AUSTIN & BUNGALOWS

THE PEACH STREET HOUSE [2017–2021]

[WITH FORGE CRAFT ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN]

I worked on this project as a Project Designer at Forge Craft Architecture + Design. The team consisted of Scott Ginder and myself. Our consultants included Steven Yarak (General Contractor) and Smith Structural Engineers (Structural Engineering). Our community partners included Preservation Austin.

In 1880 black-owned and black-occupied residences were widely scattered across Austin, but by 1930 they were heavily concentrated on the eastside, a process encouraged by the 1928 City Plan.

The Peach Street house was originally built as a single-family home in 1911. Frank Tarver, a carpenter, and his wife Cora first owned and occupied the Victorian home from 1911 to 1913. James Gilbert, a City Sanitation Department worker, and his wife Rose then owned and occupied it from 1923 to 1936; during this time, the house underwent a Craftsman-style renovation. Ira Coleman, a World War I veteran and jewelry store porter, and his wife Mattie owned and occupied the Craftsman-style home from 1936 until 1970. It had been leased as a rental unit from 1970 until 2017.

The current owners, a historian of Africa and a fiction writer, rehabilitated the exterior of the house and modernized its interior. They converted the main level back into a single-family home and excavated the crawl space to include guest bedrooms, a single-car garage, a mudroom, and a rental apartment. In the future the current owners hope to maximize the lot’s entitlements by building a backyard cottage and subdividing the lot.

Most of the numbered streets in downtown Austin bore tree names until the late 1880s . The Peach Street House, located on what is now East 13th Street, is a tribute to the city’s green canopy.