The Sterne-Hoya house has undergone any number of changing through the years. We are in the process of updating a few of our smaller exhibits and working to ensure the future of our museum by using period lighting and changing displays to ensure the preservation of our period objects.

The Sterne-Hoya house is one of the oldest houses in Texas still standing on its original site, and is listed in both the National and Texas Registers of Historical Places. The site is also a State Archeological Landmark.

Adolphus Sterne built this wood-frame dog-trot house in 1830. Sterne and his wife were both German immigrants to the New World and were passionate Texas patriots. Involved in the Fredonia Rebellion, the Battle of Nacogdoches and recruiting soldiers for the fight for Texas independence, the Sternes hosted many leading figures of the day, including Sam Houston, David Crockett, Chief Phillip Bowles, and Thomas J. Rusk, among others.
The Sterne family lived in the house until 1869, when the widow Sterne sold it to her neighbor Joseph von der Hoya for $550. The Hoyas, a prominent Nacogdoches family, owned the house until 1958, when they deeded it to the City to serve as library and museum. The House served as the Public Library in Nacogdoches from 1959 to 1974. In the 1980s the house underwent a major restoration and has since that time been furnished to represent the two families and time periods associated with them: the Sternes in the Republic of Texas and the Hoyas in the Victorian period of the nineteenth century.