HYDE PARK WALKING TouR Prologue

0 n the corner of East 39th Street and Avenue F, where the tour of the Hyde Park neighborhood begins, there is an old post oak-tall and stately as its bloodlines

would have it be. Springtime continues to renew it more than a century after a forest of its brethren here was cleared to build downtown Austin. This survivor stood silently by as new trees were planted, mostly pecan and hackberry, and people began to put down their own roots beneath and beside them. Thus, under the canopy of its broad leaves, Hyde Park was born and a bit of Texas prairie (206.5 acres in all) was trans­formed into a stage where generations of lives would be acted out.

The central player in the drama of Hyde Park was a man named Monroe Martin Shipe, an entrepreneur from Abilene, Kansas, who moved to Austin in 1889. He had a vision for this tract of land in far north Austin, the former site of the State Fair of Texas (1875-1884) and home of a still-popular racetrack As presi­dent of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Land and Town Company, he purchased it, connected it to the city via his own electrical streetcar system, christened it Hyde Park after London's prestigious address, and turned its southwest section into a resort complete with a dance pavilion and picturesque walking paths. Then he

ELECTRIC STREETCAR AT THE WESTERN ENTRANCE TO HYDE PARK, CA. 1893

AVEN'UE 8 GROCERY, 4403 AVENUE B

made the ultimate investment in its future: he built his own home in Hyde Park and for the rest of his life served as its tireless champion and caretaker.

Influenced by Shipe's promotion, others came and invested Hyde Park with their ideas of home. Over the course of years so many came with so many different ideas that this middle-class neighborhood evolved into a wonderful sampler of popular American architectural styles. The Hyde Park Walking Tour will show you all me uniqueness of these styles as they took shape in Austin, but it will also point out what is typical about them. In such a way, an understanding of Hyde Park may inspire a renewed appreciation of all older neigh­

borhoods.

PICA 02628, AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER

IF THE POST OAK TREE WHERE WE BEGIN IS A TOUCHSTONE MEASURING THE DISTANCE THIS

AREA HAS TRAVELED SINCE ITS FRONTIER DAYS-THEN THIS SEC­TION OF 39TH STREET, WHICH SWEEPS LIKE A RIVER TOWARD THE EAST, IS ANOTHER TELLING LAND­MARK. CONSIDER THAT COLONEL SHIPE'S HYDE PARK PLAN CALLED FOR A GRID SO SIMPLE AND STRAIGHTFORWARD THAT A CHILD WHO KNEW THE ABCS AND HOW TO COUNT TO EIGHT WAS ASSURED OF NEVER GETTING LOST. (THE CROSS STREETS, 38TH-45TH, WHICH INTERSECT WITH AVENUES A-H WERE, IN SHIPE'S TIME, CALLED 1ST- 8TH STREETS.) AND YET, INTO THIS PICTURE OF RIGID, GEOMETRICAL BLOCKS FIG­URES EAST 39TH STREET, A SERPEN­TINE ROAD THAT, SOME FOLKS SAY, FOLLOWS THE LINES OF THE FORMER RACETRACK. ALL WE KNOW FOR SURE IS THAT EAST 39TH STREET MOVES WITH THE SLOW WINDING AND TURNING OF A COUNTRY LANE BECAUSE SOME­ONE LIKED IT THAT WAY. AND THAT SOMEONE WAS CERTAINLY THE OWNER OF THE HOUSE JUST AROUND THE BEND-COLONEL MONROE MARTIN SHIPE.

WALK EAST ON EAST 39Til STREET TO TilE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF AVENUE G. ON YOUR WAY YOU'LL SEE AT 207 TilE REPRO­DUCTION QUEEN ANNE STYI.E HOUSE BU1LT IN 1987 TO COMPLEMENT ITS VICTORIAN NEIGHBOR. JUST BEYOND IT YOU'LL SEE TilE GAZEBO OF THE SHIPE HOUSE AROUND WHICH MANY NEIGHBORHOOD PARTIES TOOK PLACE. FOLLOW THIS NORTilERN ELE­VATION OF THE SHIPE HOUSE UNTIL YOU REACH TilE CORNER. TURN AND FACE TilE FRONT ENTRANCE AT 3816 AVENUE G.

Four

MONROE SHIPE'S VISION OF HYDE PARK, CA. 1890

Five

(1892), 3816 AVENUE G The home Shipe built present­ed a friendly, gaily-painted countenance to the public. Like most of the stylish, later Victorian homes of the peri­od, it was eclectic Many of its details - the fish scale shingles, the turned porch

until it became conspicuous by its absence, making the colorful, rather unlikely pedi­ment attached to the lower porch take on the playfulness of a false mustache.

