Herzog Mansion, 700 Goethe Street, Hermann, MO (2026)

09/14/2026

William Herzog’s Pocketbook

An object that lived along side of the man who built the Herzog Mansion in Hermann, MO.

His name, pressed into the black leather in gold:

W. Herzog.

Intentionally included is my gloved, female hand for scale. The pocketbook is small enough to disappear into a man’s palm. Worn at the edges. Cracked where it was opened and closed. Softened by time, movement, and touch.

This was not an object meant to sit in wait of a special occasion or be displayed in a parlor. Williams pocketbook went where he went.

It slipped into his pocket in the morning and came out again throughout the day. Down the streets of Hermann. Through the cellars of Stone Hill. Into shops, meetings, carriages and trains.

It was there for the ordinary moments history neglects to record.

Perhaps an afternoon dérive. A drink purchased.
Bills paid.

Somewhere along the way, a German five mark note dated 1904 also became part of its story. A tattered remnant of the country William had left behind, tucked in his billfold. Carried into a century he would not live to see. Entrusted to my care by William’s descendants. Documented by me. It feels extraordinary, kind of like a dream.

Personal possessions like this preserve something other than that which monuments built and contracts signed preserve. They are evidence. Proof of a life lived.

The worn leather is the shadow of Mr. Herzog’s hand. The cracked flap is the repetition of a gesture performed thousands of times. Even those tiny gold letters feel strangely alive. W. Herzog. Not carved into stone, nor painted on a sign.

Stamped onto something that belonged in his pocket. Now, for the part I cannot quite comprehend.

After more than a century, after William himself disappeared from these rooms, after his family left, after generations came and went and the world outside changed almost beyond recognition…

His pocketbook came home.

Today, in 2026, it rests in the collection inside the house William Herzog built.

By some miracle, this little companion to his life found its way back to Hermann, Mo. This is my memorialization of that moment.

💫 We want to thank Mr. William Herzog’s descendants Steve and Melanie once again for entrusting the Morgan Family with these priceless artifacts. It is my joy and privilege to document them and share their historic significance with the world. 💫

**ery

09/12/2026

Ponder this: Oktoberfest, Before Social Media 🍂🍻

This little orange brochure was given to me by Steve Tebben, a descendant of William Herzog, the man who built the Herzog Mansion in 1886.

Steve kept it for twenty three years. Now, I find myself sitting inside the house his ancestor built, holding this little piece of Hermann in my hands.

In 2003, this was simply how you figured out what was happening during Oktoberfest.

You unfolded the brochure and inside was an entire October in Hermann. 🍻🥨🇩🇪

Concerts. Biergartens. German music. Winery events. Museum tours. Arts and crafts. Food. Dancing. Demonstrations.

It told you what was happening, where it was happening and what time you needed to be there. Then you folded it back up, slipped it into your pocket and walked out into Hermann.

Twenty three years later, looking through it from inside the Herzog Mansion makes me wonder:

What has changed? And perhaps more importantly, what hasn’t?

The w**eries are still here. Music still drifts through town. People still gather beneath old buildings. The sugar maples begin changing color, the air cools, and once again Hermann welcomes October by celebrating. 🎉

That instinct reaches much further into our history than this orange brochure.

Hermann was deliberately established in the 1830s as a German settlement. A master planned community. For families to live and support one and other. It was not a tourist destination. The people who created this community brought language, architecture, food, w**emaking, music and customs with them. By 1848, Hermann was celebrating Weinfest, part of our long local tradition of gathering around w**e and community. 🍷

Over generations, those German cultural threads became woven into something distinctly Hermann.

That is the part I never want us to forget.

Living in the Herzog Mansion makes it impossible for me to forget it. From within these brick walls, history does not feel particularly distant.

For 140 years, people have walked past these windows on their way somewhere. Generations have celebrated within them. Businesses have opened and disappeared. Traditions have evolved. The Herzog Mansion has remained.

During her years as a bed and breakfast, some Oktoberfests were undoubtedly harder on this old house than others.

Today, thankfully, she gets to rest. 🤍

She is what she was made to be: a home.

Another October arrives outside her windows, while inside she is filled with the family who loves her and protects her.

Michael and I love Oktoberfest deeply. Living here has taught us to think about tradition differently.

When you care for something that existed long before you and, with proper stewardship, will exist long after you, you begin asking different questions.

Not simply:

What should Hermann become?

But:

What is Hermann that we must never allow ourselves to lose?

