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Historic photo of present Casa Ronquillo.
north
and west facades, view looking south southeast
HABS, TEX,71-SANEL,4-11
To view historic images of the present-day Casa Ronquillo please search at the Library of
Congress Site
Yvette Valdez
David Camarenas Garcés
George D.
Torok
Casa Ronquillo San Elizario,
Texas
The remains of Casa Ronquillo, also know as the
Viceroy’s Palace, the Ellis Home, and the Motor Inn, are located in the
central village setting of San Elizario, Texas, adjacent to agricultural
lands. The building has a colorful history dating back the Mexican Era
and has played an important role in the development of San Elizario. The
remains lie on the edge of the San Elizario Lateral (or the Acequia
Madre) and the Escajada Acequia, two canals that separate the
house from the village, southeast of the intersection of Alarcón Road
and Convent Road, about two hundred nineteen yards south of the village
square. Casa Ronquillo faces the rear of the old San Elizario presidio
site, which is now the location of the San Elizario Church[i].
Documentary evidence suggests that the building was originally
constructed during the Mexican administration of the San Elizario
presidio (1823-1847). In 1832 the heirs of Don Rafael Corona sold the
land to José Ignacio Ronquillo. Ronquillo was a prominent man in the El
Paso del Norte area, serving as alcalde of San Elizario, Prefect
of El Paso del Norte, and Captain in command of the San Elizario
Presidio in the 1830s.[ii]
He purchased several tracts of land in the area and a house, which may
be the present structure. Ronquillo’s will of 1859, drafted a year
before his death, gave a detailed description of the house and property.
The estate was later known as the Viceroy’s Palace, probably because of
its substantial size and prominence.
According to the 1980 Historical American Building Survey (HABS) files,
the house was “an adobe Estancia in the Mexican Tradition” and
originally consisted of twelve or more rooms in three wings with an
interior courtyard surrounded by a portal.[iii]
The magnificent adobe building was built around a courtyard and enclosed
by a high wall. The complex originally had two wings and a stable.
Kathryn Weedman states that “despite the loss of two wings of the
original house, the remaining portion of the house retains a high degree
of physical integrity and is classified as an outstanding example of
Spanish Colonial architecture with Territorial style elements.”[iv]
In their study of Hispanic architecture in Texas, Simons and Hoyt state
“that it was constructed in Mexican Hacienda tradition, with elaborate
viga ceilings while the complex was surrounded by a high adobe wall that
separated the main house from the orchards and fields.[v]
It is not clear what happened to the property
immediately after Ronquillo’s death. On April 14, 1869 the land was
purchased by Charles Ellis and his wife Teodora Alarcón de Ellis. The
existing structure was built on the remains of the Ronquillo house
according to an interview with Jesús Montes who helped Ellis with the
construction in 1873.[vi]
Ellis was a wealthy merchant and political figure in San Elizario,
Texas; he served as the county tax collector in 1866, the county
treasurer in 1870 and sheriff in 1871.[vii]
After acquiring the property he had a series of murals painted on the
inside walls of the house. He was later killed by an angry mob during
the Salt War of 1877, a conflict over the privatization of the vast salt
beds in the east of the county.[viii]
Following the Salt War, the house was ransacked and much of the property
plundered. Charles Ellis’s wife Teodora continued to reside in the home
and run the business her husband had established. In 1907, Teodora
Alarcón de Ellis died and the house remained vacant for about a year.
On August 18, 1908 Seth B. Orndorff purchased the property,
which consisted of 9.46 acres, from the estate of Teodora Alarcón de
Ellis. Two years later it was sold to Judge Leigh Clark.[ix]
Clark’s widow, Myra Prater Clark, began operating a “Motor Inn” at the
site around 1930. The Motor Inn made use of the spacious grounds and
featured multiple dining rooms. By 1935, it was renamed Casa del Rey and
probably continued to function as a motor lodge and restaurant. For the
rest of the 20th century, local residents continued to refer
to Casa Ronquillo, the Old Ellis Home, as the Motor Inn.[x]
By the 1940s Casa Ronquillo had been sold again and was
being used as rental property. The structures began to be neglected. In
1959 little remained of the original estate. The El Paso Herald-Post
noted that the “once magnificent house in San Elizario [had] been turned
into one room apartments for Lower Valley farm workers.” This
continued until the late 1960s. By then the surrounding buildings,
orchards, patios and most of the rooms were gone. The remains of Casa
Ronquillo consist of a crumbling five room segment of the original
house. The walls are cement stucco-covered adobe brick. There is a flat
parapet roof, unmilled vigas, latillas, metal drains and
brick openings. The structure has suffered extensive damage and has
been the target of many local graffiti artists who have covered and
destroyed the Ellis murals which were still visible in the 1960s. The
property and ruins were donated to El Paso Landmarks Inc. in the 1980s
for preservation work.[xi]
[ii]
Rick Hendricks and W. H. Timmons, San Elizario:Spanish Presidio
to Texas
County Seat
(El Paso, TX), 54; C.L. Sonnichsen, Pass of the North:Four
Centuries on the
Rio Grande (El Paso, TX), I,
110.
[iii]
“Casa Ronquillo, San Elizario, Tx.” Historic American Buildings
Survey HABS/HAER files at [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage……];
David Kammer, “San Elizario Historic District National Register of
Historic Places Registration Form,” Sec. 7, 23.
[iv]
Quoted in David O. Brown,
Cultural Resources Survey in
Socorro and San Elizario, El Paso County, Texas: Phase III
Architectural Studies
(El Paso, TX 1994), 328.
[v]
Helen Simons and Cathryn A. Hoyt, eds., Hispanic
Texas: A Historical
Guide
(Austin, TX 1992), 316.
[viii]
Sonnichsen, Pass of the North, I, 207.
[ix]
William Lockhart, “Casa
Ronquillo,”
Password 41,
81.
[x]
David Camarena Garces interview with Olga Trujillo Hernández,
volunteer at Los Portales Visitor Center, July 2004.
[xi]
(El Paso, TX) Herald-Post, June 19, 1959; Lockhart, “Casa
Ronquillo,” Password 41, 84.
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