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History of the Byrne-Reed House
Reed family and friends on the steps leading up to the main entrance of the Byrne-Reed House off Rio Grande. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Built more than a century ago, the Byrne-Reed House reflects a Texas vernacular style that combines popular architectural trends of the period: Mission-style terracotta roof tiles; Richardsonian-Romanesque arches, and Prairie-style porches. Its construction incorporated locally produced materials: Elgin brick, limestone from nearby quarries, ironwork fashioned in a downtown foundry, and native Texas pine.
The house's presence in an early Austin neighborhood and just blocks from the Texas Capitol links it and its residents to state and local history. Located at Rio Grande and what was North Street (now 15th), the Byrne-Reed House perched on the northernmost boundary of the original city plan. Edmund and Ellen Sneed Byrne purchased the property on October 10, 1905, from William Bohn, partner in Bohn Brothers Department Store on Congress Avenue and an entrepreneur who also bought and sold Austin real estate during this period. The deed lists the original address as 1404 Rio Grande and notes "improvements" on the property, likely referring to a small house on the back portion of the lot reflected in the 1900 Sanborn fire insurance map.
Photograph of Byrne family men around the live oak that is still growing on the south side of the Byrne-Reed House. Courtesy of Tom Reynolds.)
The Byrnes constructed a larger house on the lot in 1906 or 1907 and moved from Fairview Park, a community just south of the Colorado River, perhaps to be closer to the University of Texas where their children Grace and Thomas both attended school.
Edmund and Ellen Byrne were, according to an article in the daily paper announcing their 1889 wedding, well known and "universally beloved." Byrne, commented the Daily Statesman reporter who covered the affair, "is popular with everybody who knows him, for to know him is to love him." Ellen Sneed grew up in Austin, the granddaughter of the influential Judge Sebron Graham Sneed and met Byrne sometime after he moved from Galveston in the 1880s and established himself as a successful cotton buyer.
When Ellen Byrne died in 1915, Edmund sold the house and moved to Fort Worth to be close to his then-married daughter; his son Thomas founded a construction company in 1923 that has, for more than eighty years, helped build and restore major office centers and cultural institutions in cities across Texas.
Portrait of David Reed (third from left) with brothers and sisters. Courtesy of the Reed family.
The next family to occupy the house on Rio Grande, the Reeds, shared a strong connection to the Texas cotton industry. David Cleveland Reed started his business career in Austin as a cotton buyer and exporter with E. H. Perry & Company, the leading export firm in the city. He and his wife, Laura Moses, moved to Austin just a year before the sale of 1410 Rio Grande.
Portrait of David Reed. Photo courtesy of the Reed family.
Like his brother Malcolm, Dave became a prominent civic leader as well as a widely known and successful businessman in Austin, with interests ranging from cattle ranches and oil development to a partnership in the Driskill Hotel. He served on the Austin school board, on the first city council under the city manager form of government, and on the board of Texas Christian University.
David and his wife, Laura Moses, moved to Austin just a year before the sale of 1410 Rio Grande.
Laura Moses Reed. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Below, a photograph of the Byrne-Reed House shortly after the Reed family purchased the home in 1915. A sleeping porch along the southernmost side of the house was extended to encompass all of the terrace.
Photograph of the Byrne-Reed House shortly after the Reed family purchased the home in 1915. From the book Austin: The City of the Violet Crown.
Dave and Laura raised two children in the house at 1410 Rio Grande: Ruth Irene and Hiram Moses.
Photograph of Laura and Ruth Reed by the front entrance to the Byrne-Reed House. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Striped canvas awnings were added to shade the second story windows along the front of the building.
Photograph of the Byrne-Reed House in the 1927. From the Austin History Center, C01460.
Laura Reed, right, with friends in the sitting room that was later combined with the music room to create one large living room space. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Richard Dyke, left, Jack Wilder, Virginia Wilder, and Ruth Reed with unidentified friend on the south porch of the Byrne-Reed house circa 1930. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Ruth Reed in the garden on the south side of the Byrne-Reed House. Courtesy of the Reed family.
At some point during their ownership, the Reed's constructed a staircase up to the doorway on the south side of the house.
Unidentified woman on the stairs at the south entrance to the Byrne-Reed House. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Ruth Reed, right, and friend in the music room of the Byrne-Reed House. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Unidentified women in what is believed to have been the east second-floor bathroom. Courtesy of the Reed family.
n 1934, Ruth and Richard Burt Dyke held their wedding reception in the house at the corner of Rio Grande and 15th Street. A 1934 article in the American Statesman described: “The walled-in garden at the south of the home was thrown open as an annex to the house. The growing shrubbery with baskets of colorful garden flowers made an effective setting for the changing panorama of women in formal evening attire and men in white linen or neutral colors. . . . [t]he punch table was placed just in front of the stone fountain in the south wall of the garden .
Portrait of Ruth Reed on the staircase in the gallery of the Byrne-Reed House on her wedding day in 1934. Courtesy of the Reed family.
Laura Reed in the music room of the Byrne-Reed House. Courtesy of the Reed family.
When Dave Reed died tragically in a Virginia plane crash in 1948, Representative Lyndon B. Johnson wired the widow to express his shock and sorrow. “The nation never had a better citizen and I never had a better friend,” he wrote.
David Reed poses by his plane. Courtesy of the Reed family.
As the house changed hands again after Dave’s death and entered its next phase of use as offices, the floor plan changed to accommodate the new tenants. In 1952, the the insurance company that occupied the building made dramatic changes including enclosing the porches and constructing a two story reinforced concrete vault on the southeast corner on the house.
Photograph of the Byrne-Reed House after the company that purchased the home made significant renovations in 1952.
In December 2006, Humanities Texas purchased the Byrne-Reed House. We are undertaking an extensive renovation of the building to bring this Austin landmark to light.