I don’t believe progress and tradition oppose one another. A community that understands the roots beneath its feet can grow without severing them.

That is what we try to practice at the Herzog Mansion.

We restore. We research. We preserve. We remember. Preservation is not simply the act of keeping an old building standing, but equally so, it is the continuation of a story.

Our architecture is part of that story. Our vineyards and festivals are part of it as well.

Even this little orange brochure is part of it.

And I think Steve understood something important when he kept it.

In a world where it seems increasingly impossible to get away from our phones, there is something relieving about a little piece of paper that already tells you where to be and when. It is concrete. It keeps you in the moment rather than taking you away from it.

Fold it into your pocket. Put away the phone. Walk beneath the old buildings. Follow the music. Have a glass of w**e. Talk to your neighbors. Welcome a stranger to your table.

For an afternoon, simply be in Hermann.

In 2003, this was just a brochure.

Today, because Steve thought to save it, it allows us to reflect on Hermann twenty three Octobers ago.

We rarely know which ordinary pieces of the present will become the objects through which someone someday understands our past.

Thank you, Steve, for keeping this one and eventually placing it in my hands. It gave me the opportunity to sit inside the house William Herzog built and ponder the Hermann that came before us, the Hermann we are creating today, and what we hope will remain long after our actions become our legacy.

As another Oktoberfest approaches, I would love to know:

Do you prefer having the Oktoberfest schedule digitally on your phone, or would you rather carry a physical paper guide like this one in your pocket?

Personally, I think there is something lovely about having the choice to unfold a little piece of Hermann, deciding where the day will take you, disconnecting from your phone, and going there. 🍂🍷☀️

**efest

09/10/2026

The storm that came through and relieved Hermann of its dry spell last night was incredible. I filmed this clip on the second story as it rolled over the Herzog Mansion. 🌧️

I’ll say it first, “we needed this”.

There is something surreal about a thunderstorm when you are sleeping this high above the ground. Surrounded by thin, wavy old glass.

The storm doesn’t seem like something happening outside. You are in it. Lightning fills the rooms of the mansion, thunder echoes through the house, and the clouds appear as if they are within reach. Lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, it is less like you are watching a storm and more like you are floating somewhere inside of it.

For the duration, the ground is only a memory. There is darkness, rain, thunder, and flashes of light illuminating the walls.

It is such a strange and beautiful way to fall asleep. A feeling that transcends time. Like living inside a surrealist painting, except the painting is moving around you.

The Herzog Mansion, at home in the storm. ⛈️

09/10/2026

Before there was a Herzog Mansion, there was William and Aurelia.

On May 4, 1874, 26 year old William Herzog married 19 year old Aurelia Cramer. William had been in America for only a few years. The great house on Goethe Street did not yet exist. Much of the life for which we remember them today was still waiting to be lived.

They were standing at the beginning of the rest of their lives.

From that beginning, something unbelievable due to its age and fragility has survived.

Their wedding goblet. 🤍

Hand blown in clear glass and exquisitely engraved, this single goblet bears the initials of both William and Aurelia. Their monograms curl, cross, and intertw**e in elaborate frosted script beneath a crown, surrounded by a garden of flowers, foliage, scrolling vines, and delicate ornament.

Two names.

One vessel.

More than 150 years has passed, but the symbolism remains.

Their certificate of marriage records their union beneath the German words:

“Was nun Gott zusammengefügt hat, das soll der Mensch nicht scheiden.”

What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

On paper, their union was recorded in ink.

On the goblet, it was rendered in glass.

Their names quite literally became intertw**ed.

We will not know every moment this goblet witnessed or precisely how it was used on their wedding day. History deserves the humility of admitting what it does not tell us.

But we know whose names it bares. We know the marriage it commemorates and somehow, through more than a century and a half of changing hands, this impossibly delicate object survived.

It is a witness.

That may be what makes objects like this so different, so much more precious to me, from documents and dates.

A document tells us that William and Aurelia were married.

An object like this lets us stand for a moment in the shadow of their lives. We can place our hands where theirs once held it.

When this goblet was new, William and Aurelia did not know what was coming. The mansion was still more than a decade in their future. No celebrations had filled its rooms. No family had gathered around its tables. None of the memories now held within its walls existed yet.

History had not yet happened. It was their future. This goblet stood near the beginning of it all.

Perhaps that is also what old objects have to teach those of us living now.

We tend to recognize an heirloom only after time has made it one. But throughout our own homes are objects participating in our lives right now.