Renovation of the house has revealed that the lumber used to build it came from the grandstand on the former

State Fair of Texas

SHIPE PLAITED THE LAND NEAR HIS HOUSE IN 1922 AND DUBBED IT SHAD­

OWLAWN. CONCRETE MARKERS AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNERS OF G AT EAST 39TH STREET AND EAST 40TH REFER TO THIS SUBDIVJSION WITHIN THE HYDE PARK

grounds. A roof of con­crete, reflect­ing Shipe's eccentric fondness for the material, NEIGHBORHOOD.

columns, the lively, contrast­ing colors - are surface dec­orations that characterized the Queen Anne style. But at the Shipe house the similarities ended here. Notice the sim­ple, two-story, square plan that strikes a classical note and the diagonal supports under the roof overhangs that speak clearly of the Stick .style. The roof-usually so important to Victorians-was flattened and hidden here

THE SHIPE HOUSE

was also, uncovered.

Because the house was sink­ing under its weight, the con­crete was removed.

-.WALK NOR'lli AIDNG AVENUE G ON THE EAST SIDE OF TilE STREET.

(1902), 3909 AVENUE G In 1902 Charles A. Hildreth hired master builder William Voss, Sr. to construct a house, stable and galvanized iron cis-

Six

tern on the four lots he had purchased for $560. The total for such a building project was $2718, exceeding Shipe's minimum building require­

BALUSTRADE

ment of $2000 for each house in his suburb. In the house that resulted, fashionable

Colonial Revival features - a square plan, turned wooden balustrade and porch columns with Doric capitals - over­lay Queen Anne underpin­nings, especially noticeable in its off-center entrance and in the hip and gable forms of its steep, Victorian roof.

CONTINUE WALKING NOR'lli ON

AVENUE G, BUT DIRECT YOUR ATTEN­

TION TO lliE HOUSE ACROSS lliE

STREEI', AT lliE SOU1HWEST CORNER

OF AVENUE G AND EAsT 40lli.

(1898), 3912 AVENUE G Perhaps no other home in Hyde Park captured Shipe's vision of prestige as perfectly as the Frank and Annie Covert house, built, by design, just where the street­car turned off East 40th Street to head north on Avenue G. The house suggests a variety of influences, all traceable to prevailing fashions during the waning days of the nineteenth century. The form of the house, with an off-centered portico announcing the entrance, is Queen Anne while the rusticated limestone footing and window treat­ments carry with them a hint of the Romanesque idiom just then defining Texas' most splendid courthouses. The

overriding impression, howev­er, is left by Classical Revival details like the two-story wooden porch with paired, Doric columns.

Frank Covert was in real estate, but his name would soon become· synonymous with "horseless carriages" when he opened one of Austin's first automobile deal­erships. The scale and pre­tence of this residence point­edly reflect Covert's social and economic status in Austin society at the turn of the cen­tury.

-.CoNTINUE ON lliE EAST SIDE OF

AVENUE G AND DIRECT YOUR ATIEN­

TION TO lliE HOUSE ON lliE SOUIB­

EAST CORNER OF AVENUE G AND EAsT 40lli S1REET - 3913 AVENUE G.

(1893), 3913 AVENUE G In the early 1880s Christopher Page, a British immigrant, came to Austin to work as a stonema­son, later subcontractor, OJ:?- the new state capitol. When that building was finished, he put his skills to work on his own PYRAMIDAL ROOF

house in Hyde Park The promi­nent gable and entrance tower with pyramidal roof allude to the Queen Anne style, but Page did­n't go in for many of the usual Victorian excesses. Decoration for him was more structural in

nature. Notice the brick hood­molds and stone sills and the string course sepa­rating the

BRICK HOODMOLDS flOOrS.

Seven

THE RAMSDELL-WOLFF HOUSE

fROM THE PAIGE-GllBERT HOUSE WALK EAST ON EAsT 40'rn STREET ONE BIDCK, TO THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF ITS JUNCTION WITH AVENUE H.

(1907), 4002 AVENUE H Stand squarely in front of this shingled, hip roof house built in 1907 and see for yourself how the Craftsman aesthetic was not just a new architec­tural style, but also a silent protest directed at the Victorian exuberance that had gone before. Gone are the balustrades, porch columns, and lacy "gingerbread." Gone, too, is the emphasis on verticality and asymmetry of the Queen Anne style. Craftsmen homes such as the Ramsdell-Wolff House were beginning to usher in a new taste for simplicity.

The visual simplicity of the Craftsman style had its roots in social change in America. Its standardized fea­tures developed as a response to the demand for inexpen­sive housing from the coun­try's burgeoning working class. Before evolving into the bungalow, elegant

Craftsman homes like this one became sought after by the middle and upper classes. Charles William Ramsdell, an historian (later called the "dean of Southern history"), wrote his first and most important book, Reconstruction in Texas, while living in this house.

CoNTINUE NORTH ON AVENUE H UNI1L YOU REAG! EAsT 41sT STREET

AND THE CORNER HOUSE AT 4014 AVENUE H.

(1903), 4014 AVENUE H The house at 4014 Avenue H was purchased from Monroe Shipe in 1903 by Ida Zirnmerli. Mrs. Zimmerli, a dressmaker from Switzerland, and her hus­band, Julius, sold the house in 1906 to Helena Rosenquist, one of the many Swedes who set­tled in Hyde Park. A clear emphasis on symmetry -notice how the front door, the porch pediment, and its echo, a pedimented dormer, are all on axis with each other-gives the house a Classical Revival aspect. The Queen Anne spirit persists, however, and may be found in some of the more

Eight

subtle character­istics of the house, the steep pitch of

TAKE EAST 41sT STREET TO AVENUE F. CROSS THE STREET AND

STOP AT THE NORTHWEST CORNER.

