Is It Too Late For Fake?

To the Editor:

At the recent town hall meeting hosted by Round Top’s very impressive mayor I learned of the plan to tear down the building we normally call the Town Hall (Precinct Courthouse.)

That building centers the town’s square with its wonderful trees and park-like environment.

She expressed relief that it was not protected by historic designation. She was uncertain as to whether it would be replaced with a replica or a completely new building designed to architectural and historic standards unrelated to our current town. A new building that, like the bathroom construction, would disregard the scale of the site, the context of its surroundings.

Here’s what would be destroyed by this plan:

• Round Top’s identity as established over the 100+ years during which that building has been a landmark, indeed the town symbol.

• The Square itself—already suffering from the appalling disregard of scale related to the new bathrooms. Consider the trees. Long established trees that will not survive so massive a construction project unscathed. Houstonians know well the look of live oaks dying slowly and excruciatingly from the construction of vanity homes nearby.

• The very core and substance of what draws people to Round Top in the first place. And that is authenticity. Despite all the changes that have taken place here, the sense of an authentic place remains, but it is dwindling.

A famous writer once said of Omaha that “There’s no there there.”

I believe we see the truth of that statement in our lives today every time we go into or out of a city. The increasing homogenization of suburbia more or less guarantees anonymity, sameness.

Well, “there’s a here, here” in Round Top. But if we start building fake buildings where our Landmarks stand, we’ll achieve that erasure. And when that happens, people— tourists—will have no reason to come. They’ll find somewhere else.

Round Top has the virtue of being a place that has endured influxes of new people in rising numbers since the 1960s. The changes—new bathrooms excepted—have been handled with sensitivity so that it remains a place where people want to come.

Responsible refurbishment of old buildings to new uses—what is called adaptive reuse—shows insight, care, and leadership. Just look around you at what has been done already. St. Cecilia’s, the Library, Henkel Square (some of it), Lulu’s, Popi Burger (Von Minden Store), Royer’s, Round Top Real Estate. We’re a vivid example of success at adaptive reuse. But we’re approaching a tipping point.

Isn’t it too late for fake?

Babette Hale Round Top