Providence’s Drought House — reconnecting the past with the future

Above: Lloyd Walker Jary, restoration architect for the Drought House at Providence Catholic School, looks over a copy of the original Coughlin & Ayres floor plans. Below: A 2001 rendering of what the restored house will look like Photos provided

This is the fourth in a continuing series on the historic Drought House, currently undergoing restoration/renovation on the campus of Providence Catholic School. Earlier installments can be found here: Part 1  Part 2 Part 3

BY CAROL BAASS SOWA
TODAY’S CATHOLIC

SAN ANTONIO • The grand old Drought House on the grounds of Providence Catholic School is preparing to shake off the dust from over a decade of standing silent. Built in 1901 on land where the old Molino Blanco grist mill once stood and where Ben Milam gathered followers for the storming of San Antonio in 1835, the three-story mansion along the San Antonio River on North St. Mary’s saw many eventful years as the family home of Henry P. and Ethel Tunstall Drought.

During those four decades, it served as a center for the civic and cultural life of San Antonio, presided over by its gracious hostess who reared four sons within its stately walls. Following Ethel’s death in 1943, the house stood empty for seven years, awaiting its new incarnation as a convent for the Congregation of Divine Providence (CDP), who purchased the property in 1950 to build Providence High School.

For nearly 50 years it saw use as a residence for sisters teaching at Providence, but time began to take its toll on the proud old home. Finally, with only a handful of sisters left at the school and repairs and maintenance costing more than the congregation could justify, it was shuttered again in 1995 until Providence’s current “Building On Providence” capital campaign swung into action, preparing the Drought House for a new life that will link its significant past with its 21st century future.

Providentially, being declared a significant local landmark in 1987 under an historic districts and landmarks zoning ordinance saved the old structure from possible demolition earlier on.

In 2005, the CDPs expanded enrollment at Providence to include a middle school, in addition to their college preparatory high school for young women — an undertaking so successful that classes were soon full, with a waiting list to get in. With space at a premium, the school moved forward with its earlier expansion plans for campus development, recognizing the Drought House as the jewel at its center.

Architect Lloyd Walker Jary, known for his expertise as a historical architectural consultant, was brought in as preservation architect for the restoration and renovation of the Drought House in 1998 by the Austin firm originally hired to plan a proposed fine arts center for the school, a project which had to be shelved. Jary, however, remained involved at Providence, eventually overseeing the renovation of the chaplain’s former house on campus into the James and Estela Avery Art Studio, dedicated in 2006, before taking on the Drought House.

Unable to locate the original plans for the house through any of the usual sources, Jary asked knowledgeable acquaintances to keep an eye out and struck pay dirt when local historian Maria Watson Pfeiffer learned a set of the C.A. Coughlin and Atlee B. Ayres plans for the house were being given to the University of Texas at San Antonio. Old photos of the house from the Institute of Texan Cultures library were also of great help in determining what the home had looked like in its prime.

Since then, much activity has taken place within the 107-year-old colonial-style mansion, with its many ornate fireplaces and other architectural details from a bygone era, all in excellent condition thanks to the sisters’ care over the years, including the original wood flooring and the four, 12-foot pocket doors.

The minor modifications the sisters had made to the more than 8,000-square-foot house over the years are being removed to restore it, as much as possible, to the time of the Droughts, particularly on the first floor.
Walls added to create the sisters' small music studios in the front parlors have been removed, as were those constructed to enclose the upper and lower porches for additional convent living space. The porte cochere and porches have been rebuilt, the latter to meet modern code compliance.

The Cavallini Company is replacing the leaded glass in the dining room’s bay window, which was removed when the south porch was walled in. Aluminum windows installed on the first floor are being replaced with more historically appropriate ones, to match the original upstairs double-hung wood windows.

Some bathrooms that were added are being removed, while a new downstairs restroom will be created and another expanded to accommodate the home’s use as a public facility. An outside ramp for handicapped accessibility has been added and an elevator will be installed near the location of the old dumb waiter.

Jary’s wife, Cisi Jary of Restoration Associates, is matching exterior and interior paint samples to replicate the home’s original colors. Rather than its present off-white upper story shingles, or the blue in the early rendering seen below, her scientific sleuthing determined they had originally been of a reddish brown hue, which will be replicated.

"We're lucky," said Jary of the house, “that the sisters bought it when they did and preserved it with the minor modifications that they made, because we’re able to take it now and restore it and add to the many unique pieces of architecture in the city of San Antonio, reflecting the history and importance that San Antonio had to this part of the country.”

When the exterior renovations are completed, work will begin on the interior of the home, including electrical, plumbing, heat and air components. “Our aim is to keep it historically accurate, but bring up the infrastructure to 21st century,” said Providence President Anne Bristol.

She notes the downstairs, with its parlors and reception area, will be available for special events, both for the school and to rent out. The dining room will double as a conference room, and the Droughts’ living room (once the sisters’ chapel) is slated for office use. In the back, the kitchen, with its outside access, will easily convert to a catering kitchen.

The second floor is slated to become the new Providence library, freeing what is presently the library in the school building for much-needed classroom space. What was once Henry Drought’s bedroom and study will accommodate library stacks, while Ethel Drought’s room, with the wall to an adjoining room removed, will be transformed into a digital learning and resource center with reading corners in front of its two fireplaces. The attic will be converted into offices, returning that part of the school to its original use as classrooms.

Currently, the school is in the middle of a 3.6 million dollar, multi-phase capital campaign which includes work on the Drought house, as well as improvements to the school. Chairing this is Estela Avery, a Providence alumna. “I’ve walked into several Atlee B. Ayres homes,” Avery notes, “and none of them have been in the great shape that this one is in.”

Phase 1 of the campaign saw the renovation of the former chaplain’s living quarters into the art studio, freeing more space for classrooms in the school and making possible the new middle school. Phase 2 is focusing on the Drought House, while Phase 3 will encompass school renovations and Phase 4 will involve beautification of the grounds, including a heritage garden.

Donations towards the house’s restoration/renovation have been made by descendents of both the Drought and Ayres families, and a grant has been provided by the San Antonio Conservation Society (of which Ethel Drought was a founder), linking the past with the present in a unique way.

“It will be the campus center in everything and everything will revolve around that,” adds Development Director Ellen Lueck, describing the future of the Drought House. The campus itself is at the center of the planned River North District — a 25-block, mixed-use development project to revamp the River Walk north of downtown.

“It will be a landmark for River North’s neighborhood,” said Bristol of the Drought House, “partially because of its history, partially because of how beautiful it’s going to be when it’s finished and then, finally, because of how we are going to use it and open the first floor to public use, to share it with the community, so the house will, at least in part, be reconnected with the city.”

She adds, “It was such an integral part of the history of the city, it is appropriate that it would be reconnected.”