Travis House: City Council To Finalize Zoning Status Today

On October 13th, the Planning Commission (PC) considered the Historic Landmark Commission's recommendation that Travis House be designated as a historic building. The owner's lawyer told Planning that the 1945 building was in bad shape and contaminated with lead, mold and asbestos. Susan Villarreal, Senior Planner with the city, responded that "It is a distinctive and interesting building" and an "excellent representative of Colonial Revival style." The PC voted 4-2 to deny the historic designation (DMU-H) and recommended that the building retain its current zoning designation (DMU). City Council will make the final decision as to whether the building receives historic zoning at its meeting today.

In January, vandals set four fires in the building; before that the owners allowed the building to be used by the fire department for smoke or so called “black out” training drills. “We thought we were helping the fire department save lives, doing our civic duty,” the owner’s attorney told the Commission. In any event, the basement now has six feet of water, and, according to Larry Irsik of ARCHITEXAS, it will cost $6M to renovate: removing everything except the outside walls and rebuilding to current codes. At that price, this would mean the approximately eighteen, 750-square-foot units would need to sell for around $350,000 each or $460/SF.

The Texas Heritage Commission took no position. One person who did write a letter was architect Wayne Bell, who is the President of the homeowners association of nearby Cambridge Tower. I asked him if he thought the building was an excellent example of Colonial Revival.

Bell: It is a rather generic building. They [city staff] are calling it Colonial Revival based on the portal on the east facade. It has maybe some traces, but it has no street presence. It’s not a pleasant building to walk by; there are no windows, there is nothing to see. It’s just that one nice entrance.

Acknowledging that the building’s past use as a YWCA boarding house was significant, the PC did pass a resolution to preserve some of that history. They directed, in the form a unanimous resolution, that the
applicant create some kind of memorial using architectural features from the original building as an on-site record.

UPDATE: City Council denied historic zoning, so the building will likely be demolished.