' the roof, PEDIMENT· the octagonal form of the entrance ves_tibule, and a cer­tain delicacy of spirit overall.

(1893), 4100AVENUEF There is no better place to appreciate architect W. B. Eyres' creativity at the Holland-Klipple

A s YOU STROLL, NOTICE THE COR­.1'\..NER GARDENS THAT EMBELLISH .

MANY OF THE CORNER LOTS IN THE

NEIGHBORHOOD. FILLED WITH ANNU­

ALS LIKE ZINNIAS, NASTURTIUMS, AND

MORNING GLORIES AND PERENNIALS LIKE DAISIES AND LAMB'S EARS. THEY

RECALL THE INFORMAL, COTTAGE GAR­

DENS OF AN EARLIER ERA. F. T. RAM­SEY, AN EARLY HYDE PARK RESIDENT,

WHO OPERATED HIS NURSERY ON 400

ACRES JUST NORTH OF 45TH STREET,

HEAVILY INFLUENCED THE NEIGHBOR­HOOD'S LANDSCAPING. HE WAS THE

FIRST AUSTIN MERCHANT TO MAKE

AVAILABLE MANY OF THE PLANTS THAT

NOW FLOURISH HERE-RED YUCCA

TURK'S CAPS, ALTHEAS AND P AVON;A

IN ADDITION TO NUMEROUS VARIETIE~ OF FRUIT AND NUT TREES.

THE ZHvlMERLI-ROSENQUIST HOUSE

Nine

house than where you now stand. His desire to exploit the gen­erous comer location was the inspiration behind the diagonally­placed front door. By thus opening the house simulta­neously to East 41st Street and Avenue F, Eyres made sure the finery of the wooden friezes and balustrades on these double porches could be seen by all passersby.

HYDE PARK GRANDSTAND, 1890s

EARLY AUSTIN ARCHITECT W. G. EYRES

DESIGNED THE HOMES ON BOTH SIDES

OF THE HOLLAND-KLIPPLE HOUSE. THE

DECORATIVE RICHNESS OF HIS VICTORIAN SENSIBILITY IS ESPECIALLY APPARENT IN

THE SAUTER-ALLEY HOUSE, ACROSS EAST

41ST STREET.

HEAD WEST DOWN TilE

SOUTH SIDE OF EAsT 41ST STREET TO SPEEDWAY. CROSS TO TilE

WEST SIDE OF TilE STREET AND

LOOK UP.

(1895), 41ST AND SPEEDWAY

(1897), 4012 AVENUE F "There were (in Hyde Park) no high society folks, as I remember. They were just plain, good people ... " So remembered Mary Burlingame Moffatt who came as an orphaned child to live with her aunt and uncle, Mi. and Mrs. Joseph Sauter. While not elitist, the Sauters were pros­perous. This home, built in 1897, was the most expensive of Eyres' Avenue F designs. As with them, he . started with a standard Queen Anne L plan with a steep roof of crossed gables. He then elab­orated this basic structure by cutting away the sides of the prominent front wing to cre­ate a bay window. With the addition of double level porches on two sides of the house, the way was clear for the full flowering of his Victorian sensibility in the elaborate wooden detailing.

The very industrial appearance of the tower belies the early date at which it began operation­May 1895. The Hyde Park tower was the first of 31 cast and wrought iron towers installed by the Fort Wayne Electric Company under con­tract with the city of Austin in 1895. It was believed

Ten

C02718, AUST1N lDSTORY CENTER

feared that the illumination,· sometimes called "Austin moonlight," would confuse their garden vegetables into growing twenty-four hours a day.

PICA 02610, AUS71N lflSTORY CENIER

HYDE PARK'S MOST FASHIONABLE DRIVE WAS SPEEDWAY, WHICH, IN

THE NEIGHBORHOOD'S INFANCY, WAS CALLED BOTH A VENUE E AND CON­GRESS A VENUE. EACH OF THOSE NAMES ORIENTED IT IN THE MINDS OF AUSTINITES, BUT THE LABEL THAT EVENTUALLY STUCK CAPTURED THE STREET'S SPIRIT AS WELL AS THE ATTI­TUDE OF EARLY DRIVERS. BECAUSE

THE MEN WHO RACED HORSES AT THE FORMER STATE FAIR RACING

TRACK IN HYDE PARK EXERCISED THEIR ANIMALS ON THIS NEW GRAV­ELED ROAD, IT BECAME KNOWN AS "THE SPEEDWAY." SHIPE PERSONALLY PAID FOR IT AND MAINTAINED IT FOR THIRTY YEARS, AS A PART OF HIS EFFORT TO CONNECT HIS NORTHERN SUBURB WITH THE "CITY, AND TO ENCOURAGE STILL MORE HOME BUILDING HERE. SPEEDWAY HAS EXPERIENCED MORE LATTER-DAY DEVELOPMENT THAN OTHER STREETS

IN HYDE PARK.

