Real Magazine: Windsor Park Profile

This neighborhood profile appeared in the December issue of Real magazine.

For the near future, no other midcentury Austin neighborhood faces as much potential change as Windsor Park.

Credit — or blame — Mueller.

The New Urbanist project rising over the site of the former municipal airport is also transforming Windsor Park, located just to the north, from a sleepy, almost forgotten district into a place where families are putting down roots and updating structures that date back six decades.

“In the past, the neighborhood consisted of old folks who couldn’t sell their property and a lot of people renting,” says Kim Willett of the long-standing Joyce Willet Dance Studios in Windsor Village Shopping Center. “The entire area has been rejuvenated, and these homes are perfect for raising kids. Big bedrooms and large yards.”

Developed in the 1950s on former farmland around Tannehill Branch Creek, Windsor Park is marked by broad, curving streets, old trees, unusually well-tended gardens and low, solidly positioned ranch-style houses.

Dense retail districts and apartment complexes — built after 1960 between ragged Cameron Road and Interstate 35 — don’t feel closely connected to the single-family residences, churches, schools and small shops in the area’s heartland, which is nestled between Manor Road, East 51st Street, Northeast Drive, Cameron Road and U.S. 290.

Yet all zones of Windsor Park could be affected by Muellerism, especially the up-to-the-minute H-E-B with cafe planned for the southeast corner of East 51st and Berkman Drive.

“The grocery store options for Windsor Park have been extremely limited and strained over the last several years,” says former neighborhood association president Rodney Ahart. “Having access to a full-service grocery store with cafe dining will improve the quality of life tremendously.”

It could also encourage more traffic and higher property values.

“Property prices and rent have increased dramatically,” says Kelsey White, whose family purchased the Corona Cafe in June 2011. “Yet they remain (among) the more affordable of Central Austin neighborhoods.”

The nearly flat, lightly wooded prairie was settled in the 1850s. The American Botanical Council at 6200 Manor Road occupies the spot where the Case Mill Homestead rose in 1853, according to a history included in the Windsor Park and University Hills joint neighborhood plan. A few farmhouses remain around Patton Road, and a pocket of prewar structures occupies a raw slice of southwestern Windsor Park.

The vast majority of the land, a big chunk of it once owned by Robert and Mae Berkman, was transformed by a Memphis, Tenn., firm into Windsor Park in the mid-1950s. Like similar subdivisions around the country, its features were sometimes given aspirational British place names.

Windsor Park was a decidedly middle-class zone of commuters and stay-at-home parents. Advertisements for Windsor Park filed at the Austin History Center show with cartoon-like clarity the area’s proximity to downtown, without showcasing the abrupt nearness of the airport. As late as the 1990s, arriving and departing flights rattled area homes under the flight path.

Capital Plaza, opened in 1960, was oriented to the nascent Interstate 35. In the center of the neighborhood, however, Windsor Village provided a now much-missed anchor for residents.

“We got our cars fixed there, ate authentic Mexican food, rented our videos, purchased hardware and clothing and would simply walk from our home to browse the many local shops,” White says. “The Tom Thumb grocery store seemed to hold the whole thing together. We would meet neighbors and the employees knew us by name, often purchasing gifts for the babies on special occasions. Tom Thumb later moved to 290 and Berkman, which seemed to spread the community away from the center.”

Reagan High School, located on the opposite side of U.S. 290, opened in 1964, lending the area a strong identity. Integrated because it included the African-American community from the St. John’s district to the north, the school won state football championships in 1967, 1968 and 1970. More recently, there have been multiple attempts to revive its fortunes, and it’s the subject of a recent book, “Saving the School,” by neighborhood resident Michael Brick.

Modern neighborhood activism can be traced to two controversies: the proposed closing of the Windsor Park Branch Library in 1983 and the referendum to close the airport in 1985. The library was replaced by a handsome building across from Windsor Village, guarded by a large sculpture of a lion. The airport closed in 1999.

Though small churches in prewar Austin neighborhoods have often been repurposed, Windsor Park has maintained its houses of worship. The schools — not just Reagan — are in transition. The Austin school district has proposed turning Pearce Middle School, for instance, into a single-gender academy.

One thing tends to unite area residents: Bartholomew Park. The large green space along a rugged stretch of Tannehill Creek has enjoyed improved playgrounds, picnic areas and ball fields, as well as a new splash area. Yet other parts, including an old swimming pool, are neglected. The city is encouraging a natural “grow zone” along the creek.

The neighborhood is 51 percent Hispanic. Resisting a suburbanizing trend, African-Americans have retained a major presence in the districts to the north and east of Windsor Park, which originally included anti-black deed restrictions.

“My experience of Windsor Park has always been diverse,” Ahart says. “My response may be different if I had purchased my house when it was built in 1954.”