"This place has lived several intriguing lives, including Roaring Twenties party palace, and a Catholic school. But none has been more carefully textured and beautifully executed than its current one as Auberge Resorts Collection’s first city-based property. The drive in can feel as though you’ve entered a European retreat far from Central Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Design titan Ken Fulk spent two years sourcing antiques from Texas’ famous antiques town, Round Top, and then placed his findings with care and intention throughout the 10,800-square-foot 1928 mansion and adjacent terra-cotta-roofed Inn. Texas heritage style in the Inn gives a firm handshake to Italianate and Spanish Revival in cushy whiskey-brown armchairs and rounded archways that are poignantly set against black and rust star-and-cross tiles and vintage rugs. Moving through the peacock-shaped wrought iron door into the restored mansion, your eyes dart from the original swirling staircase to the iron light fixture illuminating Deborah Phillips’ hand-painted fresco. Restored terra-cotta tiles in curry, celadon, and apricot step you into an early 20th-century Texan estate as Pierre Frey fox-patterned wallpaper coyly salutes the critter that meanders Waller Creek on the 10-acre property. A cool breeze carries scents from the Estate’s fruit trees onto the terrace. It’s easy to forget the surging tech-opolis of downtown is just 10 minutes away." - Mandy Ellis, Allison Bagley