NOW PROCEED NORTII ON TilE WEST SIDE OF SPEEDWAY TO TilE TWO BUNGALOWS AT MID BLOCK.

FIRST HOUSE,

(1910) 4108 SPEEDWAY

The Baileys' first house is quiet, a hushed picture of the power of a hip roof to shelter the inhabitant. Notice especially the roughcast wall of indige-nous limestone and the whimsi­cal nature of the

that a single 165-foot tower with carbon arc lamps (now mercury vapor) casting a glow over a 1500-foot radius, would be easier to maintain than numerous small street lamps throughout the city. Only 17 Moonlight Towers survive in Austin today. And while they are all uniformly beloved, such may not have been the case in 1895. Then, some Hyde Park residents

hefty hemispheres that deco­rate it. The horizontality of the Bailey house, caused by the ever-widening spans of its hip roofs, relate it to the Prairie style homes Frank Lloyd Wright had made pop­ular only a few years earliei

Eleven

WALK NORTIIWARD TO TilE HOUSE NEXT DOOR AT 4110 SPEEDWAY.

THE SECOND BAILEY-HOUSTON HOUSE

THE BAILEY'S SECOND HOUSE,

(1915), 4110 SPEEDWAY

The Baileys clearly savored the shady embrace of nature made possible by the deep eaves of their first home. So much so, it seems that within five years they built a second home, here at 4110, in which a series of gable roofs became the showcase for all manner of architectural details. Notice especially the eaves, knee braces and the half-tim­bered wooden decora­tion. C. H. Page,

HALF-TIMBERING

the son of Christopher Page, whose home we saw on Avenue G, was the architect of this home. Considered one of the finest remaining Craftsman bungalows in Austin today, it exemplifies the fashion for the type of home begun by architects Greene & Greene of Pasadena, California. Their influence on Page is seen in the form of the building and in the river rocks covering the chimneys and column bases. Despite these California influ-

ences, the Baileys' bungalow still bore the stamp of an original designer. Page's design for this Craftsman home would distinguish it from the later, carpenter-built bungalow, which proliferated in Hyde Park and across America after World War I.

""'WALK NORTIIWARD TO TilE HOUSE

NEXT DOOR AT 4112 SPEEDWAY.

(1908), 4112 SPEEDWAY

Walter and Bettie Badger were the parents of Fannie Bailey, whose two Craftsman homes we have just seen. Walter Badger's family had made a fortune in the cedar business, and Walter was to make a name for himself as director of the American National Bank. As chairman of the Austin Citizens' Committee, he also did Austin the great service of averting measures to remove the University of Texas from this city. Badger's Hyde Park acquisition not only included the two vacant lots later built upon by his daughter, but this graceful home, which was already built. Its Colonial Revival features, particularly

Twelve

the wrap-around verandahs with Doric columns, give the house a southern, antebellum look, making it easy to imag­ine that Mrs. Badger's father was noted confederate General Adam Rankin Johnson. Seen against the more modern, intentionally rustic Craftsman homes, the Colonial Revival style here evokes a formal, conservative lifestyle.

BE CAREFUL AS YOU CROSS

SPEEDWAY AND HEAD EAST ON EAST

42ND STREET. CoNTINUE ONE

BLOCK UNTIL YOU REACH THE

NORTHWEST CORNER OF AVENUE F.

(1895), 4200 AVENUE F The Bell house is a good example of a folk Victorian house, that is, a simple tradi­tional house form embellished with Victorian detailing. When the railroad companies began to send their tentacles deep into the American land­scape, homeowners could buy mass-produced Victorian detailing, like the "ginger­bread" you see here, and add it on to a traditional, carpen­ter-built structure. Notice the

1HE BELL HOUSE

graceful fence of crocheted wire that was once so com­mon in Hyde Park.

Thaddeus Bell, an insur­ance agent, was the grandson of Josiah Bell, one of the original settlers who came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin in 1821.

CONTINUE WALKING NORTH ON

AVENUE F.

(1896), 4212 AVENUE F Loula Dale Kopperl and her husband Morris bought this house in 1897, one year after it was built. The fashion­able detail­ing-note especially the spindlework frieze on the

SPINDLEWORK FRIEZE

porch, the six fireplaces, the wrap-around verandah, the elaborate roof-were all in place when Mrs. Kopperl took over as mistress of the house. Mr. Kopperl would later charge her with desertion and divorce her, but from all accounts, Loula Dale remained unrepentant. Her

