Alvino House is the oldest standing adobe structure in Big Bend National Park. It is a great example of what an adobe home was like for the early farmers along the Rio Grande. The house was constructed in 1901 by Cipriano Hernandez, a farmer in the Castalon area. Hernandez enlarged his home to create a small mercantile store to service the growing community. In 1918, Alvino Ybarra bought the house. Alvino and his wife, Teofila, occupied the house for the next several decades, where they raised three sons and three daughters. The house was acquired by the NPS in 1964 and reported to be in partial ruin and in need of stabilization. In 1977 preservation work was done on the roof. Additional work was done in 1983 on the west wall to stabilize the ruin; in 1985, adobe veneers were installed along the first six courses to mitigate erosion at the base of the wall. Adobe masons from Santa Helena, Mexico restored the structure in 1994. Adobe bricks were made on the site, the roof was repaired and walls were stabilized. In 2008, a berm was added around the foundation to help protect the structure from flood waters.

In the fall of 2021, SILLA did a full restoration of the Alvino House. Work included wall repairs, replacing and stitching in new adobes, basal repairs of full and veneer bricks, roof repairs, new parapet walls, and multiple coats of earthen exterior plaster. Materials were all sourced locally within the area surrounding the house. Brick recipes and plaster samples were tested earlier in the year. Over 1500 new bricks were made on site and used in the repairs. The Alvino House will always be vulnerable to floods and water damage from storms, but with an understanding of the maintenance cycles, small campaigns can address the sacrificial plasters before damage occurs to the main structural elements of the building.