LIMECRETE MANSION

The historic Sebastopol House, the Greek Revival home of Colonel Joshua Wright Young and later local Seguin mayor Joseph Zorn, has survived over one hundred and fifty years, a major achievement for any landmark building that has suffered the ravages of time and the Texas weather. Constructed in 1856 by pre-Civil War slave labor and named by Young, in a curious choice, after a Russian naval base in the Crimean War, the Sebastopol House is significant not only for its age but for the technique used in its construction. The builders employed limecrete, a mixture of local gravel and lime developed by Seguin chemist John Esten Park, to create a predominantly seamless structure. In order to do so, limecrete was continuously poured into forms, a technique known as “slip form casting” due to the fact that each time a mixture is poured and set the form is “slipped” upwards to continue casting. This provides stronger, more durable finished forms (including walls), eliminating the need for joints and other interruptions in concrete structures that, over time, might compromise the integrity of the building. Visitors to the Sebastopol House Historic Site may tour the preserved home and learn all about the technique, popular in Seguin during the mid-1800’s, and discover that the house is one of few surviving examples of limecrete construction in Texas today.