Bremond Block Historic District

Large live oaks frame a group of nineteenth-century residences on a bluff a short walk from Congress Avenue in Austin. Known as the Bremond Block, the district covers one full block and three adjoining blocks. Its houses show a range of styles: one-story Greek Revival homes from the 1850s on Guadalupe Street, two-story limestone residences from 1872 with a mansard roof, a limestone chateau expanded into a late Victorian castle in 1894, a frame Victorian cottage, and a brick house of 1886 with a decorated mansard roof and wrought iron galleries, built by George Fiegel. Most were built or altered by members of the Bremond and Robinson families, prominent in Austin business and civic life after the Civil War. The nomination values the district as a largely intact record of Victorian architectural taste and of the society behind it. Nine of thirteen houses were designated Texas landmarks. In 1978 the boundary was reduced after one house was demolished and another moved.