Laguna Gloria

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Laguna Gloria
(U.S. National Register of Historic Places)

Location:	Austin, Texas, USA
Coordinates:	30°18′44″N, 97°46′27″W
Built/Founded:	1916
Added to NRHP:	December 6, 1975

Laguna Gloria is a 1916 Italianate-style villa on the shores of Lake Austin in Austin, Texas. It was the original home of the Austin Museum of Art and still houses some of its collections. Today it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Before the influx of white settlers, Native Americans visited the site for its nearby spring (today underwater). The land that includes the property was originally owned by Stephen F. Austin, who in 1832 (seven years before Austin was founded) wrote that he wished to build a home there. This never came to pass.

In 1914 the property was purchased by Hal Sevier, editor of the Austin American, with his new wife Clara Driscoll. They completed their villa two years later, inspired by a honeymoon visit to Lake Como in Italy. Clara, an avid gardener, spent many years planting native and foreign plants around the site and designing the terraced gardens that remain to this day. In 1943 Driscoll donated the homesite to be used as a city museum. Laguna Gloria was the sole site for the Austin Museum of Art until its downtown location opened in 1996.

[edit] Texas Historical Commission Marker Text

This Mediterranean style villa was built in 1916 for Henry H. and Clara Driscoll Sevier. Named Laguna Gloria for a nearby lagoon off the Colorado River, the stuccoed home features a decorative window at San Jose Mission in San Antonio. In 1943 the site was conveyed to the Texas Fine Arts Assoc. by Clara Driscoll, best known for her efforts to pereserve the Alamo. Her homesite is now owned by Laguna Gloria Art Museum. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983^[1]