Governor's Mansion
1010 Colorado St., Austin, TXA visit to the Governor's Mansion in Austin, Texas, is an opportunity to see the best in Texas architecture and to learn a lesson in Texas history. Indeed, the heritage created by all the First Families who have lived in the Governor's Mansion has helped to shape the destiny of Austin and the State of Texas.
Texas law demands that each governor must live in a governor's mansion during his term of office. The first structure built to serve this purpose was a two-story frame "president's house" at Seventh and San Jacinto. By 1850, how-ever, the house was clearly insufficient, and the Legislature made plans to build a new Governor's Mansion. The Legislature appropriated $2,500 for furnishings. Abner Cook, famous for his work on other Austin homes, was architect-contractor.
Cook finished the mansion by 1856. It was in Greek revival style and used bricks made in Austin, and pine logs from Bastrop. The mansion was rectangular— 105 feet long and fifty-six feet wide— and six Ionic pillars extended the two-story height. Cook's plans involved four rooms around a central hallway and a kitchen wing which he built apart from the main portion of the house. Nine large fireplaces gave heat during the winter; wide porches caught breezes during the long Texas summers.
Most of the first-floor rooms are used for entertaining. Two north rooms, for example, have been combined to form the Blue Room. A second reception area is the Green Room, south of the entrance hall. The chandelier in this second room is said to be the only original light fixture remaining in the Mansion.
The State Dining Room, used for all state luncheons and banquets, is back of the Green Room. It is decorated in red, and accented in white. Its furniture includes Chippendale dining chairs and a Chippendale sideboard. The south and west wings are additions to the original plan, and they serve as private rooms for the governor's family. Mementos and reminders of previous occupants are scattered throughout the Portraits of outstanding Texans such as John Reagan, and William and John Wharton line the walls of the second-floor hallway; the Sam Houston room includes Houston's four-poster bed, Stephen F. Austin's mahogany chest, and Houston's hand-written treaty with the Cherokee Indians.
Recently-added furnishings have been carefully planned. Originally, Governor Pease sent Colonel S.M. Swenson to New York to buy rugs, draperies, and furniture. Subsequent addition were frequently comical: on the first floor, for example, delicate eighteenth-century French chairs stood beside massive Victorian chests. A Mansion Board quickly remedied such anomalies however, and now each governor's wife must confer with the Board concerning her selections of furniture and decorations.
The Governor' s Mansion was the first structure to be designated a Texas Historic Landmark, recorded in 1962. Official dedication ceremonies were held December 7, 1969.
Bibliography
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.