In 2008, the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association will be taking a one-year hiatus from its annual Homes Tour.
Our Homes Tour has been one of the numerous steps taken to achieve the larger goal of preserving, presenting, and promoting the Hyde Park neighborhood. As a result of our tour, the efforts of Hyde Park neighbors to restore and preserve Hyde Park have steadily increased and the larger Austin community has become aware of the historical and architectural value of Hyde Park. Ultimately, our tours have led to our two Neighborhood Conservation Combining Districts and our National Register Historic District.
We have one additional – and crucial - step to take in our preservation efforts: the establishment of a local historic district. Only in the past few years has the Austin City Council made this status available to Austin neighborhoods. Many of the Hyde Park neighbors who in the past helped to organize our Homes Tours have thrown their efforts into this project. As a result, the Neighborhood Association has made the decision to focus our resources on that single goal rather than diffusing them between two complementary but competing goals. We plan a wonderful Homes Tour on Father’s Day weekend, 2009, by which time we hope either to be celebrating our local historic district status or to be well advanced in the process of achieving that status.
The HPNA encourages you, in lieu of this year’s Homes Tour and in furtherance of the goal of historic preservation, to attend the Historic Landmark dedication of the Schenken-Oatman house, 311 West 41st Street. The Schenken-Oatman house was featured on the 2007 Homes Tour. The dedication ceremony will be sponsored by the Restore Hyde Park LLC, the owners and restorers of the house. Watch the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association website for the date and details of that event.
Thank you for your patronage all these years. Please recheck this site in early 2009 for information about the 2009 tour. In the meantime, continue to enjoy Hyde Park: