I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s any chance the HLC will vote to “save” this house – in part because architectural preservation assumes a given building has had minimal, if any, alterations since first constructed, and this one has a large (and definitely not Tudor-style) rear addition that largely ruins its facade from any angle aside from the exact front of the house. I know he passed away last year, but the HLC’s former head, Steve Sadowsky, was generally open to responding to landmark-related questions from locals – I had a few for him over the years – and hopefully his successor acts in a similar fashion.
It’s also Texas: like it or not, property owner rights are exceptionally pro-owner, and what you’re effectively suggesting is telling this property’s owner that they can’t use the property as they see fit. (To be clear, this isn’t my personal opinion; rather, it’s based on my knowledge of how Texas property law functions. If anything, I’m surprised the state lege hasn’t objected more strongly to “uniquely Austin” laws like the McMansion ordinance.)
Moreover, this house could have been saved if Austin NIMBYs weren’t so utterly obsessed with preventing infill development of essentially any kind. The 5,700 sq ft minimum lot size in place for most of the past decade has been both ridiculous as well as ruinous in terms of supercharging both the bulldozing of hundreds of older homes, along with the development of a seemingly endless number of infill McMansions throughout South Austin (but obviously in Zilker, Barton Hills & Bouldin in particular).
The arguable “correct” course of action for this house would’ve been subdividing it into four parcels & building new homes on three of them, leaving the original house intact. Sadly, this remains quite literally illegal in Austin, thanks in no small part to the ZNA’s efforts, absent an extended-length variance request. (Except, of course, the ZNA automatically opposes almost literally any requested variance, so good luck with that one.)
Finally, the parcel’s fate has likely been sealed by a fact about it shown in the Compass listing: it’s nearly 1/3rd of an acre, or more than double the size of the average Zilker lot. Our city’s truly desperate need for housing – even relatively high-priced Zilker-area homes – takes precedence over preserving a house not in its original architectural style, and not particularly unique even if it was in its original form. (This type of Tudor isn’t that common in South Austin, but my own brother lived in a largely identical house to this one in Pemberton, and Brykerwoods still has scores of them as well.) We’ve already had a number of unusually large lots converted into townhouse-style developments with between 6 & 16 homes, depending on the lot. That, I’m afraid, is this lot’s highest and best use, and IIRC a 0.30 acre lot can fit a dozen separate townhomes, each large enough for a family and at least comparatively “affordable” relative to detached single-family anything in '04.
There’s basically only one way to save this & other older Austin houses, but I’m assuming it’s a 1,000% nonstarter for the entire city’s NIMBY coalition: eliminate most, if not all, of Austin’s single-family zoning, much like Oregon & Minneapolis have done, along with FAR requirements for multifamily projects. But hey, if Dave Piper wants the ZNA to embrace that stance, he’d have my full support!
