Richard Ernest Grosse was born in Serkovitz, Dresden, Germany in 1860. In 1877 he enrolled in the States Architectural School at Dresden, and he became a licensed architect in 1882. He came to the United States in 1883, arriving in New York in May and relocating to Texas in August. A friend named Egon Herman, who operated a local drugstore, persuaded him to come to the Mason area.

He started as a stonemason in the Upper Willow Creek Community (now called Art), one of Mason's earliest German settlements. It was there he must have met the teenaged Louise von Donop. Louise came from a family that valued education, evidenced by the fact that her father, who died when she was only eight, had been the first schoolteacher in the Upper Willow Creek Community (now called Art) and refused to accept any pay for his services. Though her mother remarried, these values had no doubt made their impact on young Louise, who must have impressed the twenty-something Richard, who himself was an avid reader interested in many subjects. The two were kindred and married in 1886.

In 1916, Gross replaced the wooden building with a new “metal front business house” with a large warehouse behind it. At the time, the Mason County News reported that the building “contributes much to that side of the square.” They weren’t exaggerating. The three structures immediately north of Grosse’s were rather unsightly, utilitarian wood-frame buildings that, at various times, had housed a blacksmith shop, a photography studio, a grocery store, an auto parts store, and a pool hall operated by a former Texas Ranger. In 1927-28 these frame buildings were replaced with the concrete structures that exist today, and Grosse later remodeled his building to match them.

In 1928 the enterprise became known as “R. Grosse and Sons” when Richard's sons, Alfred and Alex, were added as co-owners. (Another child, Elsie Grosse Schuessler, came into the firm after Alfred died in 1943.) Later, a grandson, Alex H. Grosse, and Elroy Schreiber bought into the business. Until 2015, the Grosse family remained in business at this same location, making it the longest running family business in Mason.