DAVIS HOUSE/HILLTOP HOTEL
200 E. Ryan

HISTORY: The first building was built in 1895 by William Kuhlmann after he built the two story home next door now known as the Kuhlmann-King House. In the 1920s, Dr. W. E. Wright had a sanitarium here. Down the hillside toward Main there were small cottages for the tubercular patients. After World War I there were also patients who had been gassed during foreign service.

Later the facilities became a hotel known as the Hilltop Hotel. The cottages were used for tourists. This seems to have been operated by a Mr. Gallagher. Then it became necessary for the owner to turn it over on a debt to Mr. Hofheinz and Mr. Richter.

Harry L. Davis, Sr. purchased it and resided there until his death. Mr. Davis came to Boerne from Kentucky in 1910. He was a school teacher in Kentucky and then taught in the Boerne Schools from 1910 to 1915 when he entered the grocery business for a year in an old rock building on South Main next to Phillips House (probably Beissner-Weyrick Building). In 1916, he established an insurance and real estate business and was very successful. He was Mayor of Boerne, school principal in school now used as City Hall. He was a Shriner, 32nd degree Mason, and philanthropist. In 1911 he married Minnie Perrin whose family settled the Balcones area in Bexar and Kendall Counties.

The Davis family rented the property to Mrs. Mosely who operated a Nursing Home in the large home. This was purchased and torn down to make way for a modern facility in the 1960's. It remains as one of several nursing homes in Boerne to this day.

Source: "History of Kendall County", by Kendall County Historical Commission; and Boerne Public Library files - May, 1999

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