In 1856 he purchased 700 acres from his father-in-law in Nolan Valley west of current-day Belton. There he built a wood cabin. Family legend has it that Estes was gone from the homestead when Indians crept up on his cabin and burned it to the ground.

The cabin was found in ashes on his return. The rope to the well had been cut so that there had been no chance his wife and children, who had been hiding inside, could put the fire out.

The family survived the incident. Estes was determined that it would never happen again. In 1859 he completed a rock house on the same site.

The two-story rectangular house had a flat roof - a fact that may have led to deterioration over the years, according to one owner. When Chuck and Sandy May came upon the property in 1977 it was in ruins and had been uninhabited for years.

“It was basically collapsed,” said May. He and his wife now live in the Fort Worth area.

“The roof was originally copper and had become a valuable commodity,” May said. “The copper disappeared and the weather came in, ruining the second floor rafters.”

May said a tractor repairman had lived there for many years. There was no indoor plumbing. The floor in the kitchen, dining and living area was hard-packed dirt. Electric service was a wire from the pole that led to several hanging bulb fixtures inside.

May said there was a ladder from the second floor to the roof where a 4-foot-high revetment went around the entire perimeter.

“There were gun portals in that revetment,” May said. “They weren’t evenly spaced but every so many feet was a portal. You could defend the house by thrusting a rifle through these openings.”

Much lower down at the roofline were ports to drain rainwater. May said it ran to a cistern on the side of the house. On the first level gun portals were closed off with wood plugs to keep the weather out. If the house was attacked, the residents inside pulled the plugs and thrust their firearms through the hole, May said.

“There are a lot of early houses in the area with this feature,” said May.

May said he paid $15,000 for the house on an acre and a half. He wanted to do a restoration of the basic stone shell, which was structurally sound.

“But restoration of old houses had not hit Central Texas in the 1970s,” May said. “When I went to the bank they said they wouldn’t make a loan on repairing an existing structure - only on new construction.

So May pulled the old stone walls down. He went back to the bank and told them he had an empty lot with construction materials stacked in the middle. The bank made the loan.

May said he rebuilt the house on the identical site in the identical shape of the original Estes home using the original stone materials. He said he did not adhere exactly to architectural elements such as window size and placement. But he kept the roof flat, minus gun portals of course.

Today D. and Don Kirkland own the house.

Mrs. Kirkland said she and her husband have planted lush landscaping around the property as their contribution. Shrubs and beds attract honeybees and swallow tail butterflies. A garden at the rear of the house is named Cardinal Court, Mrs. Kirkland said.

“When I planted it the cardinals were everywhere,” she said. “The male cardinal would feed the female sunflower seeds. So that’s where we got the name “court.” They were courting.”

When the Mays rebuilt the house, they built a wood frame attached garage and cottage to one side.

The Kirklands have spent the last many months decorating the cottage and furnishing it to rent as a bed and breakfast.

“We want this to be a garden retreat for our guests,” she said.

One piece of landscaping was already there when the Kirklands moved in. A huge trumpet vine climbs the south wall up to the second story.

“That trumpet vine was planted by Edmund Estes when he built the original house,” she said. “It’s 150 years old.”

The property is located at the corner of FM 93 and Backstrom Crossing. According to May, FM 93 was a cattle trail in the early days. Backstrom Crossing was a trail that led down to a low water crossing on Nolan Creek.

“What we’ve been told is that this was a stage stop in the early days,” May said. From Salado to Backstrom Crossing was a full day’s journey. The stage would park close to the house for protection and travelers would pitch tents down by the creek.”

He said in stormy weather travelers were invited to stay in the house.

Mrs. Kirkland said she was a senior at Killeen High School in 1978 when Maurine Burks, an art professor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, was commissioned to paint a mural on the Belton Dam.

“Members of the National Honor Society were contacted to come paint,” she said. “I was one of those students. And one of the images Ms. Burks chose to paint on the dam is this house. If you go there today you will see it.”

The Kirklands had an opening Sunday for their Garden Cottage Bed & Breakfast at 1313 Backstrom Crossing. For more information go to the Web site gardencottage@att.net or call 254-231-7630.