Here is the Sommers saloon as it looked 2 months ago, then a month ago, and now.
Which is sad, and saving the stones is not true preservation. But it is puro San Antonio, because this is a place where preservation of something is the first thought, even if that is preservation by relocation or reconstitution. You can argue that those are not true preservation solutions, and you would be right. But in this city, landfill is never the first option. The plan is to have some of the best architects in town re-use the old limestone and caliche for a new development.
I continue to worry about the Hughes House, 312 W Courtland. We worked to save it and found two willing buyers a year ago. They did landmark it and get a zoning change for a wine bar, but vandals/obdachlos broke in last winter and now it is for sale again. In addition to its architectural beauty, it was the home of Russell Hughes, known as La Meri, whose dance was internationally known.
This is when 503 Urban Loop burned in February 2022 on the coldest night of the year. The building was a very famous brothel and then spent a century as Catholic institutions helping women and children in the impoverished Laredito district of San Antonio. We worked with Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Westside Preservation Alliance to landmark it and were delayed again and again until it burned. Now, the purported developer of an 8-story building there is selling the site. The landmarking process is supposed to insure three things:
- Archaeological investigation of whole site
- Preservation of any items recovered at a local museum
- Permanent interpretation visible from the public ROW.
Will they do it? And who is they? The new owners or the ones when it was burning? Stay tuned!
To address the surfeit of accidentally burned buildings, the City Council yesterday expanded the Vacant Building program beyond historic districts and upped the fines to $500 a day. Now maybe those Austin developers will modify their tactics. But there is still a lot of charcoal in the landscape.
Much of the carnage happens in the area just north of downtown and west of the Pearl, including the Tobin Hill Historic District. Basically everything not in that district is a candidate for demolition. The latest attempt is an interesting ensemble of five Victorian buildings that feels like a little historic district. The trick is that only two are landmarked. Can you guess which?
If you guessed Numbers 1 and 3 you are right! But they really do look like a district. Let me show you the rear building that they also want to demolish.
So this is another interesting development strategy. Pick off the buildings one by one, so that the context is diminished and you can start arguing that there is no “there” there.
I think the Folk Victorians at Number 1 (210 Lewis – not landmarked and slated for demolition!) and Number 2 (215 Poplar, landmarked) are pretty cool, and 225 Poplar (not landmarked) has that impressive double porch with Classical details. Again – stay tuned!
It will be a busy fall – November 1-3 we are having a World Heritage Symposium which will not only recall our status as one of only 25 World Heritage sites in the US, but also recall the UNESCO San Antonio Declaration of 1996, which was the Americas’ response to the Nara document on Authenticity in 1994. Together these statements led to the community- and culture-focused approach to heritage conservation that has characterized all the advances in our field in the 21st century. It is called Affirming Cultural Identity: World Heritage in the 21st century (nice title if I do say so myself).
