This year's Lamp Day festivities were held at Kris and Steve's (as is traditional). We had yummy
food and drink, and played Cranium (as
is traditional). I discovered that I can't hum the melody to Pink's Get the Party Started,
which was something of a disappointment. Our team still won that match, however, thanks in no small
part to a lucky word set on a Turbo Team Gnilleps®.
December 2007 Archives
Taken at the rear (Willow Springs Road) entrance. [Google Maps]
Austin Explorer has a nice article on the history of Penn Field.
Built around 1910, this Folk-Victorian style cottage was originally on the corner of 42nd and Guadalupe Streets and was apparently a two-family duplex. The first documented owner was a painter named C. L. Chapin in 1922. By the 1930s, more automobiles were on the road and about 1932 the house was moved to the lot behind it on 42nd Street and rotated 90 degrees. In its place on the busy corner a new filling station was erected. Later a Gulf Service Station, the business remained at this site for almost 40 years. A succession of service station employees lived in the house over the next decades, either as owners or renters. In the 1970s the house was acquired as a rental by Charles and Helen Yarchak and it eventually became home to many local musicians, including Lyle Lovett and Champ Hood. It was then vacant for years and slated for possible demolition into a parking lot.
In 2003 Thad and Laura Avery purchased the house and began a major restoration. Keeping to the original footprint of the structure, they have preserved the original Longleaf Pine flooring, transoms and wainscot while rebuilding the entire structure. The house was so badly deteriorated that the trees growing up through the foundation into the house had to remain in place until the foundation could be replaced. Using old photographs, porch railings and other features have been replicated, and the house gaily painted. It is now in use as office space for a local Hyde Park-owned company.
Text from a Heritage Society of Austin award citation.
See the house on Google Maps (it's the second building east of Guadalupe on the north side of W. 42nd Street).