Mason historic square
— the sandstone square the courthouse fire couldn't take.
Not only on a wall.
Mason historic square, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“A four-block sandstone square at the centre of Mason, a Hill Country town of about 2,100 people. The 1909 courthouse stood in the middle of it for over a century, until a February 2021 fire took most of the building. The stone shell stayed, and the town began rebuilding. The square around it, with its low storefronts and live oaks, never stopped working a day. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Mason is the seat of Mason County in the central Texas Hill Country, about 110 miles northwest of Austin and 35 miles west of Llano. The town's historic square sits four blocks square around the site of the Mason County Courthouse, a three-story Classical Revival building completed in 1909 by architect E.C. Hosford. The town's population is roughly 2,100, and the surrounding county is known for its sandstone outcroppings, the Llano River, and one of the largest concentrations of bat colonies in central Texas.
The courthouse and many of the square's storefronts were built from locally quarried sandstone, which gives the streetscape its warm tan colour and the soft, weathered edges typical of late-nineteenth-century Hill Country masonry. On 4 February 2021 a fire destroyed most of the courthouse's interior and roof, leaving the sandstone walls standing. Mason County voters approved a bond and a restoration effort began the following year, working from the original 1909 plans and the surviving stone shell. The Old Jail Museum, also stone, sits a block away.
The square is open and walkable at any hour, with diagonal parking on all four sides and small shops, a bakery, and a few restaurants on the storefronts facing the courthouse lot. Visitors usually combine a stop here with the Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve, the Mason County Museum in the old schoolhouse, and a drive along the Llano River. The Fort Mason site sits a few blocks south. Spring wildflower season, roughly mid-March through April, draws the heaviest visitor traffic.
