie was born in Victoria, her parents immigrated from France and Germany to begin their family in America. The Halff family quickly grew to seven, with five children born beginning in 1873 through 1881. The children were nearly two years apart; Henri, Minnie, Meyer Leo, Godcheaux Adolph, and finally Cecile. Theirs must have been yet another busy household which also included two servants, sisters Louisa and Carrie Folk, as well as coachman William Reed.
Solomon and Fannie’s home sits across Goliad Street from Mayer and Rachel Halff’s home, and was built around 1878. The two-story limestone structure features porches, boasts 4,500 square feet of parquet floors and finishes using Victorian architecture influenced by Greek Revival.
Solomon purchased the lot from builder John Herman Kampmann for $1,500 in 1877, and the home is often called the “Solomon Halff/Kampmann House” although Kampmann never lived there. Land speculator, builder, and architect John Herman Kampmann (a native of Prussia) bought this land just west of the Acequia Madre de Valero in 1871, the same year Solomon and Fannie married. Once Solomon purchased the land, he obtained water rights from his neighbor Samuel Mayer since the city didn’t yet have a water system, save for the acequia.
The home is also occasionally referred to as “the Joske house” after one of San Antonio’s wealthiest families who were also merchants, however the Joske family resided at 241 King William Street, not far from Goliad Street. It’s believed that the home was constructed by Kampann, whose other structures include St. Joseph’s Catholic and St. Mark’s Episcopal churches, as well as the famed Menger Hotel where Theodore Roosevelt met his volunteer army called the Rough Riders in 1898.
The brothers were founding members of the city’s oldest synagogue in South Texas, as well as founding Alamo National Bank. In addition, he was president of A.B. Frank Company. Solomon died in 1905, just six months after his brother. It’s interesting to note that Solomon and Fannie’s son, Godcheaux, created one of the first automobile dealers in Texas, and founded WOAI, one of the first radio broadcasting stations in the nation.
Selling the Family Home on Goliad Street
By 1917, Fannie was a widow living in Manhattan. Records show that she sold the family home to William Herrmann for $10,500. The Herrmann’s lived at 138 Goliad Street and must have seen this home as a good investment. Herrmann later sold it to Paul and Magdelen Hunter, who lived in the home from 1919 until 1940, when it became a rooming house and apartments until 1964.
During HemisFair, the home became Les Maisons Blanches, an extremely unpopular French restaurant that closed before the end of the fair, as well as a sidewalk cafe, Cafe de Paris, that spanned the right side of the home.
Conclusion
This series about the homes along Goliad Street grew out of my need to complete an applied project for a masters degree in Liberal Studies, and my passion for family history. My paternal grandparents immigrated from Yugoslavia through Ellis Island in 1902, and I’m heartbroken that I didn’t engage them in conversation about their life’s journey of immigration to the United States, or the successful lives they built here. I can only imagine that I was too young to take note, and when I did gather information about our family, it was from my aunt, the last surviving member of her large family of Serbian-speaking, Orthodox-worshiping immigrants from the old country.
Learning about the historic homes remaining in Hemisfair park has brought me closer to my adopted community of San Antonio, and for this I am forever grateful. I’m also thankful to be asked to serve on Hemisfair Conservancy’s Development Board. We are tasked with raising awareness about our “new” city park, and the beauty it brings to downtown San Antonio, for tourists and locals alike. Please join me in supporting Hemisfair Conservancy’s work to preserve these historic homes by donating to the Conservancy through this website: https://hemisfair.org/donate/
Twenty-nine percent of donations are used for historic preservation.
Copyright Notice: The unauthorized use of images from Hemisfair Conservancy, San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation, University of Texas at San Antonio, or the author is prohibited without prior consent from these entities.