Thirteen

1. SHIPE HOUSE

2. HILDRETH-FLANAGAN-HEIERMAN HOUSE

3. FRANK AND ANNIE COVERT HOUSE

4. PAGE-GILBERT HOUSE

5. RAMSDELL-WOLFF HOUSE

6. ZIMMERLI-ROSENQUIST HOUSE -

7. HOLLAND-KLIPPLE HOUSE

8. SAUTER-ALLEY HOUSE

9. MOONLIGHT TOWER

10. DR. EDWARD AND FANNIE BAILEY HOUSE

11. BAILEY-HOUSTON HOUSE

12. WALTER AND BETTIE BADGER HOUSE

13. THADDEUS AND FLORENCE BELL HOUSE

14. KOPPERL HOUSE

15. MILTON]. HODNETT£ HOUSE

16. W. 0. GUSTAFSON HOUSE

17.JAMES A. HUTCHINS HOUSE

18. SHIPE PARK

19. WOODBURN HOUSE

20. CLARK-EMMERT HOUSE

21. 4214 AVENUE C

22. 4213 AVENUE C

23. 4204 AVENUE C

24. 4201 AVENUE C

25. 4203 AVENUE C

26. MISS MARY LOWRY HOUSE

27. SMITH-MARCUSE-LOWRY HOUSE

28. OLIPHANT-WALKER HOUSE

29. MANSBENDEL HOUSE

30. ELISABET NEY MUSEUM

Fot1rteen

TOUR ROUTE

p PARKING

Now drive to the Elisabet Ney Museum at 304 East 44th Street.

Fifteen

L

D EMEMBER THAT CORNER HODS­

fiBs IN HYDE PARK OFTEN ORIG-

INALLY SERVED AS BOOKENDS FOR

UNDEVELOPED LOTS IN BETWEEN.

IF ONE SUCH BOOKEND WAS THE

BELL HOUSE, THE NEXT WOULD

HAVE BEEN LOULA DALE KOPPERL'S

HOME AT 4212. WHILE CHICKENS

AND GARDENS GENERALLY FILLED

THESE EMPTY LOTS, THE STYLISH

MRS. KOPPERL USED THE TWO LOTS

SOUTH OF HER RESIDENCE TO STA-

(CA. 1909), 4300 AVENUE F

BLE AND EXERCISE HER RACE HORSES.

The Hodnette House is a fine early Craftsman house with such a low profile that it might be over­looked were it not for the stunning Japanese lanterns suspended from the eaves. Their

cultivated albeit unconven­tional style, which included big game hunting and risque humor, won her the friend­ship of the spirited sculptress, Elisabet Ney.

The garden here has been as sensitively restored as the house. Notice, particular­ly, the antique roses, includ­ing Penelope, Sombriel and Fairy varieties. As one early Hyde Park resident recalled, "you just didn't have a yard without roses."

CROSS EAST 43RD STREET TO THE NORTHWEST CORNER.

enormous scale emphasizes other

aspects of the house--the rusticated limestone base, which shapes the porch, and the brick walls. Early photo­graphs of the house show heavy vines and other plant­ings and emphasized the Craftsman belief in the health­fulness and beauty of nature. Notice the hitching posts for visitors' horses.

BEFORE CONTINUING NORTH ON AVENUE F, LOOK DIRECTLY EAST ACROSS THE STREET AT THE SIDE OF THE W.O. GUSTAFSON HOUSE ON THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF AVENUE F AND EAsT 43RD STREET.

Sixteen

·~

(CA. 1925), 200 EAsT 43RD W. 0. Gustafson, a building contractor, had such a fine design sensibility it is easy to imagine that his son would become an architect. Notice the exceptional fence and lat­tice gate the elder Gustafson gave the family bungalow, and also the elaboration of the knee braces under the

(1928), C!TY BLOCK.BOUNDED BY

AVENUES F AND. G, STREETS EAST 44m AND 45m The park was dedicated in 1928, and the two pools and shelter were in place soon afterward. Hyde Park Playground, as it was called, was among a handful of early neighborhood parks built in outlying residential areas of Austin in the early 1930s. Before the' tennis and basket-

eaves. Observe how ball courts and small portions of the playscape were jerkinhead roof shyly installed, the park fold down over attic was the site of neigh-vents that have been borhood sing-alongs transformed into and other public get-engaging architectural ]ERKINHEAD RooF togethers. Notice details. Battered rock pillars how the park shelter resem-like these occurred as bles a log cabin with a dog

gateposts in rustic park deco­ration of the 1920s.

CONTINUE NORTH ON AVENUE F, STOPPING A MOMENT AT 4310.

(1915), 4310 AVENUE F Soon after the turn of the century, when Craftsman homes were just gaining a toehold in neighborhoods across America, there emerged a type of residence that might be called a cousin of the first grand bungalows. The Hutchins' residence is such a house. Here, symme­try and slender columns sug­gest classicism as another alternative to the fast-fading Victorian style.

•CoNTINUE ON AVENUE F UNTIL YOU REACH EAST 44TH STREET. CROSS THE STREET, TURN RIGHT, AND APPROACH SHIPE PARK, THE FORMER HYDE PARK PlAYGROUND,

trot, or breezeway, separating the men's and women's dress­ing rooms. This interest in rustic architecture became the fashion among park designers of the period, so much so that it eventually defined the look of parks not only in Austin but all over the nation.

