DUANE
Duane's take
The marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Now, this particular piece of Austin real estate has layers to it — the kind of layers that take the better part of a century to build up proper. It starts in 1847, when a woman named Mrs.
Catherine North began the whole thing as a family residence. Just a home, at first. Nothing too fancy about that opening chapter.
But here's where the story picks up some style. Decades later, an Austin banker by the name of Major Ira Evans got hold of the place, and the man did not do things halfway. By 1892, he had completed the structure in the style of a French chateau.
Right there in Austin, Texas. A French chateau. You have to appreciate that kind of audacity — a banker deciding that what this particular corner of Texas needed was something that looked like it belonged on the Loire Valley.
Whether the neighbors had opinions about that, the marker doesn't say. But the chateau stood. Then comes 1929, and a new chapter altogether.
The charter members of the Austin Woman's Club bought the property. And they didn't just move in and call it done — they remodeled it, using nineteenth century materials to do the work. Think about that choice for a moment.
They could have gone new, gone modern, gone any direction they pleased. Instead, they reached back and honored what was already there. A house that started as a family residence in 1847, dressed up in French chateau fashion by 1892, and then tended carefully by the women who saw it worth saving.
That's not just a building. That's a thread running clean through Austin history.
What the marker says
Begun as family residence by Mrs.Catherine North in 1847. Completed in style of French chateau by Austin banker, Maj. Ira Evans,1892. Bought by charter members, A.W.C.,1929. Remodeled, using 19th century materials. Recorded Texas Historic landmark,1965