News
May 7, 2010
It's been a while! We slowed down a bit but a few of us have continued working toward our goal of becoming a National Register Historic District and a City of Austin Local Historic District.
Come to our fundraiser Cocktail Party, Sunday May 23, 3-5 p.m. at the historic John House, 1924 Newning, and see what we've done! Our database of houses surveyed last year is mostly complete and we will show it off at this event. Thanks to Ian Reddy and Angela Reed for opening their beautiful home for us. Admission is $15.
City of Austin Preservation Officer Steve Sadowsky will share the history of the house and tours will be given.
If you're on Facebook, we have an event page for the party and would love it if you RSVP'd there.
We could also use volunteers to help. Can you help us get some beverages or food to serve? Or would you like to be a tour guide. Whatever you can think of, we probably need help with it. Contact michele@historictravisheights.org if you'd like to join in.
If you would like to interact with us in other formats, check out our new blog at http://historictravisheights.wordpress.com/ and visit us on FaceBook and MySpace, too.
Jan. 17, 2009
Thank you so much for volunteering to help with our survey of "historical resources"! We are basically done with our part and can congratulate ourselves on working so hard and fast. I'm sure this has saved us hundreds of dollars in fees for our architectural historian's services. We surveyed nearly 1,200 homes, bridges, the Moon Tower–you name it! We surveyed it.
In talking to the historians and their perceptions of what was seen, our neighborhood is deemed truly eclectic. The wide variety of architectural, historical styles is more diverse than in any other part of Austin. For instance, we far surpass Hyde Park in the presence of Tudor-influenced cottages, which we all know are adorable. That's not an official architectural term, I know.
I think it's safe to say that all the vounteers, including myself, came away from the survey work with a deeper appreciation for what we already value here. Much like learning the names of plants and people, it makes us care about them more. Preservation Central's staff was especially fun to work with. Thanks to them and to you!
So now....back to fundraising. This is our next very important mission. We will have spent all our earnings in completing the survey, so we will be at a standstill on some parts of the project until we build up more funds for the historians' services.
We must present a fundraising plan for 2009 to the Austin Community Foundation, so we need to meet and get this going. However, we really have not found enough people to run this committee. We need a leader as well as motivated, idea people.
We definitely want to have a homes tour. That has been the biggest money-maker for other neighborhoods (up to $20,000 for Hyde Park) and a successful one could help solve all our financial problems. We want to include our larger and landmarked homes, but we'd also love to feature our smaller, funky homes, or homes with hidden surprises which make our neighborhood so unique.
The other, very important aspect of this project is creating the Design Standards. Now that our survey is being analyzed, we will know more about what's appropriate or acceptable in our district and that will be a good starting point for a group of our neighbors to work on creating our specific Design Standards. This is a committee in which only one person has shown an interest. You don't need to be an architect, designer or a historian, as we'll have the help of Preservation Central in crafting the basics. Someone could get started now compiling examples of compatible additions, appropriate fences and other examples we might use to inform neighbors about the standards.
We also need Block Captains. I have broken down sections of every street into groups of a dozen or so houses. A Block Captain would distribute information to those homeowners and report those neighbors' desires and ideas to the larger group. This is an important duty that we must accept if we want to be successful in winning our neighbors' sign-on to the petition. We want this to be an inclusive process and with a neighborhood so large, it would be impossible to reach everyone without these emissaries.
There are still many elements left to even get our application submitted to the City and we desperately need leaders to make them happen. If you can help in any way, please contact us at Melanie@historictravisheights.org. Or if you'd just like to make a donation, you can do so by visiting our Donation page. Help is much needed and greatly appreciated!
And don't forget that our regular monthly meeting for January has been moved to the next day due to the Presidential Inauguratidon. We'll meet on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 7-8:30 p.m. at Grace United Methodist Church on Monroe, where SRCC meets. If we're not in the big meeting room downstairs, we'll be down the hall to the left, in a smaller conference room.
Jan. 1, 2009
Volunteers needed! As always!...This time we need help with the inventory of properties within our proposed boundaries, also known as the Walking Survey. We'll start on Saturday, Jan. 3 and go through Jan. 18. If we aren't done by then, we'll pick up again the last week of January.
If you can help, we will meet at Dominican Joe at your appointed time (9-11, 11-1 and 2-4) to head out for a walk through the neighborhood. You'd be holding the clipboard and checking off boxes on a form while the architectural historian team of Preservation Central calls out the architectural features and other details. They will photograph every house, so having your hands is a big help. This is also a great way to save us huge amounts of money for hourly fees for fieldwork. The more compactly we can do this and get it done quickly, the more money we save.
Please contact me at Melanie@HistoricTravisHeights.org if you can help and I will send you the schedule to see what slots are open that you can fill. We particularly need people for the 9-11 shift. You can do one day only if that's all you have time for or you can do as many as you like. This is going to be the most fun part of the project, so don't hesitate to get involved.
For earlier news, please view our Archive for 2008 and Archive for 2007.