CHAPTER SIXTEEN: HISTORY REPEATS-- WEST AUSTIN HOUSING 1855-2015
Like so many people, I moved to Austin on what seemed like a whim but then I came to regard as fate. I know another big reason folks wind up here is because they attend UT and then stick around. I think part of my sticking around relates to UT. I never went to school there (though I did write term papers for a living back in 1991). But being around a place that has so many resources, so many smart people, and a perpetual influx if youth definitely keeps this place interesting.
Recently I had two excellent opportunities to explore West Campus housing. One came as an invitation to learn more about the Neill-Cochran House at 2310 San Gabriel Street. The other came as an invitation to explore student housing options for the daughter of my high school friend Sean. Jocelyn, upon receiving a tour of Austin by yours truly, decided to transfer here. So yeah, that’s right-- the same one complaining about too many newcomers rallied to get another person to move here. Can’t help it. Despite all the griping, I still have my Austin pride.
Now you might wonder how in the hell I am going to relate brand spanking new, wildly overpriced private student housing with an historic mansion that was erected in 1855. My secret weapon is A.P. Perry. She is the business and projects manager for NCH. Among other things, the house, which is also a museum, hosts weddings. In my other life, when I’m not bitching about housing, I joyfully perform weddings. That was my first introduction to the place last fall. A.P. and I agreed to put our heads together to see about getting more folks to consider the location for their nups.
Well our first meeting immediately veered toward the history of the place-- I am a total hog for Austin history-- and I was so impressed I immediately made a date to return with Noska, my favorite historian. Noska was the one who explained to me some time ago that if you want to really blame someone for the traffic problem in Austin, you should go back and point the finger at the dude who started the pre-bridge ferry across Town Lake.
Noska and I sat and were joyfully schooled by A.P. who explained the story of NCH, which was built in 1855, began in 1839 when Austin was founded on the then edge of the Anglo-American Texas frontier to encourage folks to move further west. Eventually the capital moved away and then back again, and if you want to know more about that I suggest making an appointment with Noska at Southside Tattoo and getting some ink while he spells it out for you.
For now let’s talk about Abner Cook, who moved to Austin in 1839, when he was but a 25 year old pup. Entrepreneurial and cunning, Abner built up some businesses quick, including a mill in Bastrop. Though not officially an architect, he was a supplier, contractor, and master builder. He had a monopoly on brick and masonry supplies. He was commissioned to build a lot of buildings that are now famous landmarks, like the governor’s mansion.
Enter Washington and Mary Hill. Wash was a 28 year old with big aspirations. He brought Abner in to build a house but his eyes were bigger than his plate, or something like that. Which is to say he couldn’t really afford to build his dream home. So he cut some corners. Namely he used rubble limestone-- the bumpy stuff-- and, sad to say it but it’s true: slave labor. Aside: of the 3400 people listed as living in Austin according to the 1860 census, 900 of them were slaves. So, you know, it wasn’t always an outpost of liberalism here.
Despite taking first one mortgage and then another, and then selling his slaves for $2000 to further finance the house, Wash tanked, his decision to sell fueled not only by lack of funds but Mary’s fear of the Apaches. He sold the place to Swisher & Swenson (again, make an appointment with Noska if you want to know more about those early Austin fat cats). They both sat on the board for the Texas Asylum for the Blind and they leased the place to the asylum as its first brick-and-mortar location.
Then comes the Civil War, and the history of the house gets a little murky, though the house was used by Fletcher Stockdale, the lieutenant governor in 1863. Next George Armstrong Custer heads to Texas to oversee the return of the state to the Union, and he requisitions the house from Stockdale, promising to pay rent to Swisher & Swenson, but failing to make good on the promise, thus becoming squatter of elegance. He turned the house into a quarantine hospital for awhile, and in this incarnation it was sort of a de facto frat house, filled with a bunch of rowdy recuperating soldiers with too much time and too many guns on their hands. They trashed the place and some of the holes in the wall may or may not be of the bullet variety. Swisher & Swenson, learning of the demise, tried and failed to get federal funding to restore it.