HEAD WEST OUT OF SHIPE PARK, RETRACING YOUR STEPS ACROSS AVENUE F. CONTINUE ON EAST 44TH STREET, CROSSING SPEEDWAY, UNTIL YOU REACH THE

CORNER OF AVENUE D.

(1909), 4401 AVENUE D The Woodburn house was built in 1909, but not on this lot. Its original location was 200 East 40th Street, along the streetcar route and adjacent to several other large houses. If the expansive, two-level porch brings southern, sum­mertime languor and planta­tion houses to mind (It has been the set for two movies­"Leadbelly" and "Hard

Seventeen

I

.I

I

1 j

J

CLARK-EM!YIERT HOUSE

Promises."), mention of its most famous occupant sug­gests just the opposite. She was Bettie Woodburn, daugh­ter and speechwriter of the so-called "Carpet-bagger" governor of Texas, Andrew Jackson Hamilton, a friend of Abe Lincoln and a strong Union sympathizer.

The Woodburn house lost its historic designation when it was purchased and moved here - an action nec­essary to protect it from dem­olition. Now an official city landmark, it also functions as a residence and bed and breakfast.

• PROCEED SOUTH ON AVENUE

D ONE BLOCK TO THE NORTH­

WEST CORNER OF WEST 43RD.

(1895), 4300 AVENUE D Frank and Amanda Clark, who built this cottage in 1895, are to be credited with giving the neighborhood one of its most graceful Queen Anne homes. The decorative spindlework, the jigsawn brackets, the playful

Eighteen

balustrade, are crowned by gables that are equally festive in spirit. Notice also the fish scale shingles and the spindle­work in the elab­orate crossbracings.

CROSSBRACING

German immigrants Gustav and Anna Emmert, who bought the house in 1915, animated it in their own way - with their large, pro­ductive garden, their Jersey cow, their chickens and their pretty daughters who were

often serenaded by neighbor­hood boys.

NOW TURN RIGHT ON WEST

43RD STREET, HEAD WEST TO

AVENUE C, STOP AND LOOK SOUTH.

by 1904 he had changed the tone of his advertisements to appeal to the "working man or woman." Whereas before he had attracted professionals, now he was happy with car­penters, plumbers and atten-

LET YOUR GAZE TAKE IN A VISTA, NOT

YET ENCOUNTERED ON THE HYDE

PARK WALKING TOUR, OF HOUSES FROM

THE SAME PEillOD AND SYLE IN UNINTER­

RUPTED SEQUENCE. HOUSE AFTER

HOUSE ON THE NEXT TWO BLOCKS

REFLECTS THE SAME PLEASING RHYTHM

OF GABLE ROOFS, THE SAME MATErnAL-

WOOD-THE SAME SCALE AND THE SAME

DEGREE OF SET-BACK FROM THE STREET.

IT IS A VIEW WE ARE ONLY NOW BEGIN-

NING TO APPRECIATE, SINCE ENTIRE BUN-

GALOW BLOCKS SUCH AS THESE HAVE

BECOME R.AEE. THAT THIS STYLE

APPEARED AT ALL IN HYDE PARK, HOW­

EVER, REVEALED A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE

IN SHIPE'S ATTITUDE TOWARD HIS NEIGH­

BORHOOD.

dants at the nearby State Lunatic Asylum. Instead of prestige, he promoted affordabili­ty. When a house in Hyde Park could be acquired for the equiva­lent of "two beers a day," the bait was out for a new socioeco­nomic group. Some Victorian

As early as 1892, Shipe started to partition the resort park on the western edge of the neighborhood into lots, and

homes went up on Avenues A and B during these early years, but the 1920s and 1930s saw the biggest flurry of construction activity. When the dust settled, bunga-

lows, with few exceptions, lined these western avenues. Remember as you walk south on Avenue C, that not a sin­gle house was built on either of the next two blocks until 1921, and most would not get underway until 1925 or later.

LOOK AT THE FIRST HOUSE ON YOUR RIGHT, AT THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF 43RD STREET AND AVENUE C.

(1923) Interaction with nature, one of the hallmarks of the Craftsman style, was limited on these 25-foot-wide lots. Nevertheless, it is still easy to see that these bunga­lows reflect a pared­down picture of the larger, more expensive Craftsman homes we've seen. This

deep eaves, the pronounced knee brackets supporting gable roofs, and an inset porch.

CONTINUE SOUTH, STOPPING AT 4204 AVENUE C, ON YOUR RIGHT.

(1923) Some houses, like 4204, showed their Craftsman fea­tures to the street, but without the shadow-laden, sequestered spirit that some-times accompanied the style. This bungalow, for example, seems wide-open and exposed, with a frankness conveyed, in part, by the porch spanning the entire

front of the house. Somewhat less frank was one of its resi­dents, Anna Luckey, who pulled down all the shades when she and her lady friends porch, where wooden

battered columns rest on more massive

KNEE BRAcEs had a party here in the 1920s. According to

one elderly friend who was present, they were drinking eggnog that was- shocking

bases, is typical of the bunga­low style, as are the double gables and knee braces beneath the eaves.

