Object description

The Berthold Spitz House is a historic house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is significant as the city's best example of Prairie School architecture. It was built around 1910 by Berthold Spitz and his wife Fannie Schutz Spitz . Berthold was a German Jewish merchant who was born in Bohemia and immigrated to Albuquerque around 1880. He ran a successful dry goods business and made a few forays into local politics before being appointed as the city's postmaster in 1921. Fannie grew up in El Paso and was notable as the inventor of the first commercial pine nut shelling machine. She was described by the Albuquerque Journal as "the greatest known authority on the piñon nut and its possibilities". The house was designed by Henry C. Trost of the El Paso firm of Trost & Trost. It was listed on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties in 1975 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.