A Celebration of 70 Spectacular Years©
Austin Club #1 – 104 E. 4th St. 1890-1982
Chartered December 31, 1899, The Austin Club began operating April 25, 1890 in the not then completed Austin Board of Trade building at the northeast corner of Congress Avenue and East 4th Street with the following headline and description of its lavish interiors appearing in the Austin Statesman:
THE AUSTIN CLUB: Their luxurious and sumptuously appointed quarters opened last night.
Oriental Loveliness and Tranquilizing Effects To Please the Senses to be Found In Their Elegant Social Home
THE CLUB HOME
…….Entrance to the club rooms is gained on Fourth Street. A broad stairway with easy ascent and rests leads to the second floor in the Board of Trade building on which the rooms are located. They are separated from the rear half of the building by a spacious hall, and to gain admission you pass through a beautiful double door ornamented with colored and frosted cut glass on which is the monogram of the club. This door lets you into a large hall on the right of which as you enter is the store room, bar, wine and lunch room all appropriately arranged and furnished. The bar is well appointed with handsome sideboards and elegant cut glassware bearing the monogram of the club. Further on and adjoining the wine room is the card room which is supplied with the necessary paraphernalia necessary to make such a apartment both pleasant and comfortable. Across the room from the wine and card room is the billiard hall in which there are a billiard and a pool table with one pool table yet to be put in. The billiard hall is 24 by 54 feet and is most agreeably fitted up. From the billiard hall you enter the gentlemen’s reading room and library. This room is elegantly furnished with hand carved furniture and stamped leather. In this there is a large table, two desks, library sitting and easy chairs and settees. The window draperies are elegant in plush and lace, in old gold and maroon, and in the sheen of brilliant electric lights last night were lovely. From this room you enter the parlor through an immense arched way pendant from which are elaborate portieres and elegant draperies. The parlor is the most sumptuously furnished room in the city. The furniture is unique in design and the upholstery is in the highest style known to the trade. The window furnishings are most elaborate and the arrangement of the room is of that soft oriental loveliness that will commend it to the refined tastes of all lovers of the beautiful. The elegance of the draperies, the happy blending of their colors, their graceful groupings and wondrous effects are due to Mr. Ph. Hatzfeld and Mr. Charles L. Condit who arranged them with “the science of the perception of beauty”. The carpet in this room and the reading room is a costly moquette of most beautiful pattern. The parlor is furnished with an elegant piano, pictures and other decorations. Over the entrance leading from the parlor to the hall is an elegantly wrought Japanese portiere and it adds much to the chaste beauty of the decorations. The parlor and reading room have wainscoting in old gold and green bronze and frieze of the same. The hall and card rooms are all carpeted with handsome moquette of elegant designs. The tinting of all the rooms is old rose.
The building is supplied with electric bells and washroom and in all the State there is not a more elegant and comfortable club room.
*Win a prize: Be the first to e-mail Brittany (brittany@austinclub.com) where The Austin Club moved in 1892.
*You must be a member of The Austin Club in good standing to win.
For more information about the HISTORY OF THE AUSTIN CLUB©: A CELEBRATION OF 70 SPECTACULAR YEARS or to reserve a copy please e-mail brittany@austinclub.com
iiTHE HISTORY OF THE AUSTIN CLUB- A Celebration of 70 Spectacular Years at page X, by Laura Fowler and Kenneth C. Richardson, 2019