LOOK TO YOUR LEFT AT 4213 AVENUE C, THE SECOND HOUSE FROM THE CORNER OF WEST 43RD STREET AND AVENUE C.

(1930) The jerkinhead roof, created by folding down the apex of a gable roof into a small hip shape, is uncommon in Hyde Park bungalows. The porch columns are also unusually slender for a Craftsman house, but all the other ele­ments you've come to expect with the style are still here­the exposed rafters under the

in those days of women's temperance unions- spiked!

LOOK ACROSS THE STREET AT 4201 AVENUE C.

(1925) Here is the quintessential 1920s bungalow. Because its appeal lies exclusively in sim­plicity, without any additional decoration, it is a good exam­ple of what, by now, is self­evident-that the bungalow was the most egalitarian style America has produced. With it, the late nineteenth century dreams of social scientists for an affordable housing type

Twenty

had come true beyond their wildest imaginings. By the advent of World War II, it seemed that every average American lived in a bunga­low. In Hyde Park, some 80% of the residences would eventually fit that description.

CoNTINUE SOUTH UNTIL YOU REACH 4103 AVENUE C, ON THE EAST

SIDE OF THE STREET, ON YOUR LEFT.

(1922) The bungalows we've seen on Avenue C went up without the benefit of architects.

Indeed, part ~ of their appeal was the free-dom afforded - · · · . . local carpen- _ -ters and lum- · · beryard VERGEBOARD

builders to individualize hous­es according to their level of taste and skill. At 4103, the builder used Craftsman details with such whimsy and artistry that the house emerged as a unique example of the style. Notice the carved vergeboards over the front steps, the decorated

4201 AVENUE C, TIIE QUINTESSENTIAL BUNGALOW

porthole window and the elaborate knee braces.

CONTINUE SOUTH ON AVENUE C, UNTIL YOU REACH WEST 40TH STREET. SEE THAT YOU ARE FACING THE RESIDENCE AT 4001 AVENUE C ON THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE INTERSECTION THE HOME OF HYDE PARK'S FIRST SCHOOL TEACHER, MISS MARY LOWRY.

(1903), 4001 AVENUE C Miss Low1y emerges from the memories of early day Hyde Park day students as the archetypal school marm­frail, elderly, strict and kind, tolling the school bell as long as it took to prevent a single child from being counted tardy. But now, with a dis­tance of some eighty years, it is possible to appreciate that the spinste5 image was only half the story. Miss Lowry was one of the few women in the early days of Hyde Park who worked for a living, and it is a measure of her determi­nation that she was able to have this lovely house built. In it you can see again the

Twenty-One

i

il

MISS I'vlARY LOWRY HOUSE

characteristic Queen Anne flourishes: the frieze of small spindles, the lacy brackets and the turned porch columns.

CROSS WEST 40TH STREET TO

THE SOUTHEAST CORNER.

(1894), 3913 AVENUE C After purchasing four lots from the M. K. & T. Land Company for $840, George Smith hired a local builder to construct here a house so simple and straightforward it might have seemed void of any stylistic pretensions. It was the late nineteenth centu­ry, however, and it took more than a rectangular plan and a hip roof to dampen the Victorian spirit. A two-and-a­half story tower, hidden in the trees on the north side of the building, was a nod toward a Queen Anne turret, but the decorative quality of the house was carried by the porch with its jigsawn frieze and geometric balustrade. Notice also the pressed-metal

shingles of the roof. Prussian immigrant Louis

Marcuse, the second owner of the house, was highly regard­ed in the community as a gentleman and good busi­nessman. His daughter, Alwina, married the boy next door, Nelson Lowry, brother of Miss Mary. After their mar­riage, the couple settled down · in the grand Smith-Marcuse­Lowry house.

WALK SOUTH TO THE INTER­

SECTION OF AVENUE C AND

39TH STREET.

(1894), 3900 AVENUE C William Jones Oliphant was from one of Austin's oldest families. His father, the son of a Scottish lord, had set up an engraving and jewelry shop on the site occupied today by the Driskill Hotel in · downtown Austin. It was here that the well-spoken, younger Oliphant became an accomplished photographer.

The house he built in Hyde Park was as architec-

Twenty-Two

turally sophisticated as it was playful. It was the Queen Anne style at its most exuber­ant. The porches on either side of this projecting wing enliven the composition of the house with their spindle­work friezes and balustrades, but the real visual punch is delivered in the detailing of the central frontal gable. Notice the crossbracing in the gable, the hefty braces beneath it, and the verge­boards adorned with colorful dots and fishscale shingles.

The house was brought into the modern age when Anna E. Walker, president of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association, acquired it in 1916.

HEAD EAST ON 39TH STREET,

ACROSS SPEEDWAY UNTIL YOU

REACH EAST 39TH AND AVENUE F. TuRN RIGHT (SOUTH) ON AVENUE F

lHE OLIPHANT~WALKER HOUSE

TO FACE THE CORNER HOUSE, THE

HOME OF MONROE SHIPE'S

DAUGHTER, CLOTILDE, AND HER

HUSBAND, THE FAMED SWISS

WOODCARVER, PETER

MANSBENDEL.

