Briones House
This post is a part of our East Austin Barrio Landmarks Project honoring the historic and cultural significance of East Austin's Mexican American community. For more information on the project—including our complete blog series and self-guided tour—click here.
Green & White Grocery, 1936
Casa de Sueños
BY CATALINA CHERÑAVVSKY SEQUEIRA
Fondly referred to as Casa de Sueños, meaning “House of Dreams,” the Briones House endures as a monumental artwork and display of craftsmanship in East Austin. Situated on East 7th Street across from Green & White Grocery, it is Texas’ largest and most prominent example of tinted concrete ornamentation and an outstanding example of modern Texas folk architecture. The Briones House is the best-preserved work by builder Genaro P. Briones who began its construction in 1947 and worked on it for the rest of his life, constructing new additions to the house until the late 1970s.
Genaro Briones Portrait, Date Unknown (THC Historic Sites Atlas)
Born in 1899, Genaro was orphaned at the age of four and raised by an uncle in New Mexico. When he was thirteen, he and his family moved to El Paso, Texas. There he was introduced to bricklaying and plastering, trades that would soon become his profession. In the mid-1930s Genaro settled in Austin and met Carolina Villareal, a native of East Austin, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church around the corner from their future home. The couple married in 1939. Genaro worked as a bricklayer and plasterer, and during the Great Depression was forced to look beyond Austin for employment. He traveled frequently for jobs throughout Texas, Tennessee, California, and Mexico.
While working in Memphis, Tennessee, Genaro collaborated with Dionicio Rodriguez, a renowned builder known for his masterful designs and artistic techniques. Dionicio was a Mexican-born craftsman based in San Antonio who worked in the U.S. roughly from 1925 to 1950. His work can be seen in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Tennessee, Washington D.C., and Mexico City. Notable sites he designed and built in Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, and Texas are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. He was best known for his expertise in concrete faux bois, literally meaning “false wood” in French, a style he learned while in Mexico. Faux bois is a technique in which concrete structures resemble rustic wood or pieces of fallen or decaying trees. The material thus gives the impression of being malleable and organic in form. Dionicio most frequently used the faux bois technique in footbridges, benches, and shelters. The influence of his work is quite evident in Genaro’s home, particularly the outdoor furniture Genaro constructed for his own terrace and grotto. This method of applying tinted and sculpted stucco to reinforced concrete was not common in Texas, which makes Dionicio’s and Genaro’s constructions all the more unique.
In the late 1940s Genaro and Carolina lived on Onion Street in East Austin and rented out a one-story house at 1204 East 7th Street, the future site of the Briones House. Genaro demolished that home in 1947 to make way for his new concrete block house. Shortly after he, Carolina, and her mother Manuelita “Nellie” Hernandez moved into the upstairs completed portion of the house.
Genaro undertook the building and decoration of the home entirely on his own, working nights and weekends. According to Carolina, Dionicio visited from San Antonio while Genaro was constructing the home to give him advice on the design and build. Dionicio was quite secretive about how he achieved exceptional tinted concrete effects, but it is clear he shared his knowledge with Genaro to create a beautiful collage of colors resembling natural wood and simultaneously rustic and vibrant tones on the façade of his new home. Dionicio’s influence on Genaro’s home is most evident in these tinting techniques and in the sculptural elements in the furniture, grotto, and the tree-like molding seen throughout the house.
Genaro drew from many styles to create his distinctive home, including faux bois, Art Deco, stucco décor introduced from Mexico in the 1920s, and Mexican-American folk art. Its floor-plan was based on the popular Four Square style, which became prevalent in the late 19th century through the early 20th century. Four Square homes are known for their box shape and simple design which made them easier and more affordable to build, as demand for housing during this time rapidly increased across the country.
Texas Historical Commission, September 1, 1984, via the Portal to Texas History
The style was also a reaction to the more ornate Victorian homes that preceded it and became common amongst the urban middle class. Notable features of a Four Square home seen in the Briones House are the box shape, two-story plan, low-pitched pyramidal roof, large windows, and a covered front porch. However, the Briones House is anything but simple. Genaro used the Four Square plan as a building block, adding a wide external staircase and countless decorative elements inside and outside the home to make it indistinguishably his own.
The use of concrete block construction seems like an obvious choice for Genaro given its affordability and his mastery with the material. With it, he was able to create quite natural and beautiful forms throughout the home. His use of Art Deco appears in artistic interpretations of natural forms such as flowers, trees, and stones. Though he drew from various influences, Genaro’s design was entirely his own. Dionicio was not known to have built any houses and his rustic, muted style contrasted with Genaro’s use of bold bright colors for the tinted concrete that graced his walls. Genaro drew from anything that he found interesting and fit with his desired aesthetic. For instance, the railing enclosing the second-floor balcony was inspired by a photograph that he saw in Life magazine of a house in the Philippines. Of all the projects Genaro undertook in Austin, only two other buildings that he constructed, the former Angel Funeral home at 1700 East 2nd Street and the former Vikashmo’s Lounge at 1405 East 6th Street, retained his decorative concrete style, though they were not nearly as embellished as his personal home.
The Briones House is uniquely colorful, both inside and out. The design on the exterior resembles red, green, yellow, purple, and beige stone despite being tinted stucco. An intricate flower rests just below the gable, and other boldly colored geometric designs line the outside and inside walls, including horseshoes, stars, hearts, spades, moons and diamonds. The main part of the house was completed in 1953, and just as it was finished Genaro started work on the kitchen annex and guest bedroom on the ground floor. The original house was a 10-room structure built over a period of about six years, and the first addition of the kitchen annex and additional bedroom were completed around 1960. This addition was the last part of the home to use tinted concrete. He would go on to add more extensions to the house using frame constructions, filling the backyard with utility and storage rooms extending from the main home. Until at least the end of the 20th century, the house stood out for its stature around predominantly single-story houses built before World War II.
There are multiple sculptural elements in the home, including one by the doorway of the guest wing entrance which Genaro referred to as his “tree.”The grotto, originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary, also includes a decorative concrete frame that resembles tree limbs and branches. The grotto was rededicated to Nellie Hernandez upon her death in 1971. In the front yard there sits a red tile terrace, upon which there were also numerous outdoor furniture pieces molded in concrete to resemble wood. These include a table, chairs, flamingo statues, and decorative planters. All of these elements speak to the builder’s innovation and exceptional artistry. His attention to detail extended beyond the decorative walls that made the home to every last piece of furniture inside and out, many of which were also made by the builder himself.
Genaro always saw his home as a “work in progress,” where he continued to live with Carolina up until his death in 1979. Today the home serves as private office space, but can be appreciated in all its marvel from the outside. The Briones House speaks to Genaro’s dedication, workmanship, and creativity to produce an exceptionally original design that has withstood the test of time and continues to be praised for its ingenuity. The original house remains just as he built it, and at least until the 1990s the color-tinted surfaces remained brightly colored despite never being repainted. All of Genaro’s other projects in the city have been either remodeled or demolished, accentuating the home’s importance in maintaining his artistic legacy. The Briones House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, and remains a beautiful and impressive example of Mexican-influenced architecture in East Austin.
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“Briones House National Register of Historic Places Registration Form,” February 27, 1998.
PRESERVATION AUSTIN IS INDEBTED TO THE FOWLER FAMILY FOUNDATION FOR SUPPORTING THIS WORK AND FOR MAKING THE EAST AUSTIN BARRIO LANDMARKS PROJECT POSSIBLE.