SAVING THE GOOD STUFF Fall 2018 h Volume 22 No. 3 2018 Preservation Merit Awards Celebration P reservation Austin is thrilled to honor another outstanding slate of projects with our 58th Annual Preservation Merit Awards. Established in 1960, this juried program celebrates the hard work and visionary approaches of those preserving Austin’s unique architectural, cultural, and environmental heritage. This is our largest group of award-winners yet, showing that preservation is alive and well in Austin, and achieved every day through the commitment and investment of Austinites citywide. These eighteen recipients represent preservation efforts of all of types and scales, and we’re so excited to give them the recognition they deserve. Our 58th Annual Preservation Merit Awards Celebration at the Friday, October 19, 2018 Driskill Hotel will be on Friday, October 19! We’ll look back at Check-In at 11am Program from 11:30am to 1:30pm our 65 years of preserving Austin’s irreplaceable heritage and Driskill Hotel, 604 Brazos Street present this year’s awards. Join us to honor the best preservation $100/members, $125/non-members projects from the past two years and give much-deserved Seating is limited, please reserve by October 12 applause to the owners, artists, architects, builders, and advocates who made them possible. PRESERVATION MERIT AWARD RECIPIENTS 220 SOUTH CONGRESS Road and lack of dedicated parking. Cielo system, bathrooms, and stairwells readied Property Group saw potential here when the building for modern tenants. Cielo Cielo Property Group Preservation Award for Rehabilitation no one else did, and in 2014 purchased the negotiated a parking agreement with the fading property with plans to turn it into a adjacent Embassy Suites, without which This unassuming brick building has stood vibrant gateway to South Austin. the project (and the building’s preservation) at the entrance to South Congress Avenue would not have been possible. for nearly 90 years. It’s housed everything Gensler architects opened up the from a metal shop to a cash handling building’s interior and embraced its 220 South Congress is now home to business, and in 1935 survived one of the industrial roots by exposing original YETI’s flagship store, a destination worst floods in Austin’s history. By 2009 ceiling joists, brick walls, and concrete whose bar and patio open onto Barton the building was vacant, however, because floors. New features include reclaimed Springs Road to bring life to this formerly of its unusual siting at Barton Springs wood and oxidized metal. A new roof, HVAC lifeless intersection. This transformation = Recipient Continued on page 3 Inherit Austin 2018-2019 Board of Directors nherit Austin is looking for new board members for new h EXECUTIVE coMMITEE h fiscal year! If you’re passionate about bringing awareness Vanessa McElwrath, President Clayton Bullock, 1st VP to preservation in Austin through unique events, partnership Lori Martin, President-Elect Richard Kooris, 2nd VP organizations, and “friendraising” for Preservation Austin, Clay Cary, Treasurer Alyson McGee, Secretary please get in touch with Board Chair Ellis Mumford-Russell at Ken Johnson, Immediate Past President [email protected] h DIRECTORS h Richard Craig Chris Hendel Blake Smith Join our Instagram Campaigns Samantha Davidson Linda Y. Jackson Mickie Spencer Help us show some love to the historic signs of Austin by using John Donisi Dennis McDaniel Michael Strutt the hashtag #signsofthetimesATX when you’re around town Steve Genovesi Scott Marks Allen Wise Eileen Gill Dewitt Peart Caroline Wright and see a historic sign worthy of attention. And, continue to tag Ann S. Graham Ian Reddy us in your posts of Austin culture & history, especially roadside h h resources using #atxroadside. RepresentatiVES Michael Holleran, UT School of Architecture Charles Peveto, Austin History Center Association Find us on Facebook and Instagram (@inheritaustin) to find out Ellis Mumford-Russell, Inherit Austin about our upcoming events and campaigns! h Bob Ward, Travis County Historical Commission h BENEFACTOR h Colin Corgan David Wilson McBee Family Foundation h WATERLOO CIRCLE h Paula & Lee Aaronson Ken Johnson & Norma Yancey Suzanne Deal Booth Danielle Kasling Sabrina Brown Richard & Laura Kooris Coleson Bruce & Anna Lee Dr. Elizabeth Geddes-Bruce Dennis & Jill McDaniel Clayton & Cora Bullock Vanessa & Mac McElwrath Robert & Mimi Buzbee Alyson McGee & Mark Wolfe Jim & Donna Byerlotzer Scott Marks & Lucy Wood Clay & Karen Cary Lori Martin & Stacey Fellers Erica & Damien Clark Peter Flagg Maxson & Kent & Reenie Collins John C. R. Taylor III Richard Craig Emily Moreland Tim Cuppett & Marco Rini George & Carole Nalle, III Sam & Ty Davidson Dewitt & Jane Peart William Dickson Janis & Joe Pinnelli John Donisi & Gina Hinojosa Matthew Redden Michael & Tracy DiLeo Angela Reed & Ian Reddy Steve & Jenifer Genovesi Blake Smith Eileen Gill & Kevin Pruitt Charles Aubrey Smith, Jr. Staff Ann S. Graham & Arlen Johnson Tyler Spears William & Regan Gammon Mickie Spencer Kate Singleton, Executive Director Tom & Elizabeth Granger Michael Strutt Chris & Abby Hendel Lance & Alyson Stumpf Lindsey Derrington, Programs Director Clarke Heidrick Mary Helen Walcutt Clark & Courtney Hoffman Mark Wey Mailing Address - P.O. Box 2113, Austin, TX 78768 Alex Herrera & Geoff Wellen Jill & Stephen Wilkinson Physical Address - 500 Chicon, Austin, 78702 James Hillhouse, IV Allen Wise Ph. (512) 474-5198 Fax (512) 476-8687 Diane Humphreys Patricia Winston & Bill Head Meta Butler Hunt Marvin & Eva Womack www.preservationaustin.org [email protected] Linda Y. & Rodney W. Jackson Caroline Wright 2 Fall 2018 Awards, continued from page 1 cabinet. All Craftsman 1920. The building’s reinforced concrete style wooden screens were structure, ultra-modern for its time, preserved, and squared, period- allowed for open floor plans and ample appropriate porch supports natural light. restored on the main façade. Two new additions were In 1997 young Tim and Karrie League carefully designed in keeping opened their original Alamo Drafthouse with the original house; here, taking the theater’s name from these include a gorgeous new the building’s shaped roof parapet. They 220 South Congress (Gensler) sunroom accessed through a covered its second story windows, added rounded, segmental-arched doorway that acoustic panels and black paint, and is a powerful step towards improving matches one in the original home. removed roof trusses for their single- pedestrian connections at either end of screen theatre. An Austin legend was the Congress Avenue Bridge. It shows The homeowners further contended with born, though this location closed in 2007. how even modest historic buildings are the site’s back-to-front 3 percent slope and The space lent itself well to a series of essential to creating a more vibrant urban drainage issues. While their initial project, nightclubs thereafter. experience for us all. completed in August 2017, had sought to fix the problem, Hurricane Harvey soon Owner David Zedeck enlisted Forge Craft 308 E. 35th caused more than 8 inches of rainwater to Architecture + Design to turn the building Steven Baker & Jeff Simecek seep under the house and buckle its floors. into creative office space in 2017. Restoring Preservation Award for Addition Another drainage and slope redesign the second story’s natural light was a ensued to protect the house long-term. priority; custom steel-framed windows Owners Steven Baker and Jeff Simecek liberated the wide bays on the main purchased this North University home Others might not have seen this home’s façade, complimented by new clerestories in 2014. Their work breathing life into its possibilities or embraced its historic with ceramic glazing. The project embraced historic fabric, and subtle expansion of character so fully. Others might also have the building’s vaulted roof structure and its footprint, shows the true potential in given up when its serious drainage issues uncovered its Austin brick walls. Elegant the modest (and too often threatened) became apparent. The current owners, new conference rooms face one another cottages that define so many of Austin’s however, have shown that these homes are across the symmetrical and otherwise core neighborhoods. worth preserving. open floor plan. New storefronts welcome visitors at the street level; these include All wooden trim was repeatedly hand a modern, faceted entrance and grand washed to remove years of cigarette 409 COLORADO staircase leading to the gleaming, light- smoke and oak floors were re-finished. The David Zedeck filled creative space above. bathroom retains its 1939 floor tile, bath Preservation Award for Rehabilitation tub, soap holder, towel rack, and medicine At a time when downtown’s Warehouse District is losing its low-rise commercial buildings at an alarming rate, this classic adaptive reuse project gives hope for what historic fabric remains. Architect Arthur O. Watson built this two-story auto- body shop and salesroom in 308 E. 35th Street (Preservation Austin) 409 Colorado (Clayton Holmes, Forge Craft Architecture + Design) Continued on page 4 PRESERVATION AUSTIN Awards, continued from page 3 AUSTIN STATE HOSPITAL balustrades, and remaining wood features were restored by Dutchman patching and Health & Human Services Commission an epoxy consolidant. Damaged pieces Preservation Award for Restoration on the ornate pediment, faced in formed sheet metal, were manufactured in the The Texas Legislature