 The house was completed in the spring of 1857.The property was purchased by M. L. Hemphill in 1870 and by the John Fields family in 1881.Fields leased the building, 1893–1898, to the "Texas Eyes, Ear, and Throat Hospital," directed by Dr. Henry L. Hilgartner (1868–1937), and in 1903, sold this site to Frank M. Covert (1865–1938), the head of a prominent Austin family, who lived here until 1936.