Mansbendel, Peter and Clotilde Shipe, House

Constructed about 1925 in the newly subdivided Shadow Lawn Addition, the Tudor Revival house at 3824 Avenue F served as the residence of Clotilde Mansbendel, daughter of Hyde Park developer Monroe M. Shipe, and her husband, renown artisan Peter Mansbendel. His decorative and functional wood carvings are found in private residences, public institutions and historic sites throughout Texas, and he lavished the interior and exterior of the house with samples of his craft. A classic example of the Tudor Revival style of the early 20th century, the house remains strongly associated with Mansbendel and his work. As such, it is nominated under Criteria B and C.

According to his biographer, Peter Mansbendel was born on August 12, 1883 in Basle, Switzerland (Lowman 1977: n.p.). Apprenticed to a local master woodcarver named Ulrich Berber, Mansbendel studied in his late teens at the Industrial Arts School before a term of compulsory service in the Swiss artillery. Upon his discharge from the army, Mansbendel traveled to London to study the work of English woodcarver Grinling Gibbons. He completed his formal education at the Coguier-Roland School of Art in Paris.

In 1907 Mansbendel immigrated to Boston and then New York, where he was in charge of the woodcarving department of L. Marcotte & Co., an interior decorating firm. During this period he met Clotilde Shipe, whom he married in 1911. The couple lived briefly in the Shipe House in Austin before returning to New York. In 1915 they decided to settle permanently in Austin.

By the end of World War I, Mansbendel was working out of an office at 109 West 9th Street to fulfill commissions from architects for decorative detailing in fashionable residences in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Notable work also included doors for restoration of the Spanish Governor's Palace and Mission San Jose in San Antonio commissioned by architect Harvey P. Smith in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The University of Texas commissioned portrait plagues of University presidents to be hung in the student union, completed in the 1930s.

The house at 3924 Avenue F, however, was Mansbendel's "greatest labor of love" (Lowman 1977: n.p.). Filled with carvings that express the artist's humor, and creativity, the house includes a bathroom featuring sculpted plaster panels depicting aquatic life tinted in natural colors. Mansbendel reported that the panels were "a real economic success. A bucket of sand in the tub makes you feel guite bathing beachy [and] you don't spend any money for a bathing suit or for train fare getting there" (Lowman 1977: n.p.).

Following Peter Mansbendel's death on July 24, 1940 his widow continued to reside in the house until her own death on June 27, 1963 (Probate File No. 24,900) Her heirs who still own the property. The City of Austin granted historical zoning to the Mansbendel House in 1979 (City of Austin. Historic Landmark Inventory File C14h-78-048).