A glass raised to the weekend. A favorite book opened by familiar hands. A handwritten note tucked into a drawer. Jewelry worn so often that it feels like part of your person.

They are ordinary objects until they are not.

Meaning gathers slowly through memory, love, loss, and ultimately through the decision that something matters enough to keep.

For more than 150 years, generation after generation protected something made of glass for two young people beginning their lives together.

I like to think about the improbability of that. Especially in the disposable world we live in.

Glass breaks. Families move. Estates are divided. Possessions are sold. Generations pass. Yet somehow, this remarkably fragile object endured.

And now, after an extraordinary journey, their wedding goblet has returned to the house that they built together.

The house in which so much of the future that lay before them in 1874 would become their life.

Before there was a mansion, there was William and Aurelia.

And today, this beautiful witness to their beginning is home again. 🤍

09/08/2026

Herzog Family Coat of Arms

Hand painted after a heraldic source of 1605
Artist unknown

“Wappen von dem Geschlecht Herzog.
Gezogen aus dem 8ten Buch 40ten Blatt der sogenannten ungarischen Wappensammlung, unter der Aufschrift Elsässische Geschlechter, vom Jahr 1605.”

Translated:

“Coat of arms of the Herzog family. Copied from the 8th book, 40th leaf, of the so called Hungarian collection of coats of arms, under the heading ‘Alsatian Families,’ from the year 1605.”

—————————————————————

Upon examination under magnification, it is my professional opinion that this is an original hand painted work executed in gouache, apparently with only two or three sizes of brush. The handling is remarkably economical. Confident brushstrokes and carefully placed pigment achieve magnificent detail without unnecessary labor. This was the work of an artist transcribing an existing coat of arms by hand from the larger heraldic volume identified below it.

And wow…the image which was preserved…

Against a field of deep navy, an armored arm rises with remarkable force. The gauntleted hand firmly grips a broad bladed dagger, nearly swordlike in scale, and drives it directly through a gilded crown. Each element is beautiful independently, the articulated armor, the formidable blade, the encrusted golden crown, but united they cease to be merely decorative. They become an act. 🔪👑

It is an image charged with resistance and rebellion. The crown, an ancient emblem of sovereignty and earthly authority, has been pierced. Without the original heraldic grant, we cannot know precisely what meaning was assigned to these arms, but visually, the message is extraordinarily evocative: strength confronting power. Defiance.

Perhaps this is why seeing the Herzog arms for the first time affected me so deeply.

Centuries later, the family associated with these arms would build the Herzog Mansion in Hermann, and I cannot help but see something of the same spirit in the home. It stands proudly in the heart of this darling German Missouri town, different from everything around it. Other adjacent grand houses came before it, yet Herzog arrived unapologetically himself. The mansion does not ask permission to be seen.

I have always believed that a home beckons its owner. I see in these arms something I recognize intimately: independence, resistance, rebellion and the willingness to go against the grain.

A dagger through a crown. A house that refuses to disappear.

Out of all the houses we could have chosen to call home, that connection feels anything but accidental. ⚔️

We would like to sincerely thank Steve and Melanie, descendants of William Herzog, once again for reuniting these artifacts with the Herzog Mansion.

over

09/05/2026

Just another day at the office. 🪜

Have you read our most recent blog post?

Link in the comments. 🖤

09/04/2026

SHE WENT LOOKING, AND FOUND THIS. 📸

Yesterday, we received a message that made our day.

After seeing our request for historic photographs of the William Herzog Mansion, Melissa went through her family photos and found this wonderful image of her daughter, Carly, sitting in front of the mansion around 2001.

This is exactly why we have been asking people to look.

Photographs like this help us build a visual timeline of the mansion. The house, grounds, fence, steps, and landscaping can show us what condition different elements were in, what had deteriorated or changed, and what restoration work had taken place at different points in its history.

Every photograph gives us another piece of the story. So please, keep looking through those old albums and boxes. You never know what might be there. 🖤

📷 Photograph courtesy of Melissa Christine

*ARCHIVAL MATERIAL NOTICE*

The photographs, documents, and artifacts presented here are being publicly documented through the William Herzog Mansion. Please do not reproduce, alter, digitally manipulate, use with AI, or republish these materials independently without permission and appropriate credit to the William Herzog Mansion.

Sharing our original posts is always welcomed and appreciated.

Thank you for respecting the integrity, provenance, and historical context of this collection.

Herzog Mansion

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