Courthouse at a Crossroads

The Town of Round Top plans to undertake some big renovations on the town square, and some folks aren’t too happy about them.

Round Top Mayor Judith Vincent held a town hall meeting on Jan. 25 to discuss the plans. One of the options on the table involves tearing down and rebuilding the 100-yearold precinct courthouse.

“Rumors always spread very rampantly,” Vincent said in an interview with the Record last Friday. “I think some people decided to re-interpret or restate something I said.”

“We are undergoing a restoration of our town square,” she said. “Phase 1 included the bathrooms. We took down the bathrooms that were there and rebuilt new bathrooms. That project was completed last year. We’re going to embark on Phase 2. We’ll address the rest of the grounds and the Courthouse, or a.k.a. Town Hall. It was built in the 1920s. It’s a very special little structure, but unfortunately, it hasn’t been taken care of in 100 years.”

Vincent said the structure is not listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

“When people put new doors and windows and things in the past, they didn’t put in what they should have put in to maintain and preserve the building,” she said. “But that’s behind us. Those were decisions taken by others, and that’s fine. But now we are faced with a building in very bad shape.”

Vincent said the building suffers from structural issues including rotten windows. The City is in the process of engaging an architect and engineers to study the building.

“It may involve anything from popping out windows and doors to, depending on what the structural analysis is and engineers and architects decide, what council would decide, and also based on public input,” she said. “It could be anything from leaving it as it is and changing out the vinyl windows and doors, to raising the structure and putting utilities underneath, or really rebuilding the thing and anything in between.”

Vincent said the town wants to complete the renovations before the nation’s Semiquincentennial Anniversary on July 4, 2026.

“I’m on record saying that we need to preserve it,” Vincent said. “But I’ve also told the people, you need to be prepared.”

She said the balloon-frame structure would no longer pass building and fire codes.

“My personal opinion is that the building needs to honor exactly what’s there and look exactly the same,” she said. “If it has to be rebuilt in a very substantial way, it needs to look like it does. But it also needs to have ADA access. Personally, I don’t think people who are disabled need to go through a back door.”

If the courthouse has to be rebuilt, Vincent said the town would reuse the old lumber from the existing building.

Mark Neeley, who lives just outside the city limits, said he was shocked when he heard the town council might consider tearing down the old courthouse.

“When I heard about this, I was appalled,” Neeley said.

Neeley’s former business worked on many building restorations, including some that were part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Neeley believes the courthouse can be repaired and restored without tearing it down.

“Round Top is a jewel,” Neeley said. “It’s a jewel not just for the Round Top area, but for Fayette County and all of Texas – you could even argue nationally.

“We don’t need it to be the Aspen of Texas,” Neeley said, referring to a 2016 Texas Monthly article that compared the tiny hamlet to the famous Rocky Mountain ski resort.

Neeley said demolishing the courthouse should have never been an option up for consideration.

“This is a piece of Round Top history,” he said. “This building is not dilapidated. The history of this area is slipping away foot by foot and mile by mile.”

Jean Howze lived in Round Top for more than 20 years before selling her house and moving to La Grange in 2021.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” Howze said. “It’s not the same thing to rebuild an old building. It’s not the old building. It’s not the same materials. There were better materials when it was built 100 years ago.

“It’s fake old stuff – that’s Round Top now,” she added. “It’s fake everything. In the last 10 years it’s been going in that direction. It was like living in a retail mall. It’s not a quaint old town anymore.”

Dwayne Oltmann grew up in the Round Top area and now lives north of town. Oltmann said he didn’t know about the town’s square renovation until he heard the rumors about the courthouse demolition.

“If there’s an issue with water leakage or rot or fire hazard because of old wiring, then I think it’s more suitable to have it repaired than start all over,” Oltmann said.

Oltmann said he’d like the town council to conduct a survey of area residents.

Mayor Vincent stressed that demolishing and rebuilding the Courthouse is just one possible option. She added that the public will have plenty of opportunity to provide input to the town council. The town council meets on the second Thursday of each month at 4 p.m. They were set to hold a special meeting on Thursday, Feb. 6, to consider a $100,000 transfer from the town’s economic development corporation to cover construction costs of the new restrooms on the town square, which is part of the town square renovation project.