National Register Listing

Kappa Kappa Gamma House

2001 University Ave., Austin, TX

The Kappa Kappa Gamma House, designed in the eclectic period revival style popular in the interwar years, is the work of Birdsall P. Briscoe, a highly regarded Texas architect known primarily for his work in upscale residential suburbs in Houston. Completed in 1939, the Kappa House is one Briscoe’s very few projects completed outside of Houston. The house embodies the distinctive characteristics of Briscoe’s blending of period revival styles as he interpreted them for a fraternal organization. Not only does the design project the refined and dignified image so desired by such an organization, but the interior plan also reflects the unique needs of private sorority business, as well as the housing of a relatively large number of members. Chapter houses such as this one played an important early role in women’s higher education at The University of Texas at Austin. Not only did they play an important social and cultural role in the students’ character development—increasingly seen as an important and supplementary component to higher education—but they also filled a very basic housing need for women students during a time when the university could not.

The Kappa Kappa Gamma House was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1989 and a City of Austin Historic Landmark in 2009. It is now nominated to the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under Criteria A and C in the areas of education and architecture. The period of significance extends from 1939, the original date of construction, to 1963, the fifty year threshold for eligibility.

Local significance of the building:
Education; Architecture

Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

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.