Enter Charles Whitis (as in the dude for whom Whitis Ave is named) in 1872 who ponies up the dough to buy the house and the adjacent 17.5 acres. He rented the place out whilst it was under repair, then flipped it four years later, handing over the keys to Andrew and Jenny Neill. Andrew was a man of questionable repute, kicked out of the Freemasons when a pile of money disappeared on his watch. I’m not saying these things are related, but he also apparently hosted many a grand party at his estate.
Andrew kicked it in 1883, right around the time the face of the neighborhood was changing. The nearest community was a Freedman settlement-- note that the currently-in-operation Freedman’s BBQ is not some randomly named hipster joint latching onto history. It is history. The University of Texas, which was legally created by the Texas Legislature in 1881 and officially opened in 1883, prompted the area to pick up steam and finally stand out on the pre-Google map.
Jenny Neill continued to reside in the house for nine years after her husband died, eventually moving out and renting to the Cochran family, who bought it in 1895. In 1958 they sold the house to The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Texas (don’t even try to acronym that), a group of women preservationists not unlike the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
Which brings us up to the now. The house, which is totally groovy and definitely worth a visit, exists as a museum and event space. Really, if you want to get married in town, I highly recommend it. It also stands as a testament to the ever changing times of Austin Housing.
Toward that end, I have to say that my talks with A.P. about how the house came to be and changed hands over the years oddly cheered me regarding the current market. I am still really pissed off about what’s happening in Austin now, how there is no affordable housing, and how my son, who grew up here, will never be able to afford to buy a house here (which is why I tell him he better be really, really, REALLY nice to me always since he is my sole heir). But sitting in those high-ceilinged rooms, thinking about how the land had once been a wilderness, and then not, and now the place sits anachronistically amongst a bustling array of shiny new and crappy old student housing-- well, you know, change happens. I don’t think I’ll ever fully adjust to the changes, but perspective and the longview are useful tools in not blowing a gasket every five minutes.
On the other hand, and to bring it to the very immediate present, there is the matter I mentioned earlier-- my friend’s daughter trying to find a decent place to stay as she moves to town to attend UT. Sean and I went to visit a company that rents out private apartments specifically for students. The place they actually had available for the fall semester was not open for viewing the day we went, so we looked at a model. The model was in a building adjacent to a liquor store and across the street from a frat house-- utterly conducive to quiet studying no doubt.
The space we saw was 698 square feet. The cost-- sit down: $1385 per month. You have to sign a one-year lease. If you have a second person sharing the rent jumps to $1445 per month. If you bring a car that’s another $99 per month. Cable is free. The internet is $5 a month. WHAT? That is SO FUCKING STUPID. I mean just add it into the rent. Don’t make is sound like an option. Students need the internet. DUH.
Let’s do the math here. So if I am a student that wants to live alone in The Quarters (yes, the private dorm is apparently named after a drinking game!), that is going to run me $16,620 in rent, $1,188 in parking (because if my folks can pony up nearly $17K in rent you better believe I’m bringing my Beamer), and, also $60 for the internet. GRAND TOTAL: $17,868 PER YEAR. TO LIVE IN LESS THAN 700 SQUARE FEET NEXT TO A BUNCH OF DRUNK FRAT BOYS.
WTF? Who can afford that? When I moved to Austin I think I made maybe $14,000 annually working my various jobs at the Mag South, Esther’s Follies and The Chronicle. Rent consumed maybe a third of that. I don’t even know the cost of taking classes at UT these days, but I’d say if you are a student trying to make it on your own working for $10 per hour you’d have to work full time plus overtime just to pay the rent (or take out a loan that will more than quadruple once you pay it off, or die trying). What time is left to study and throw up with the Greek neighbors? ZERO.
I don’t have a fabulous conclusion for you this time out. This city is nuts, totally nuts. Just like old Wash Hill dreamed bigger than his budget and used slaves to build a house he couldn’t afford to finish, we’re watching an awful lot of homes pop up, mortgaged by big dreamers spending beyond their true reach, hiring construction companies that rely heavily on workers who are People of Color-- many of them Mexican-American and Mexican. I promise you these workers are not seeing the sort of big bucks the developers are.
And so the rich get richer and the rest of us start thinking what? Buda? Buda isn’t so far away. Buda? Sounds like Buddha. Maybe it’s time to go.
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