(1925), 3824 AVENUE F The Mansbendel house is a perfect, full-blown example of the Tudor Revival style at the high point of its popularity in America. Notice the promi­nent front gable and smaller porch gable decorated with · faux half-timbering and out­lined with vergeboards carved by Mansbendel himself. Everything about the house is picturesque-the very steep pitch of the roof, the win­dows with diamond shaped panes, the arched doorway with its heavy, medieval hard­ware.

Twenty-Three

Mansbendel's talent was put to good use in Texas. Besides the many mantels he decorated for prominent Texas families, he carved doors for the restoration of the Governor's Palace and San Jose Mission in San Antonio and portrait busts of university presidents for the Student Union building at the University of Texas.

Now 1BAT YOU ARE BACK

WHERE WE BEGAN, FIND YOUR CAR

AND DRIVE TO TilE LAST STOP ON

OUR TOUR, TilE EUZABET NEY

MUSEUM. Go EAST TWO BLOCKS

FROM AVENUE F UNTIL YOU REACH

AVENUE H. TURN NORTH (LEFT) ON

AVENUE H AND DRIVE UNTIL YOU

SEE 1BAT TilE STREET REACHES A

DEAD END JUST BEYOND ITS INTER­

SECTION WITH EAsT 44TH STREET.

THE MUSEUM IS AT 304 EAsT 44TH.

(1892 AND 1902), 304 EAsT 44m STREET·

TIIE IviANSBENDEL HOUSE

The illustrious German-born sculptor Elisabet Ney, for whom Bismarck, Garibaldi and King Ludwig II of Bavaria had once sat, decided to resume her career in Austin at just the. moment Shipe opened his Hyde Park suburb in 1892. Thus this studio/home- as picturesque as a European castle and as rustic and practical as a fron­tier house-became one of the neighbor­hood's first structures. Here Ney would execute the life-size SCUlptureS of CASTELLATIONS

Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin that stand today at the entrance of the Capitol rotun­da.

The original studio con­sisted only of the central, cube-like structure, the very classical portico in front of it and a reception room to the west. Ney designed it to be

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I l I

THE EUSABET NEY MUSEUM

built of uncut, rusticated lime­stone like the barns of the German Texans west of Austin. Although her home was in Hempstead, Texas, she included a sleeping loft with­in the studio for the weeks when she stayed in Austin to work. By 1902 she and her husband, philosopher EUSABET NEY, 1900

Edmund Montgomery, real­ized that they needed more sat­isfactory living as well as working quarters. This is when a second gallery was added and the tower, with its allusions to German medieval castles (notice, especially the castellations), went up.

The Elisabet Ney Museum is a

PICA 17563, AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER

remarkable portrait gallery of nineteenth century personali­ties ranging from European royalty to Texas frontiersmen. It is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from noon until 5:00 p.m. Tours are available.

N CLOSING, TAKE A

MOMENT TO ADMIRE

THE ENORMOUS POST

OAK IN THE MIDDLE OF

AVENUE H. LIKE THE TREE

. THAT BEGAN OUR TOUR,

IT SURVIVED AUSTIN'S

FIRST BUILDING BOOM.

IT WAS HERE TO SHADE

ELISABET NEY, HER GREAT

HORSE, PASCHA, PERHAPS

ALSO SARAH BERNHARDT,

ENRICO CARUSO, WILLIAM

JENNINGS BRYAN AND THE

MANY OTHER FRIENDS

WHO VISITED HER HERE.

BUT REMEMBER, TOO,

THAT IT SPEAKS OF A

STILL EARLIER TIME, WHEN

COMANCHES REFRESHED

THEMSELVES IN THE

CLEAR WATER OF WALLER

CREEK AND ANIMALS

ROAMED FREELY UNDER

THE THICK COVER OF A

POST OAK FOREST. WITH

IT, THE HYDE PARK WALK­

ING TOUR COMES FULL

CIRCLE.

1-800-926-2282

AUSTIN CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU IN COOPERATION WITH THE

HISTORIC LANDMARK COMMISSION

Visitor Information Center 201 E. 2nd Street

Austin, Texas 78701 (512) 478-0098

www.austintexas.org

TEXT BY LISA GERMANY

EDITED BY JULIE STRONG

SUBSEQUENT EDITIONS: BETTY BAKER

MARIAN AUGUSTINE ED VAN DE VORT

HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER, AUSTIN PUBLIC LIBRARY

Acknowledgements: THE HYDE PARK NATIONAL REGISTER NOMINATION,

NATIONAL REGISTER PROGRAMS, TEXAS HISTORICAL COMMISSION;

SARAH AND THAD SITTON, AUSTIN'S HYDE PARK, 1991; MANY FORMER AND CURRENT RESIDENTS OF HYDE PARK;

AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER; AND HYDE PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION.

Front Cover Photographs: ELISABET NEY MUSEUM, PICA 17563;

SHIPE PLAT MAP, MAP L-26, AUSTIN HISTORY CENTER

© City of Austin 1993 Reprint: Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau 2000