Watson Chateau, Landmark of LGBTQ History, Listed on Preservation Texas's 2022 Most Endangered Places List
AUSTIN, TX (December 2, 2022) –– The Watson Chateau, a landmark of Austin’s LGBTQ history, has been listed on Preservation Texas’s 2022 Most Endangered Places list. The annual list spotlights imperiled historic places across Texas that are threatened by neglect, demolition, inappropriate alteration, or a radical loss of context. Preservation Austin has been working with a group of advocates, including Watson Chateau researcher Marta Stefaniuk, to build awareness of the property to ensure its preservation.
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Built in 1853 during the Antebellum Period, Watson Chateau is most significantly associated with owner Arther P. Watson, Jr. and his partner, Bob Garrett, who lived there together for almost 50 years. The prominent couple hosted extravagant dinner parties and pool parties, some with over 300 attendees, inviting gay and straight members of society to mingle and gather with each other. Although they were not known as public advocates of the gay activist movement of the 1960s-80s, their home provided refuge for gay men during the hostile anti-LGBTQ climate of the mid-twentieth century. In Austin, and nationwide, the LGBTQ community was fighting for rights, enduring the AIDS epidemic, and celebrating newfound unity. During this time, the house was cemented as a landmark and locus of Austin’s LGBTQ heritage.
The property was acquired via eminent domain by The University of Texas at Austin in the late 1960s. Obscured by the surrounding Dell Medical Center, the house is physically deteriorating and quickly slipping from local collective memory. The years of disrepair will likely result in demolition by neglect if its preservation is not immediately prioritized.
Much of Watson Chateau’s rich and storied history was uncovered by researcher Marta Stefaniuk, who produced Oakwood Cemetery Chapel’s digital exhibit “To Liberate” on the house. This research was supported by a grant from Preservation Austin in 2020.
“Normally, having over 150 years of Texas and Austin history embedded in place would deem it important enough to be significant to the local community,” says Stefaniuk, “But the Watson Chateau and property also has the rare ability of bringing to light the under told history of the LGBTQ community, African Americans, and early female settlers of Austin. Additionally, tendrils from the home’s various owners fan out to hundreds of significant local and Texas historic moments and people. By saving the Watson Chateau and repurposing it creatively, it could become a connector between east and west Austin, old and new Austin, and a jewel in the University of Texas’s holdings.”
Advocating for sites associated with LGBTQ history is one of Preservation Austin’s top advocacy priorities. This year alone, two cases were heard by the Historic Landmark Commission to demolish the 4th Street Warehouse District and the Iron Bear, sites that have longstanding associations with Austin’s LGBTQ community. As queer spaces in Austin continue to vanish, Preservation Austin believes that the preservation of the Watson Chateau and its LGBTQ heritage is ever more urgent.
"Preservation Austin's board has adopted Underrepresented Heritage as an advocacy priority because these places are essential to understanding where we are today," said Lindsey Derrington, Preservation Austin's Executive Director. "So many historic LGBTQ spaces remain uninterpreted at best, and threatened at worst. With the Watson Chateau, the University of Texas at Austin has an incredible opportunity to invest in this history and foster connections for students by affirming and honoring this community's story."
As Preservation Austin celebrates this important milestone, we urge the community to stay engaged by learning more about the incredible story of the Watson Chateau and its important contributions to Austin’s LGBTQ heritage. To stay involved with Preservation Austin’s advocacy to save the Watson Chateau, sign up for email alerts at the bottom of the page.